Free Speech Debates Continue Across America
SGA to sponsor Speak Up event
By Victoria Hansen and Pulse Staff
hansenv@findlay.edu
“Free speech” is the phrase of the day in national, state and local discourse this week as Jimmy Kimmel returns to ABC, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine discusses the topic at the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Trustees Conference, and the University of Findlay’s Student Government Association prepares to help students speak out.
On UF’s campus, SGA is sponsoring a Speak Up event in the CBSL on Oct. 1 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is to encourage students to write letters to their local political leaders about a topic they are passionate about to exercise their free speech.
Free speech is one of the five protections in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The country responded last week when it appeared the government was interfering in the free speech of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel after a claim he made a controversial and untrue statement in his Sept. 10 monologue.
Early in that monologue he said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr took issue with the statement while appearing The Benny Show, a podcast hosted by Benny Johnson, claiming he thought Kimmel was saying the shooter was a MAGA supporter. The controversy came when Carr implied the Federal Communication Commission, a governmental body, could potentially be used to silence Kimmel.
Carr said, “They (ABC) have a license granted by us at the FCC and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest…But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly on Kimmel, or you know there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Shortly after that statement ABC suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely.
A major owner of many ABC affiliated stations is a media company called Nexstar. It is in the process of buying another major media company called Tegna. To do so, it needs the approval of the FCC. Kimmel defenders say Carr’s statement amounts to trying to silence a critic of the current administration by leveraging approval for the $6.2 billion business deal.
The suspension of the show led to protests breaking out around ABC headquarters, claiming that Kimmel’s First Amendment right to free speech was infringed.
Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan, associate professor of history at UF, is not as sure it’s as clear cut as it may seem.
“The First Amendment only protects people from government action that violates free speech. It doesn’t apply to Netflix, or Disney, or ABC, or any of the others,” Buchanan said. “You have to be able to find some government action that violates the First Amendment.”
She points out that Kimmel made claims about the suspect’s motives, which were then unknown, and Kimmel indicated the killer was in custody, when legally, the person in custody for the murder has not yet been convicted, so he’s not yet, legally, the murderer. This could be viewed as misleading by the FCC.
“I’m saying that the issue is not as clear as some people would try to make it,” Buchanan said. It’s actually much more complicated than that.” .
In Ohio, Gov. DeWine spoke at the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Trustees Conference Sept. 18 about important topics on college campuses, including free speech. He said that colleges have the obligation to foster free speech on their campuses and that colleges need to create a “place of ideas.”
“If you want good students and you want good faculty, then you have to encourage academic freedom and free speech,” Buchanan said.
DeWine’s speech to the ODHE did not address Ohio’s Senate Bill 1, which bans state universities from having diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and limits the discussion of “controversial topics” such as climate change, abortion, and marriage in the classroom.
As UF students get a chance to Speak Up in the upcoming event, Buchanan said everybody needs to“Watching what’s happening in politics, on whatever side is important to develop an informed opinion on what’s in the best interest of the country from your viewpoint and exercising your rights appropriately,” Buchanan said.
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