short note on freedom of speech

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freedom of speech

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• Business LibreTexts - Freedom of Speech
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Freedom of Speech
• University of Washington Pressbooks - Media and Society: Critical Approaches - Censorship and Freedom of Speech
• Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University - Freedom of Speech
• Cornell Law Scholl - Legal Information Institute - Freedom of Speech: Historical Background

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freedom of speech , right, as stated in the 1st and 14th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States , to express information, ideas, and opinions free of government restrictions based on content. A modern legal test of the legitimacy of proposed restrictions on freedom of speech was stated in the opinion by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Schenk v. U.S. (1919): a restriction is legitimate only if the speech in question poses a “clear and present danger”—i.e., a risk or threat to safety or to other public interests that is serious and imminent . Many cases involving freedom of speech and of the press also have concerned defamation , obscenity , and prior restraint ( see Pentagon Papers ). See also censorship .

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• Essay on Freedom of Speech in English Free PDF download

Download Important English Essay on the Topic - Freedom of Speech Free PDF from Vedantu

One of the fundamental rights of the citizens of India is ‘Freedom of Speech’. This is allowed to the citizens by a lot of countries to empower the citizens to share their own thoughts and views. This freedom of speech essay is for students of class 5 and above. The language used in this essay is plain and simple for a better understanding of the students. This freedom of speech essay example will help the students write a paragraph on freedom of speech in their own words easily.

Long Essay on Freedom of Speech

The phrase “Freedom of Speech” has been misinterpreted by some individuals who either do not actually understand the meaning of the phrase completely or have a totally different agenda in mind altogether. Every democratic country gives its citizens this freedom. The same is guaranteed by the Constitution of India too. Irrespective of your gender, religion, caste, or creed, you are guaranteed that freedom as an Indian. The values of democracy in a country are defined by this guaranteed fundamental freedom. The freedom to practice any religion, the freedom to express opinions and disagreeing viewpoints without hurting the sentiments or causing violence is what India is essentially made up of.

Indians stand out for their secularism and for spreading democratic values across the world. Thus, to save and celebrate democracy, enforcing freedom of speech in India becomes a necessity. Freedom of speech is not only about the fundamental rights, it’s also a fundamental duty to be done by every citizen rightfully so as to save the essence of democracy.

In developed democracies like the US, UK, Germany or France, we see a “freedom of speech” that is different from what we see in authoritarian countries like China, Malaysia or Syria and failed democratic countries like Pakistan or Rwanda. These governance systems failed because they lacked freedom of speech. Freedom of press gives us a yardstick to gauge the freedom of speech in a country. A healthy, liberal and strong democracy is reflected by a strong media presence in a country, since they are supposed to be the voice of the common people. A democracy that has a stomach for criticisms and disagreements is taken in a positive way. 

Some governments get very hostile when faced with any form of criticism and so they try to oppress any voices that might stand against them. This becomes a dangerous model of governance for any country. For example, India has more than hundred and thirty crores of population now and we can be sure that every individual will not have the same thought process and same views and opinions about one thing. A true democracy is made by the difference of opinions and the respect people have for each other in the team that is responsible for making the policies.

Before making a choice, all aspects and angles of the topic should be taken into consideration. A good democracy will involve all the people - supporters and critics alike, before formulating a policy, but a bad one will sideline its critics, and force authoritarian and unilateral policies upon all of the citizens.

Sedition law, a British-era law, was a weapon that was used in India to stifle criticism and curb freedom of speech during the pre-independence era. Through section 124A of Indian Penal Code, the law states that if a person with his words, written or spoken, brings hatred, contempt or excites tension towards a government or an individual can be fined or jailed or fined and jailed both. This law was used by the Britishers to stifle the freedom fighters. Today it is being used by the political parties to silence criticism and as a result is harming the democratic values of the nation. 

Many laws in India also protect the people in rightfully exercising their freedom of expression but the implementation of these laws is proving to be a challenge. Freedom of speech cannot be absolute. In the name of freedom of speech, hatred, tensions, bigotry and violence too cannot be caused in the society. It will then become ironically wrong to allow freedom of speech in the first place. Freedom of speech and expression should not become the reason for chaos and anarchy in a nation. Freedom of speech was stifled when article 370 got revoked in Kashmir. Not that the government was trying to go against the democratic values, but they had to prevent the spread of fake news, terrorism or any type of communal tensions in those areas.

Short Essay on Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech allows the people of our country to express themselves, and share their ideas, views and opinions openly. As a result, the public and the media can comment on any political activity and also express their dissent towards anything they think is not appropriate.

Various other countries too provide freedom of speech to their citizens but they have certain limitations. Different countries have different restrictions on their freedom of speech. Some countries also do not allow this fundamental right at all and the best example being North Korea. There, the media or the public are not allowed to speak against the government. It becomes a punishable offence to criticize the government or the ministers or the political parties.

Key Highlights of the Essay - Freedom of Speech

Every democratic country gives its citizens the Freedom of Speech so as to enable the citizens to freely express their individual views, ideas and concerns. The freedom to be able to practice any religion, to be able to express individual secularism and for spreading democratic values across the world. In order to be able to save and to celebrate democracy, enforcing freedom of speech in India Is essential. Freedom of speech  about fundamental rights is also a fundamental duty of citizens in order to save the essence of democracy.  In a country, a healthy, liberal and strong democracy is always  reflected and can be seen through a strong media presence, as the media are the voice of the common people.  When faced with any form of criticism, we see some governments get very hostile,  and they  try to oppress  and stop any kind of  voices that might go against them. This is not favorable for any country. 

A good democracy involves all the people - all their various  supporters and critics alike, before they begin formulating any policies. India had the Sedition law, a British-era law that is used to stifle criticism and curb freedom of speech during the pre-independence era. The section 124A of Indian Penal Code, this law of sedition stated that if a person with his words, written or spoken, brings hatred, contempt or excites tension towards a government or an individual, then he can be fined or jailed or both. Using  freedom of speech, people spread hatred, unnecessary tensions, bigotry and some amount of violence too in the society. Ironically  in such cases, it will be wrong to allow freedom of speech. The reasons for chaos and anarchy in a nation should not be due to  Freedom of speech and expression. This law was stifled when article 370 got revoked in Kashmir, in order to prevent the spread of fake news, terrorism or any type of communal tensions in those areas.

Freedom of speech gives people of our country, the freedom to express themselves, to be able to share their ideas, views and opinions openly, where the public and the media can express and comment on any political activities and can also be able to express their dissent towards anything they think is not appropriate. Different countries have different restrictions on their freedom of speech. And it is not proper to comment on that .In Fact, there are some countries which does not allow this fundamental right , for example, North Korea where neither the media nor the public have any right to speak against or even for the government and it is a punishable offense to openly criticize the government or the or anyone in particular.

While freedom of speech lets the society grow it could have certain negative outcomes. It should not be used to disrespect or instigate others. The media too should not misuse it. We, the people of this nation, should act responsibly towards utilizing its freedom of speech and expression. Lucky we are to be citizens of India. It’s a nation that respects all its citizens and gives them the rights needed for their development and growth.

A fundamental right of every citizen of India, the  ‘Freedom of Speech’ allows citizens to share their individual thoughts and views.

FAQs on Essay on Freedom of Speech in English Free PDF download

1. Mention five lines for Freedom of Speech Essay?

i) A fundamental right that is guaranteed to citizens of a country to be able to express their opinions and points of view without any kind of censorship.

ii) A democracy’s health depends on the extent of freedom of expression of all its citizens.

iii) Freedom of speech is never absolute in nature.

iv) New Zealand, USA or UK rank  high in terms of freedom of speech by its citizens.

v) A fundamental right in the Indian constitution is the Freedom of Speech and Expression.

2. Explain Freedom of Speech?

A fundamental right of every citizen of India, Freedom Of Speech allows every citizen the freedom and the right to express all their views, concerns, ideas and issues relating to anything about their country. Freedom of Speech is never actual in nature  and has its limits too. It cannot be used for any kind of illegal purposes.The health of a democracy depends on the extent of freedom of expression of its citizens.

3. What happens when there is no Freedom of Speech?

A country will become a police and military state with no democratic and humanitarian values in it if there is no freedom of speech. Freedom of Speech is a fundamental right for all citizens, and a failure to not being able to express one’s ideas, beliefs, and thoughts will result in a non authoritarian and non democratic country.  Failure to have freedom of speech in a country would mean that the rulers or the governments of those countries have no respect for its citizens.

4. Where can we get study material related to essay writing ?

It is important to practice some of the important questions in order to do well. Vedantu.com offers these important questions along with answers that have been formulated in a well structured, well researched, and easy to understand manner. Various essay writing topics, letter writing samples, comprehension passages are all available at the online portals today. Practicing and studying with the help of these enable the students to measure their level of proficiency, and also allows them to understand the difficult questions with ease. 

You can avail all the well-researched and good quality chapters, sample papers, syllabus on various topics from the website of Vedantu and its mobile application available on the play store. 

5. Why should students choose Vedantu for an essay on the topic 'Freedom of Speech’?

Essay writing is important for students   as it helps them increase their brain and vocabulary power. Today it is important to be able to practice some important topics, samples and questions to be able to score well in the exams. Vedantu.com offers these important questions along with answers that have been formulated in a well structured, well researched, and easy to understand manner. The NCERT and other study material along with their explanations are very easily accessible from Vedantu.com and can be downloaded too. Practicing with the help of these questions along with the solutions enables the students to measure their level of proficiency, and also allows them to understand the difficult questions with ease. 

6. What is Freedom of Speech?

Freedom of speech is the ability to express our opinions without any fear.

7. Which country allows the highest level of Freedom of Speech to its citizens?

The USA is at the highest with a score of 5.73.

8. Is Freedom of Speech absolute?

No, freedom of speech cannot be absolute. It has limitations.

freedom of speech

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Freedom of speech is the right to speak, write, and share ideas and opinions without facing punishment from the government. The First Amendment protects this right by prohibiting Congress from making laws that would curtail freedom of speech.

Even though freedom of speech is protected from infringement by the government, the government is still free to restrict speech in certain circumstances. Some of these circumstances include:

• Obscenity and Indecency – In Alliance for Community Media v. FCC , the Supreme Court found that obscenity and child pornography have no right to protection from the First Amendment, and as such, the government has the ability to ban this media altogether. But when it comes to indecency, which is generally defined by the courts as something describing or depicting offensive sexual activity, the Supreme Court has found this speech protected. But the government can regulate this speech on radio and television, so long as it’s for a compelling reason and is done in the least restrictive manner. 
• Defamation – Private and public figures are able to sue someone for statements they have made. Public figures must prove that the person made the statement with malice , which means knowing the statement was false or having a reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement. (See  New York Times v. Sullivan ) . Private figures must prove the person failed to act with reasonable care when they made the statement. 
• Incitement – If a person has the intention of inciting the violations of laws that is imminent and likely, while directing this incitement at a person or groups of persons, their speech will not be protected under the First Amendment. This test was created by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio . 
• Fighting words  

While the public has a right to freedom of speech when it comes to the U.S. government, the public does not have this right when it comes to private entities. Companies and private employers are able to regulate speech on their platforms and within their workplace since the First Amendment only applies to the government. This right allowed Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to ban President Donald Trump from their sites in 2021 without legal repercussion. Companies like Facebook and YouTube were also able to ban misleading information on Covid-19 during the 2020 pandemic.

The Supreme Court recently affirmed that private entities are not restricted by the First Amendment in the case Manhattan Community Access Corporation v. Halleck . Manhattan Neighborhood Network is a nonprofit that was given the authority by New York City to operate public access channels in Manhattan. The organization decided to suspend two of their employees after they received complaints about a film the employees produced. The employees argued that this was a violation of their First Amendment freedom of speech rights because they were being punished due to the content of their film. The Supreme Court held that Manhattan Neighborhood Network was not a government entity or a state actor , so the nonprofit couldn’t be subjected to the First Amendment.

In another case, Nyabwa v. Facebook , the Southern District of Texas also affirmed that private entities are not subject to the First Amendment. There, the plaintiff had a Facebook account, which spoke on President Donald Trump’s business conflicts of interest. Facebook decided to lock the account, so the plaintiff was no longer able to access it. The plaintiff decided to sue Facebook because he believed the company was violating his First Amendment rights. The court dismissed the lawsuit stating that the First Amendment prevents Congress and other government entities from restricting freedom of speech, not private entities. 

[Last updated in June of 2021 by the Wex Definitions Team ] 

Chapter 6: The Right to Freedom of Speech

The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man; and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.

Free speech is our most fundamental—and our most contested—right. It is an essential freedom because it is how we protect all of our other rights and liberties. If we could not speak openly about the policies and actions of government, then we would have no effective way to participate in the democratic process or protest when we believed governmental behavior threatened our security or our freedom. Although Americans agree that free speech is central to democratic government, we disagree sharply about what we mean by speech and about where the right begins and ends. Speech clearly includes words, but does it also include conduct or symbols? Certainly, we have the right to criticize the government, but can we also advocate its overthrow? Does the right to free speech allow us to incite hate or use foul language in public?

The framers of the Bill of Rights understood the importance of free expression and protected it under the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Both English history and their own colonial past had taught them to value this right, but their definition of free speech was much more limited than ours. Less than a decade after the amendment’s ratification, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, making it a crime to criticize the government. Many citizens believed government could forbid speech that threatened public order, as witnessed by numerous early nineteenth-century laws restricting speech against slavery. During the Civil War, thousands of antiwar protestors were arrested on the theory that the First Amendment did not protect disloyal speech. Labor unrest in the 1800s and 1890s brought similar restraints on the right of politically unpopular groups, such as socialists, to criticize government’s failure to protect working people from the ills of industrialization and economic depression.

Freedom of speech did not become a subject of important court cases until the twentieth century when the Supreme Court announced one of the most famous principles in constitutional law, the clear and present danger test. The test was straightforward: government could not restrict speech unless it posed a known, immediate threat to public safety. The standard sought to balance the need for order with the right to speak freely. At its heart was the question of proximity, or closeness, and degree. If speech brought about an action that was dangerous under the immediate circumstances, such as falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, then it did not enjoy First Amendment protection. With this case, Schenck v. United States (1919), the Court began a decades-long process of seeking the right balance between free speech and public safety.

The balance, at first, was almost always on the side of order and security. Another case decided in 1919, Debs v. United States , illustrates how restrictive the test could be. Eugene Debs was a labor leader from Indiana who had run for President four times as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America, once polling more than one million votes. At a June 1918 rally in Chicago, while U.S. troops were fighting in World War I, he told the working-class crowd, “You need to know you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.”

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

He was sentenced under an existing federal statute to twenty years in prison for inciting disloyalty and obstruction of military recruitment, which the Supreme Court upheld.

For the next five decades, the Court wrestled with the right balance between speech and order. Much of what defined freedom of speech emerged from challenges to the government’s ability to regulate or punish political protest. Each case brought a new set of circumstances that allowed the justices an opportunity to modify or extend the clear and present danger test. Many decisions recognized the abstract right of individuals to speak freely, but each one hedged this right in important ways. Always in the background were conditions that pointed to disorder, dissension, and danger—the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, among them—so the justices were cautious in expanding a right that would expose America to greater threats. These cases, however, gradually introduced a new perspective on the value of free speech in a democracy, namely, the belief that truth is best reached by the free trade in ideas.

The belief that society is best served by a marketplace of ideas open to all opinions, no matter how radical, ultimately prevailed. In 1927, the Court had endorsed what came to be called the bad tendency test: if officials believed speech was likely to lead to a bad result, such as urging people to commit a violent act, it was not protected under the First Amendment even if no violence occurred. By 1969, however, similar facts produced a different outcome. Ku Klux Klan members in Ohio invited a television station to film their rally. Waving firearms, they shouted racist and anti-Semitic slurs and threatened to march on Congress before their leader was arrested and later convicted under a state law banning speech that had a tendency to incite violence. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in Brandenburg v. Ohio and established the rule still in effect today: the First Amendment protects the right to advocate the use of force or violence, but it does not safeguard speech likely to incite or produce an immediate unlawful act. The Brandenburg test has allowed Nazis to march, Klan members to hold rallies, and other extremist groups to promote views far outside the mainstream of public opinion. With few exceptions—fighting words and obscenity, for example—government today cannot regulate the content of speech.

Even as society was coming to accept a wide range of political ideas, opposition to an unpopular war raised other questions about the limits and forms of free speech. By the mid- to late 1960s, the Vietnam War divided Americans. Although many citizens supported the use of U.S. troops to stop communism in Asia, a growing minority, including many draft-age young people, took to the streets to oppose the war. The protestors did not limit their efforts to antiwar speeches; they also wore shirts with obscene slogans, burned draft cards, and desecrated American flags. Using these symbols to protest, they argued, was a form of free speech. Soon, the Supreme Court faced the question squarely in a case involving a youthful protestor from the nation’s heartland: is symbolic speech—messages using symbols or signs, not words—protected by the First Amendment?

The first large-scale American demonstration against the Vietnam War occurred in November 1965 when more than 25,000 protestors converged on the nation’s capital. Fifty Iowans made the long bus ride, and on the way home they decided to make their opposition known locally by wearing black armbands to work and school. One member of the peace contingent was Lorena Tinker, the wife of a Des Moines Methodist minister and mother of five children. Mary Beth Tinker, a thirteen-year-old eighth grader, followed her mother’s suggestion and became one of a handful of local public school students who wore this symbol of protest to school. This act placed her in the middle of a national controversy about student rights and freedom of expression.

In many ways, Mary Beth was a normal eighth grader. She was a good student who enjoyed singing, spending time with her friends, and taking part in church activities. What made her different was a commitment to social justice, a passion encouraged by her parents, both of whom were known for their activism. Her parents wanted their children to share their moral and social values, and Mary Beth responded eagerly to their invitation to participate with them. By the time she became a teenager, she already had attended her first protest, accompanying her father to a rally about fair housing.

Mary Beth Tinker, her brother, John, and a handful of Des Moines students planned their demonstration for December 16, 1965. The students’ aim was not to protest the war but to mourn its casualties, Vietnamese and American, and to show support for proposed peace talks. School officials, however, promised to suspend anyone who came to school wearing the armbands, and the school principal suspended Mary Beth and sent her home. She was one of five students suspended that day for wearing the offending cloth. Significantly, the school ban applied only to armbands, in other words, to students who opposed the Vietnam War; a number of students that day wore an array of other symbols, including the Iron Cross, a Nazi medal.

When the school board upheld the suspensions, the Tinkers persuaded the Iowa Civil Liberties Union to take the case to federal court. Two lower federal courts agreed with the school’s action, rebuffing the argument that the policy violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The Supreme Court decided otherwise. In its 7-to-2 decision, announced in February 1969, the justices held that the wearing of armbands is a symbolic act akin to “pure speech” and protected by the right to free expression. The protesting students posed no threat to the order required for effective instruction, nor did the wearing of armbands interfere with the school’s educational mission. In this instance, the balance between order and liberty was weighted on the side of the First Amendment. Students and teachers, the Court concluded, do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Symbolic speech has been the focus of some of our greatest constitutional drama. Words may be powerful and provocative, but symbols are often more inflammatory because they are visual and evoke an emotional response. We live in an age when we use pictures and symbols to convey important messages, whether in politics or the marketplace. For these reasons, the Supreme Court’s recognition of symbolic speech as a right protected by the First Amendment has been a significant development. Twenty-five years after Mary Beth Tinker put on her armband in remembrance of the war dead, Life magazine featured a handful of civil liberties cases to celebrate the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights. Mary Beth’s case was included, even though the rights of students remained, and still are, more limited than those of adult citizens. But her actions as an eighth grader expanded our conception of constitutionally protected speech to include the symbols we use to express our convictions.

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

More than most other recent decisions, cases involving symbolic speech have revealed how contentious the right of free speech remains in our society. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected individuals who burned the American flag in protest. This decision was highly controversial, and it has resulted in numerous attempts to amend the Constitution to protect the flag and, in effect, limit speech in this circumstance. The outcome of this effort is uncertain, but the debate raises important questions: What role does this right play in our democracy? How does it contribute to our liberty as Americans?

The right to speak freely, without restraint, is essential to democratic government because it helps us develop better laws and policies through challenge, rebuttal, and debate. When we all have the ability to speak in the public forum, offensive opinions can be combated with an opposing argument, a more inclusive approach, a more effective idea. We tolerate offensive speech and protect the right to speak even for people who would deny it to us because we believe that exposing their thoughts and opinions to open debate will result in the discovery of truth. This principle is an old one in Western thought. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in Abrams v. United States , a 1919 case suppressing free speech, is a classic statement of this view: “The best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which [the public’s] wishes safely can be carried out.”

Governmental actions to deny differing points of view, even distasteful or unpopular opinions, rob us of the range of ideas that might serve the interests of society more effectively. In a case decided almost a decade before Tinker v. Des Moines , the Supreme Court found this rationale especially applicable to the classroom. “The Nation’s future,” the justices wrote, “depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues.” As a nation, we are willing to live with the often bitter conflict over ideas because we believe it will lead to truth and to improved lives for all citizens. We recognize that freedom of speech is the first freedom of democracy, as the English poet John Milton argued during his own seventeenth-century struggle to gain this right: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” The ability to speak freely allows us to pursue truth, to challenge falsehoods, to correct mistakes—all are necessary for a healthy society.

Free speech also reflects a commitment to individual freedom and autonomy, the right to decide for ourselves and to pursue our own destiny. Throughout our history, we have been so committed to individual choice that many foreign observers believe it is our most characteristic trait. We see it reflected daily in everything from advertising slogans—“Have It Your Way”— to fashion statements, but fail to recognize how closely freedom is tied to the right to speak freely. Free speech guarantees us an individual voice, no matter how far removed our opinions and beliefs are from mainstream society. With this voice we are free to contribute as individuals to the marketplace of ideas or a marketplace of goods, as well as to decide how and under what circumstances we will join with others to decide social and governmental policies.

A commitment to free speech, of course, will not resolve all conflict, not if our history is any guide. The debate is most contentious during times of war or other moments when national security is at stake. Even then—perhaps especially then—we will continue to fight over words and symbols because they express our deepest hopes and our most worrisome fears. This contest over what speech is acceptable and what is not has been a constant theme of our past. Rarely do these struggles produce a neat consensus. More often, intemperate rhetoric and bitter division have been their legacy, and this angry clamor is one of the basic noises of our history. What makes the struggle to protect free speech worthwhile is its ability to serve as a lever for change. When we practice our right to speak openly, we are defining the contours of our democracy. It is messy work, but through it, we keep the Constitution alive and, with it, our dreams of a just society.

“Free Trade in Ideas”

Jacob Abrams was a Russian immigrant and anarchist convicted of violating the Sedition Act of 1918, which made it a crime to advocate anything that would impede the war effort during World War I. In 1917 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., had written the Court’s opinion in Schenck v. United States , upholding similar convictions because Congress had a right to regulate speech that posed a “clear and present danger” to public safety. But by the time Abrams’s appeal reached the Court in 1919, Holmes had modified his views. Disturbed by anti-radical hysteria, he dissented from the majority’s decision upholding Abrams’s conviction in Abrams v. United States . His eloquent discussion of the connection between freedom of speech and the search for truth soon became the standard used by the Supreme Court to judge free speech cases until Brandenberg v. Ohio in 1972. The First Amendment, Holmes reasoned, protected the expression of all opinions “unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.”

But as against dangers peculiar to war, as against others, the principle of the right to free speech is always the same. It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned. Congress certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the country. Now nobody can suppose that the surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man, without more, would present any immediate danger that its opinions would hinder the success of the government arms or have any appreciable tendency to do so . . .

Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country . . . Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” Of course I am speaking only of expressions of opinion and exhortations, which were all that were uttered here, but I regret that I cannot put into more impressive words my belief that in their conviction upon this indictment the defendants were deprived of their rights under the Constitution of the United States.

“Malicious Words” versus “Free Communication”

In response to fears about imminent wars with France in 1798, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a series of four acts known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Section 2 of the Sedition Act made it a crime to make defamatory statements about the government or President. (Sedition is an action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to lead to the overthrow of the government.) The act was designed to suppress political opposition. Its passage by Congress reveals how limited the definition of the right of free speech was for some Americans only a few years after the ratification of the First Amendment.

Sec. 2 . . . That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United Sates, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

James Madison, congressman from Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson, the sitting Vice President, secretly drafted resolutions protesting the Sedition Act as unconstitutional. The Virginia and Kentucky legislatures passed these resolutions in 1798. Both resolutions especially pointed to the act’s violation of First Amendment protections, as seen in the Virginia Resolution here.

Resolved, . . . That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts” passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power no where delegated to the federal government, and which by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government; as well as the particular organization, and positive provisions of the federal constitution; and the other of which acts, exercises in like manner, a power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.

That this state having by its Convention, which ratified the federal Constitution, expressly declared, that among other essential rights, “the Liberty of Conscience and of the Press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States,” and from its extreme anxiety to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry or ambition, having with other states, recommended an amendment for that purpose, which amendment was, in due time, annexed to the Constitution; it would mark a reproachable inconsistency, and criminal degeneracy, if an indifference were now shewn, to the most palpable violation of one of the Rights, thus declared and secured; and to the establishment of a precedent which may be fatal to the other.

The Sedition Act expired in 1801 but not until a number of the Federalists’ opponents, including Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont, had been convicted of violating the law. Today, historians consider the Sedition Act to have been a gross misuse of government power. In 1798, the Kentucky Resolutions focused on the rights of states to determine the limits of free speech.

Resolved, that it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed.

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Student Opinion

Why Is Freedom of Speech an Important Right? When, if Ever, Can It Be Limited?

By Michael Gonchar

• Sept. 12, 2018

This extended Student Opinion question and a related lesson plan were created in partnership with the National Constitution Center in advance of Constitution Day on Sept. 17. For information about a cross-classroom “Constitutional Exchange,” see The Lauder Project .

One of the founding principles of the United States that Americans cherish is the right to freedom of speech. Enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of speech grants all Americans the liberty to criticize the government and speak their minds without fear of being censored or persecuted.

Even though the concept of freedom of speech on its face seems quite simple, in reality there are complex lines that can be drawn around what kinds of speech are protected and in what setting.

The Supreme Court declared in the case Schenck v. United States in 1919 that individuals are not entitled to speech that presents a “clear and present danger” to society. For example, a person cannot falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater because that speech doesn’t contribute to the range of ideas being discussed in society, yet the risk of someone getting injured is high. On the other hand, in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, the court declared that even inflammatory speech, such as racist language by a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, should generally be protected unless it is likely to cause imminent violence.

While the text and principle of the First Amendment have stayed the same, the court’s interpretation has indeed changed over time . Judges, lawmakers and scholars continue to struggle with balancing strong speech protections with the necessity of maintaining a peaceful society.

What do you think? Why is the freedom of speech an important right? Why might it be important to protect even unpopular or hurtful speech? And yet, when might the government draw reasonable limits on speech, and why?

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The first amendment, interpretation & debate, freedom of speech and the press, matters of debate, common interpretation, fixing free speech, frontiers for free speech.

by Geoffrey R. Stone

Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School

by Eugene Volokh

Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law; Founder and Co-Author of "The Volokh Conspiracy" at Reason Magazine

“Congress shall make no law . . .  abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” What does this mean today? Generally speaking, it means that the government may not jail, fine, or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in exceptional circumstances.

Although the First Amendment says “Congress,” the Supreme Court has held that speakers are protected against all government agencies and officials: federal, state, and local, and legislative, executive, or judicial. The First Amendment does not protect speakers, however, against private individuals or organizations, such as private employers, private colleges, or private landowners. The First Amendment restrains only the government.

The Supreme Court has interpreted “speech” and “press” broadly as covering not only talking, writing, and printing, but also broadcasting, using the Internet, and other forms of expression. The freedom of speech also applies to symbolic expression, such as displaying flags, burning flags, wearing armbands, burning crosses, and the like.

The Supreme Court has held that restrictions on speech because of its content —that is, when the government targets the speaker’s message—generally violate the First Amendment. Laws that prohibit people from criticizing a war, opposing abortion, or advocating high taxes are examples of unconstitutional content-based restrictions. Such laws are thought to be especially problematic because they distort public debate and contradict a basic principle of self-governance: that the government cannot be trusted to decide what ideas or information “the people” should be allowed to hear.

There are generally three situations in which the government can constitutionally restrict speech under a less demanding standard.

1. In some circumstances, the Supreme Court has held that certain types of speech are of only “low” First Amendment value, such as:

a. Defamation: False statements that damage a person’s reputations can lead to civil liability (and even to criminal punishment), especially when the speaker deliberately lied or said things they knew were likely false. New York Times v. Sullivan (1964).

b. True threats: Threats to commit a crime (for example, “I’ll kill you if you don’t give me your money”) can be punished. Watts v. United States (1969).

c. “Fighting words”: Face-to-face personal insults that are likely to lead to an immediate fight are punishable. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942). But this does not include political statements that offend others and provoke them to violence.  For example, civil rights or anti-abortion protesters cannot be silenced merely because passersby respond violently to their speech. Cox v. Louisiana (1965).

d. Obscenity: Hard-core, highly sexually explicit pornography is not protected by the First Amendment. Miller v. California (1973). In practice, however, the government rarely prosecutes online distributors of such material.

e. Child pornography: Photographs or videos involving actual children engaging in sexual conduct are punishable, because allowing such materials would create an incentive to sexually abuse children in order to produce such material. New York v. Ferber (1982).

f. Commercial advertising: Speech advertising a product or service is constitutionally protected, but not as much as other speech. For instance, the government may ban misleading commercial advertising, but it generally can’t ban misleading political speech. Virginia Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Council (1976).

Outside these narrow categories of “low” value speech, most other content-based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional. Even entertainment, vulgarity, “hate speech” (bigoted speech about particular races, religions, sexual orientations, and the like), blasphemy (speech that offends people’s religious sensibilities), and violent video games are protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has generally been very reluctant to expand the list of “low” value categories of speech.

2. The government can restrict speech under a less demanding standard when the speaker is in a special relationship to the government. For example, the speech of government employees and of students in public schools can be restricted, even based on content, when their speech is incompatible with their status as public officials or students. A teacher in a public school, for example, can be punished for encouraging students to experiment with illegal drugs, and a government employee who has access to classified information generally can be prohibited from disclosing that information. Pickering v. Board of Education (1968).

3. The government can also restrict speech under a less demanding standard when it does so without regard to the content or message of the speech. Content-neutral restrictions, such as restrictions on noise, blocking traffic, and large signs (which can distract drivers and clutter the landscape), are generally constitutional as long as they are “reasonable.” Because such laws apply neutrally to all speakers without regard to their message, they are less threatening to the core First Amendment concern that government should not be permitted to favor some ideas over others. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC (1994). But not all content-neutral restrictions are viewed as reasonable; for example, a law prohibiting all demonstrations in public parks or all leafleting on public streets would violate the First Amendment. Schneider v. State (1939).

Courts have not always been this protective of free expression. In the nineteenth century, for example, courts allowed punishment of blasphemy, and during and shortly after World War I the Supreme Court held that speech tending to promote crime—such as speech condemning the military draft or praising anarchism—could be punished. Schenck v. United States (1919). Moreover, it was not until 1925 that the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment limited state and local governments, as well as the federal government. Gitlow v. New York (1925).

But starting in the 1920s, the Supreme Court began to read the First Amendment more broadly, and this trend accelerated in the 1960s. Today, the legal protection offered by the First Amendment is stronger than ever before in our history.

Three issues involving the freedom of speech are most pressing for the future.

Money, Politics, and the First Amendment

The first pressing issue concerns the regulation of money in the political process. Put simply, the question is this: To what extent, and in what circumstances, can the government constitutionally restrict political expenditures and contributions in order to “improve” the democratic process?

In its initial encounters with this question, the Supreme Court held that political expenditures and contributions are “speech” within the meaning of the First Amendment because they are intended to facilitate political expression by political candidates and others. The Court also recognized, however, that political expenditures and contributions could be regulated consistent with the First Amendment if the government could demonstrate a sufficiently important justification. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), for example, the Court held that the government could constitutionally limit the amount that individuals could contribute to political candidates in order to reduce the risk of undue influence, and in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), the Court held that the government could constitutionally limit the amount that corporations could spend in the political process in order to influence electoral outcomes.

In more recent cases, though, in a series of five-to-four decisions, the Supreme Court has overruled McConnell and held unconstitutional most governmental efforts to regulate political expenditures and contributions. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010); McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014). As a result of these more recent decisions, almost all government efforts to limit the impact of money in the political process have been held unconstitutional, with the consequence that corporations and wealthy individuals now have an enormous impact on American politics.

Those who object to these decisions maintain that regulations of political expenditures and contributions are content-neutral restrictions of speech that should be upheld as long as the government has a sufficiently important justification. They argue that the need to prevent what they see as the corruption and distortion of American politics caused by the excessive influence of a handful of very wealthy individuals and corporations is a sufficiently important government interest to justify limits on the amount that those individuals and corporations should be permitted to spend in the electoral process.

Because these recent cases have all been five-to-four decisions, it remains to be seen whether a differently constituted set of justices in the future will adhere to the current approach, or whether they will ultimately overrule or at least narrowly construe those decisions. In many ways, this is the most fundamental First Amendment question that will confront the Supreme Court and the nation in the years to come.

The Meaning of “Low” Value Speech

The second pressing free speech issue concerns the scope of “low” value speech. In recent years, the Supreme Court has taken a narrow view of the low value concept, suggesting that, in order for a category of speech to fall within that concept, there has to have been a long history of government regulation of the category in question. This is true, for example, of such low value categories as defamation, obscenity, and threats. An important question for the future is whether the Court will adhere to this approach.

The primary justification for the Court’s insistence on a history of regulation is that this limits the discretion of the justices to pick-and-choose which categories of expression should be deemed to have only low First Amendment value. A secondary justification for the Court’s approach is that a history of regulation of a category of expression provides some basis in experience for evaluating the possible effects – and dangers – of declaring a new category of speech to have only low First Amendment value.

Why does this doctrine matter? To cite one illustration, under the Court’s current approach, so-called “hate speech” – speech that expressly denigrates individuals on the basis of such characteristics as race, religion, gender, national origin, and sexual orientation – does not constitute low value speech because it has not historically been subject to regulation. As a result, except in truly extraordinary circumstances, such expression cannot be regulated consistent with the First Amendment. Almost every other nation allows such expression to be regulated and, indeed, prohibited, on the theory that it does not further the values of free expression and is incompatible with other fundamental values of society.

Similarly, under the Court’s approach to low value speech it is unclear whether civil or criminal actions for “invasion of privacy” can be reconciled with the First Amendment. For example, can an individual be punished for distributing on the Internet “private” information about other persons without their consent? Suppose, for example, an individual posts naked photos of a former lover on the Internet. Is that speech protected by the First Amendment, or can it be restricted as a form of “low” value speech? This remains an unresolved question.

Leaks of Classified Information

The Supreme Court has held that the government cannot constitutionally prohibit the publication of classified information unless it can demonstrate that the publication or distribution of that information will cause a clear and present danger of grave harm to the national security. New York Times v. United States (The “Pentagon Papers” case) (1971). At the same time, though, the Court has held that government employees who gain access to such classified information can be restricted in their unauthorized disclosure of that information. Snepp v. United States (1980). It remains an open question, however, whether a government employee who leaks information that discloses an unconstitutional, unlawful, or unwise classified program can be punished for doing so. This issue has been raised by a number of recent incidents, including the case of Edward Snowden. At some point in the future, the Court will have to decide whether and to what extent the actions of government leakers like Edward Snowden are protected by the First Amendment.

I like Professor Stone’s list of important issues. I think speech about elections, including speech that costs money, must remain protected, whether it’s published by individuals, nonprofit corporations, labor unions, media corporations, or nonmedia business corporations. (Direct contributions to candidates, as opposed to independent speech about them, can be restricted, as the Court has held.) And I think restrictions on “hate speech” should remain unconstitutional. But I agree these are likely to be heavily debated issues in the coming years. I’d like to add three more issues as well.

Professional-Client Speech

Many professionals serve their clients by speaking. Psychotherapists try to help their patients by talking with them. Doctors make diagnoses, offer predictions, and recommend treatments. Lawyers give legal advice; financial planners, financial advice. Some of these professionals also do things (such as prescribe drugs, perform surgeries, or file court documents that have legal effect). But much of what they do is speak.

Yet the law heavily regulates such speakers. It bars people from giving any legal, medical, psychiatric, or similar advice unless they first get licenses (which can take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of education to get)—though the government couldn’t require a license for people to become journalists or authors. The law lets clients sue professionals for malpractice, arguing that the professionals’ opinions or predictions proved to be “unreasonable” and harmful, though similar lawsuits against newspapers or broadcasters would be unconstitutional.

And the law sometimes forbids or compels particular speech by these professionals. Some states ban psychiatrists from offering counseling aimed at changing young patients’ sexual orientation. Florida has restricted doctors’ questioning their patients about whether the patients own guns. Many states, hoping to persuade women not to get abortions, require doctors to say certain things or show certain things to women who are seeking abortions. The federal government has tried to punish doctors who recommend that their patients use medical marijuana (which is illegal under federal law, but which can be gotten in many states with the doctor’s recommendation).

When are these laws constitutional? Moreover, if there is a First Amendment exception that allows such regulations of professional-client speech, which professions does it cover? What about, for instance, tour guides, fortunetellers, veterinarians, or diet advisors? Courts are only beginning to confront the First Amendment implications of these sorts of restrictions, and the degree to which the government’s interest in protecting clients—and in preventing behavior that the government sees as harmful—can justify restricting professional-client speech.

Crime-Facilitating Speech

Some speech contains information that helps people commit crimes, or get away with committing crimes. Sometimes this is general information, for instance about how bombs are made, how locks can be picked, how deadly viruses can be created, how technological protections for copyrighted works can be easily evaded, or how a contract killer can get away with his crime.

Sometimes this is specific information, such as the names of crime witnesses that criminals might want to silence, the location of police officers whom criminals might want to avoid, or the names of undercover officers or CIA agents. Indeed, sometimes this can be as familiar as people flashing lights to alert drivers that a police officer is watching; people are occasionally prosecuted for this, because they are helping others get away with speeding.

Sometimes this speech is said specifically with the purpose of promoting crime—but sometimes it is said for other purposes: consider chemistry books that talk about explosives; newspaper articles that mention people’s names so the readers don’t feel anything is being concealed; or novels that accurately describe crimes just for entertainment. And sometimes it is said for political purposes, for instance when someone describes how easy it is to evade copyright law or proposed laws prohibiting 3-D printing of guns, in trying to explain why those laws need to be rejected.

Surprisingly, the Supreme Court has never explained when such speech can be restricted. The narrow incitement exception, which deals with speech that aims to persuade people to commit imminent crimes, is not a good fit for speech that, deliberately or not, informs people about how to commit crimes at some point in the future. This too is a field that the Supreme Court will likely have to address in coming decades.

“Hostile Environment Harassment” Rules

Finally, some government agencies, courts, and universities have reasoned that the government may restrict speech that sufficiently offends employees, students, or business patrons based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and the like. Here’s how the theory goes: Laws ban discrimination based on such identity traits in employment, education, and public accommodations. And when speech is “severe or pervasive” enough to create a “hostile or offensive environment” based on those traits, such speech becomes a form of discrimination. Therefore, the argument goes, a wide range of speech—such as display of Confederate flags, unwanted religious proselytizing, speech sharply criticizing veterans, speech suggesting that Muslims are disloyal, display of sexually suggestive materials, sexually-themed humor, sex-based job titles (such as “foreman” or “draftsman”), and more—can lead to lawsuits.

Private employers are paying attention, and restricting such speech by their employees. Universities are enacting speech codes restricting such speech. Even speech in restaurants and other public places, whether put up by the business owner or said by patrons, can lead to liability for the owner. And this isn’t limited to offensive speech said to a particular person who doesn’t want to hear it. Even speech posted on the wall or overheard in the lunchroom can lead to liability, and would thus be suppressed by “hostile environment” law.

To be sure, private employers and business owners aren’t bound by the First Amendment, and are thus generally free to restrict such speech on their property. And even government employers and enterprises generally have broad latitude to control what is said on their property (setting aside public universities, which generally have much less such latitude). But here the government is pressuring all employers, universities, and businesses to impose speech codes, by threatening liability on those who don’t impose such codes. And that government pressure is subject to First Amendment scrutiny.

Some courts have rejected some applications of this “hostile environment” theory on First Amendment grounds; others have upheld other applications. This too is something the Supreme Court will have to consider.

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Freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental personal freedoms protected by the First Amendment. It allows for you to wear a jacket that says “Fuck the Draft” in a public courthouse or burn the American flag in protest. As FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff said, the cultural norms and assumptions surrounding freedom of speech is what allows us to live in a deeply pluralistic democracy.

The benefits of freedom of speech may seem obvious now, but the United States has only arrived at this point after more than two hundred years of debate.

Before the Bill of Rights

Freedom of speech was hardly a novel idea when the founders drafted the Constitution in 1787. What was novel, however, was to enshrine the idea into law. On Nov. 28, 1787, representatives from the state of Pennsylvania met in Philadelphia to discuss the ratification of the Constitution and formation of a new federal government. Almost immediately, the meeting became contentious over the absence of a bill of rights guaranteeing citizens individual liberties such as freedom of speech, press, and religion.

“In civil government it is certain, that bills of rights are unnecessary and useless,” said James Wilson, a prominent lawyer who attended the Constitutional Convention earlier that year and would later serve on the Supreme Court. “Virginia has no bill of rights, and will it be said that her constitution was less free?”

Irish-American politician John Smilie scoffed at the idea of not including a bill of rights establishing the inherent rights of citizens, and, therefore, limiting the powers of government.

“Hence, Sir,” Smilie responded to Wilson, “it will be impracticable to stop the progress of tyranny, for there will be no check but the people . . . At present there is no security, even for the rights of conscience, and under the sweeping force of the [Supremacy Clause], every principle of a bill of rights, every stipulation for the most sacred and invaluable privileges of man, are left to the mercy of government.”

Despite objections, the Constitution was ratified by the 13 states in 1787 without a bill of rights attached. Debate continued for four years until, on Dec. 15, 1791, Virginia became the 11th state to ratify the Bill of Rights , which codified individual liberties into our nation’s founding document.

Freedom of speech in the courts

Even though freedom of speech became established law in 1791, it would take more than one hundred years for the legal principles of freedom of speech to coalesce into coherent jurisprudence. John Adams used the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 — which outlawed “any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings” against the executive branch — to stifle criticism of his administration, and Abraham Lincoln curtailed freedom of speech and press during the Civil War. Freedom of speech as we know and enjoy it today was not widely recognized by either the government or the courts.

Modern jurisprudence surrounding freedom of speech would not begin to take shape until 1919. In Schenck v. United State s , the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of socialist Charles Schenck under the Espionage Act of 1917. (Numerous convictions under the Espionage Act would make their way to the Supreme Court, including that of socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs .) Schenck was found guilty of conspiracy for distributing anti-war leaflets that urged people to boycott the draft. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Schenck was the first articulation of the “clear and present danger” test, wherein Justice ​​Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. infamously wrote “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”

The problem with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Schenck , as subsequent Supreme Court cases would affirm, is that Schenk’s speech was not calling for violence or even civil disobedience. Rather, his speech was precisely the kind of political expression that decades of subsequent Supreme Court decisions would ultimately uphold.

The government may neither punish citizens for political speech nor compel those same citizens to affirm certain political beliefs. As the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), a state law that compelled school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance was ruled to be an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

In the late 1960s, the Warren court issued numerous rulings that vastly expanded the range of speech protected under the First Amendment. In the 1967 case Keyishian v. Board of Regents , the Supreme Court invalidated a New York law prohibiting the employment of public school and university teachers who belong or had belonged to “subversive” groups such as the Communist Party. In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in Pickering c. Board of Education of Township High School District 205, Will County that school board officials violated the First Amendment rights of Illinois public school teacher Marvin Pickering, who was fired for writing a letter critical of the school administration to a local newspaper.

“The problem in any case,” the Supreme Court wrote, “is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the teacher, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.”

The next year, in Tinker et al. v. Des Moines Independent Community School District , the Supreme Court established a speech-protective standard for students after the school district prohibited students from wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. In Tinker , the Supreme Court ruled, school officials cannot prohibit student expression unless they can reasonably forecast that the student speech will cause a substantial disruption of school activities or invade the rights of others.

Also in 1969, the Supreme Court ruled in Stanley v. Georgia that the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect a person’s “private possession of obscene matter” from criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court notes that the state, although possessing broad authority to regulate obscene material, cannot punish private possession of such in an individual’s own home.

The decades that followed saw even broader protections for freedom of speech and expression, including the right to burn the American flag in protest, which the Supreme Court ruled Texas v. Johnson (1989) to be protected speech.

More recently, the Roberts court ruled in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021) that public schools have no right to regulate student speech happening off campus. As FIRE wrote of Mahanoy in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court: “If public grade school administrators may surveil and punish off-campus student expression far beyond the school-house gate, a generation of Americans will be taught a corrosive, illiberal lesson about the illusory value of their constitutional freedoms.”

Freedom of speech limitations

Under modern jurisprudence, the First Amendment protects the vast majority of speech and expression, but there are limitations to freedom of speech that have been carefully honed over decades of case law into a handful of narrow categories of speech that are not protected. These include true threats and intimidation, incitement, harassment, and other unlawful conduct.

True threats

In 2003, the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Black defined true threats as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” The Supreme Court also held that speech becomes unprotected intimidation when it is “a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”

These definitions place emphasis on the actual intent and seriousness of the threat. This allows the authorities to take things like bomb threats seriously while also limiting the government’s ability to publish clearly hyperbolic expression, such as the infamous photo of Kathy Griffin holding a depiction of Donald Trump’s decapitated head.

Speech also becomes unprotected when it is used to promote imminent violence or lawless action. This exception, also known as incitement, originated from the 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio . In that case, the Supreme Court distinguished between mere advocacy of lawless behavior — which is, for example, a common lyrical attribute in the music of Rage Against the Machine — and incitement to “imminent lawless action.” In order for speech to lose protected status, the Supreme Court ruled that there had to be evidence that the language in question is being used to encourage immediate lawlessness and that illegal action is likely to take place, for example, if an incendiary public speaker points at a specific building and tells an angry mob to go burn it down while handing out matches.

Four years later, the Supreme Court applied this standard to a case involving an anti-war protester on a college campus. Gregory Hess had been arrested for disorderly conduct after he shouted that protesters would “take the fucking street later.” The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in Hess v. Indiana (1973) on the grounds that Hess’s speech “amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time.”

Unlawful harassment/conduct

“Unlawful harassment” was best articulated by the Supreme Court in the 1999 case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education . The decision established what is known as the “Davis standard” for student-on-student harassment: targeted, discriminatory conduct that is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.”

In short, isolated pure speech or expression is unlikely to constitute harassment on its own. To qualify as peer harassment, speech must be targeted, discriminatory, and typically part of a larger pattern of behavior that hinders the educational experience of the targeted individual.

Lastly, speech is not protected when it involves unlawful conduct such as vandalism, destruction of property, child pornography, perjury, black mail, or defamation.

Other unlawful conduct may include certain kinds of disruptions like shout-downs, grabbing microphones, illegally recording others, blocking entrances, and related activity. Some of these examples are tactics commonly employed by protesters as forms of civil disobedience. However, keep in mind that while civil disobedience can be a vehicle for change, it is — by definition — not protected speech or activity and that participating in such activity can lawfully result in punishment.

For more information on the history of freedom of speech and list of the most important Supreme Court cases, check out FIRE’s History of Free Speech   interactive course at Learn with FIRE . 

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First Amendment

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 27, 2023 | Original: December 4, 2017

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of speech, religion and the press. It also protects the right to peaceful protest and to petition the government. The amendment was adopted in 1791 along with nine other amendments that make up the Bill of Rights—a written document protecting civil liberties under U.S. law. The meaning of the First Amendment has been the subject of continuing interpretation and dispute over the years. Landmark Supreme Court cases have dealt with the right of citizens to protest U.S. involvement in foreign wars, flag burning and the publication of classified government documents.

Bill of Rights

During the summer of 1787, a group of politicians, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton , gathered in Philadelphia to draft a new U.S. Constitution .

Antifederalists, led by the first governor of Virginia , Patrick Henry , opposed the ratification of the Constitution. They felt the new constitution gave the federal government too much power at the expense of the states. They further argued that the Constitution lacked protections for people’s individual rights.

The debate over whether to ratify the Constitution in several states hinged on the adoption of a Bill of Rights that would safeguard basic civil rights under the law. Fearing defeat, pro-constitution politicians, called Federalists , promised a concession to the antifederalists—a Bill of Rights.

James Madison drafted most of the Bill of Rights. Madison was a Virginia representative who would later become the fourth president of the United States. He created the Bill of Rights during the 1st United States Congress, which met from 1789 to 1791 – the first two years that President George Washington was in office.

The Bill of Rights, which was introduced to Congress in 1789 and adopted on December 15, 1791, includes the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

First Amendment Text

The First Amendment text reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

While the First Amendment protected freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition, subsequent amendments under the Bill of Rights dealt with the protection of other American values including the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.

Freedom of Speech

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech . Freedom of speech gives Americans the right to express themselves without having to worry about government interference. It’s the most basic component of freedom of expression.

The U.S. Supreme Court often has struggled to determine what types of speech is protected. Legally, material labeled as obscene has historically been excluded from First Amendment protection, for example, but deciding what qualifies as obscene has been problematic. Speech provoking actions that would harm others—true incitement and/or threats—is also not protected, but again determining what words have qualified as true incitement has been decided on a case-by-case basis.

Freedom of the Press

This freedom is similar to freedom of speech, in that it allows people to express themselves through publication.

There are certain limits to freedom of the press . False or defamatory statements—called libel—aren’t protected under the First Amendment.

Freedom of Religion

The First Amendment, in guaranteeing freedom of religion , prohibits the government from establishing a “state” religion and from favoring one religion over any other.

While not explicitly stated, this amendment establishes the long-established separation of church and state.

Right to Assemble, Right to Petition

The First Amendment protects the freedom to peacefully assemble or gather together or associate with a group of people for social, economic, political or religious purposes. It also protects the right to protest the government.

The right to petition can mean signing a petition or even filing a lawsuit against the government.

First Amendment Court Cases

Here are landmark Supreme Court decisions related to the First Amendment.

Free Speech &  Freedom of the Press :

Schenck v. United States , 1919: In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Socialist Party activist Charles Schenck after he distributed fliers urging young men to dodge the draft during World War I .

The Schenck decision helped define limits of freedom of speech, creating the “clear and present danger” standard, explaining when the government is allowed to limit free speech. In this case, the Supreme Court viewed draft resistance as dangerous to national security.

New York Times Co. v. United States , 1971: This landmark Supreme Court case made it possible for The New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the contents of the Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship.

The Pentagon Papers were a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Published portions of the Pentagon Papers revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry Truman , Dwight D. Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Texas v. Johnson , 1990: Gregory Lee Johnson, a youth communist, burned a flag during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas to protest the administration of President Ronald Reagan .

The Supreme Court reversed a Texas court’s decision that Johnson broke the law by desecrating the flag. This Supreme Court Case invalidated statutes in Texas and 47 other states prohibiting flag-burning.

Freedom of Religion:

Reynolds v. United States (1878): This Supreme Court case upheld a federal law banning polygamy, testing the limits of religious liberty in America. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment forbids government from regulating belief but not from actions such as marriage.

Braunfeld v. Brown (1961): The Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring stores to close on Sundays, even though Orthodox Jews argued the law was unfair to them since their religion required them to close their stores on Saturdays as well.

Sherbert v. Verner (1963): The Supreme Court ruled that states could not require a person to abandon their religious beliefs in order to receive benefits. In this case, Adell Sherbert, a Seventh-day Adventist, worked in a textile mill. When her employer switched from a five-day to six-day workweek, she was fired for refusing to work on Saturdays. When she applied for unemployment compensation, a South Carolina court denied her claim.

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): This Supreme Court decision struck down a Pennsylvania law allowing the state to reimburse Catholic schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in those schools. This Supreme Court case established the “Lemon Test” for determining when a state or federal law violates the Establishment Clause—that’s the part of the First Amendment that prohibits the government from declaring or financially supporting a state religion.

Ten Commandments Cases (2005): In 2005, the Supreme Court came to seemingly contradictory decisions in two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. In the first case, Van Orden v. Perry , the Supreme Court ruled that the display of a six-foot Ten Commandments monument at the Texas State Capital was constitutional. In McCreary County v. ACLU , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that two large, framed copies of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses violated the First Amendment.

Right to Assemble & Right to Petition:

NAACP v. Alabama (1958): When Alabama Circuit Court ordered the NAACP to stop doing business in the state and subpoenaed the NAACP for records including their membership list, the NAACP brought the matter to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in favor of the NAACP, which Justice John Marshall Harlan II writing: “This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations.”

Edwards v. South Carolina (1962): On March 2, 1961, 187 Black students marched from Zion Baptist Church to the South Carolina State House, where they were arrested and convicted of breaching the peace. The Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision to reverse the convictions, arguing that the state infringed on the free speech, free assembly and freedom to petition of the students.

The Bill of Rights; White House . History of the First Amendment; The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Schenck v. United States ; C-Span .

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Freedom of Speech

Definition of freedom of speech, what is freedom of speech, freedom of speech amendment, freedom of speech quotes, freedom of speech examples in legal cases, gitlow v. new york (1925), brandenburg v. ohio (1969), related legal terms and issues.

Freedom of Speech

This entry explores the topic of free speech. It starts with a general discussion of freedom in relation to speech and then moves on to examine one of the first, and best, defenses of free speech based on the harm principle. This provides a useful starting point for further digressions on the subject. The discussion moves on from the harm principle to assess the argument that speech can be limited because it causes offense rather than direct harm. I then examine arguments that suggest speech can be limited for reasons of democratic equality. I finish with an examination of paternalistic and moralistic reasons against protecting speech, and a reassessment of the harm principle.

1. Introduction: Boundaries of the Debate

2.1 john stuart mill's harm principle, 2.2 mill's harm principle and pornography, 2.3 mill's harm principle and hate speech, 3.1 joel feinberg's offense principle, 3.2 pornography and the offense principle, 3.3 hate speech and the offense principle, 4.1 democratic citizenship and pornography, 4.2 democratic citizenship and hate speech, 4.3 paternalistic justification for limiting speech, 5. back to the harm principle, 6. conclusion, bibliography, other internet resources, related entries.

The topic of free speech is one of the most contentious issues in liberal societies. If the liberty to express oneself is not highly valued, as has often been the case, there is no problem: freedom of expression is simply curtailed in favor of other values. Free speech becomes a volatile issue when it is highly valued because only then do the limitations placed upon it become controversial. The first thing to note in any sensible discussion of freedom of speech is that it will have to be limited. Every society places some limits on the exercise of speech because speech always takes place within a context of competing values. In this sense, Stanley Fish is correct when he says that there is no such thing as free speech. Free speech is simply a useful term to focus our attention on a particular form of human interaction and the phrase is not meant to suggest that speech should never be interfered with. As Fish puts it, “free speech in short, is not an independent value but a political prize” (1994,102). No society has yet existed where speech has not been limited to some extent. As John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty , a struggle always takes place between the competing demands of liberty and authority, and we cannot have the latter without the former:

All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed—by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. (1978, 5)

The task, therefore, is not to argue for an unlimited domain of free speech; such a concept cannot be defended. Instead, we need to decide how much value we place on speech in relation to the value we place on other important ideals: “speech, in short, is never a value in and of itself but is always produced within the precincts of some assumed conception of the good” (Fish, 1994, 104). In this essay, we will examine some conceptions of the good that are deemed to be acceptable limitations on speech. We will start with the harm principle and then move on to other more encompassing arguments for limiting speech.

Before we do this, however, the reader might wish to disagree with the above claims and warn of the dangers of the “slippery slope.” Those who support the slippery slope argument warn that the consequence of limiting speech is the inevitable slide into censorship and tyranny. Such arguments assume that we can be on or off the slope. In fact, no such choice exists: we are necessarily on the slope whether we like it or not, and the task is always to decide how far up or down we choose to go, not whether we should step off the slope altogether. It is worth noting that the slippery slope argument can be used to make the opposite point; one could argue with equal force that we should never allow any removal of government intervention because once we do we are on the slippery slope to anarchy, the state of nature, and a life that Hobbes described in Leviathan as “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” (1968, 186).

Another thing to note before we engage with the harm principle is that we are in fact free to speak as we like. Hence, freedom of speech differs from some other forms of freedom of action. If the government wants to prevent citizens engaging in certain actions, riding motor bikes for example, it can limit their freedom to do so by making sure that such vehicles are no longer available. For example, current bikes could be destroyed and a ban can be placed on future imports. Freedom of speech is a different case. A government cannot make it impossible to say certain things. The only thing it can do is punish people after they have said, written or published their thoughts. This means that we are free to speak or write in a way that we are not free to ride outlawed motorbikes. This is an important point; if we insist that legal prohibitions remove freedom then we have to hold the incoherent position that a person was unfree at the very moment she performed an action. The government would have to remove our vocal chords for us to be unfree in the same way as the motorcyclist is unfree.

A more persuasive analysis of freedom of speech suggests that the threat of a sanction makes it more difficult and potentially more costly to exercise our freedom. Such sanctions take two major forms. The first, and most serious, is legal punishment by the state, which usually consists of a financial penalty, but can stretch occasionally to imprisonment. The second threat of sanction comes from social disapprobation. People will often refrain from making public statements because they fear the ridicule and moral outrage of others. For example, one could expect a fair amount of these things if one made racist comments during a public lecture at a university. Usually it is the first type of sanction that catches our attention but, as we will see, John Stuart Mill provides a strong warning about the chilling effect of the latter form of social control.

We seem to have reached a paradoxical position. I started by claiming that there can be no such thing as a pure form of free speech: now I seem to be arguing that we are, in fact, free to say anything we like. The paradox is resolved by thinking of free speech in the following terms. I am, indeed, free to say what I like, but the state and other individuals can sometimes make that freedom more or less costly to exercise. This leads to the conclusion that we can attempt to regulate speech, but we cannot prevent it if a person is undeterred by the threat of sanction. The issue, therefore, boils down to assessing how cumbersome we wish to make it for people to say certain things. The best way to resolve the problem is to ignore the question of whether or not it is legitimate to attach penalties to some forms of speech. I have already suggested that all societies do (correctly) place some limits on free speech. If the reader doubts this, it might be worth reconsidering what life would be like with no prohibitions on libelous statements, child pornography, advertising content, and releasing state secrets. The list could go on. The real problem we face is deciding where to place the limits, and the next sections of the essay look at some possible solutions to this puzzle.

2. The Harm Principle and Free Speech

Given that Mill presented one of the first, and still perhaps the most famous liberal defense of free speech, I will focus on his claims in this essay and use them as a springboard for a more general discussion of free expression. In the footnote at the beginning of Chapter II of On Liberty , Mill makes a very bold statement:

If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered. (1978, 15)

This is a very strong defense of free speech; Mill tells us that any doctrine should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem to everyone else. And Mill does mean everyone:

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. (1978, 16)

Such liberty should exist with every subject matter so that we have “absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral or theological” (1978, 11). Mill claims that the fullest liberty of expression is required to push our arguments to their logical limits, rather than the limits of social embarrassment. Such liberty of expression is necessary, he suggests, for the dignity of persons.

This is as strong an argument for freedom of speech as we are likely to find. But as I already noted above, Mill also suggests that we need some rules of conduct to regulate the actions of members of a political community. The limitation he places on free expression is “one very simple principle,” now usually referred to as the Harm Principle, which states that

the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. (1978, 9)

There is a great deal of debate about what Mill had in mind when he referred to harm; for the purposes of this essay he will be taken to mean that an action has to directly and in the first instance invade the rights of a person (Mill himself uses the term rights, despite basing the arguments in the book on the principle of utility). The limits on free speech will be very narrow because it is difficult to support the claim that most speech causes harm to the rights of others. This is the position staked out by Mill in the first two chapters of On Liberty and it is a good starting point for a discussion of free speech because it is hard to imagine a more liberal position. Liberals find it very difficult to defend free speech once it can be demonstrated that its practice does actually invade the rights of others.

If we accept the argument based on the harm principle we need to ask “what types of speech, if any, cause harm?” Once we can answer this question, we have found the appropriate limits to free expression. The example Mill uses is in reference to corn dealers; he suggests that it is acceptable to claim that corn dealers starve the poor if such a view is expressed through the medium of the printed page. It is not acceptable to express the same view to an angry mob, ready to explode, that has gathered outside the house of the corn dealer. The difference between the two is that the latter is an expression “such as to constitute…a positive instigation to some mischievous act,” (1978, 53), namely, to place the rights, and possibly the life, of the corn dealer in danger. As Daniel Jacobson (2000) notes, it is important to remember that Mill will not sanction limits to free speech simply because someone is harmed by the statements of others. For example, the corn dealer may suffer severe financial hardship if he is accused of starving the poor. Mill distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate harm, and it is only when speech causes a direct and clear violation of rights that it can be limited. The fact that Mill does not count accusations of starving the poor as causing legitimate harm to the rights of corn dealers suggests he wished to apply the harm principle sparingly. Other examples where the harm principle may apply include libel laws, blackmail, advertising blatant untruths about commercial products, advertising dangerous products to children (e.g. cigarettes), and securing truth in contracts. In most of these cases, it is possible to make an argument that harm has been committed and that rights have been violated.

There are other instances when the harm principle has been invoked but where it is more difficult to demonstrate that rights have been violated. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the debate over pornography. As Feinberg notes in Offense to Others: the Moral Limits of the Criminal Law most attacks on pornography up to the 1970's were from social conservatives who found such material to be immoral and obscene; (Feinberg notes that there is no necessary link between pornography and obscenity; pornography is material that is intended to cause sexual arousal, whereas something is obscene when it causes repugnance, revulsion and shock. Pornography can be, but is not necessarily, obscene). In recent times the cause against pornography has been joined by some feminists who have maintained that pornography degrades, endangers, and harms the lives of women. This argument, to have force, must distinguish between pornography as a general class of material (aimed at sexual arousal) and pornography that causes harm by depicting acts that violently abuse women. If it can be demonstrated that this latter material significantly increases the risk that men will commit acts of physical violence against women, the harm principle can legitimately be invoked.

When pornography involves young children, most people will accept that it should be prohibited because of the harm that is being done to persons under the age of consent. It has proved much more difficult to make the same claim for consenting adults. It is hard to show that the actual people who appear in the books, magazines, films, videos and on the internet are being physically harmed, and it is even more difficult to demonstrate that harm results for women as a whole. Very few people would deny that violence against women is abhorrent and an all too common feature of our society, but how much of this is caused by violent pornography? One would have to show that a person who would not otherwise rape or batter females was caused to do so through exposure to material depicting violence to women.

Andrea Dworkin (1981) has attempted to show that harm is caused to women by pornography, but it has proven very difficult to draw a conclusive causal relationship. If pornographers were exhorting their readers to commit violence and rape, the case for prohibition would be much stronger, but they tend not to do this, just as films that depict murder do not actively incite the audience to mimic what they see on the screen. Remember that Mill's formulation of the harm principle suggests only speech that directly harms the rights of others in an illegitimate manner should be banned; finding such material offensive, obscene or outrageous is not sufficient grounds for prohibition. Overall, it seems very difficult to mount a compelling case for banning pornography (except in the case of minors) based on the concept of harm as formulated by Mill.

Another difficult case is hate speech. Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech, but it is debatable whether these can be justified by the harm principle as formulated by Mill. One would have to show that such speech violated rights, directly and in the first instance. A famous example of hate speech is the Nazi march through Skokie, Illinois. In fact, the intention was not to engage in political speech at all, but simply to march through a predominantly Jewish community dressed in storm trooper uniforms and wearing swastikas (although the Illinois Supreme Court interpreted the wearing of swastikas as “symbolic political speech”). It is clear that most people, especially those who lived in Skokie, were outraged and offended by the march, but were they harmed? There was no plan to cause physical injury and the marchers did not intend to damage property.

The main argument against allowing the march, based on the harm principle, was that it would cause harm by inciting opponents of the march to riot. The problem with this claim is that it is the harm that could potentially be done to the people speaking that becomes the focal point and not the harm done to those who are the subject of the hate. To ban speech for this reason, i.e., for the good of the speaker, tends to undermine the basic right to free speech in the first place. If we turn to the local community who were on the wrong end of hate speech we might want to claim that they could be psychologically harmed, but this is more difficult to demonstrate than harm to a person's legal rights. It seems, therefore, that Mill's argument does not allow for state intervention in this case. If we base our defense of speech on the harm principle we are going to have very few sanctions imposed on the spoken and written word. It is only when we can show direct harm to rights, which will almost always mean when an attack is made against a specific individual or a small group of persons, that it is legitimate to impose a sanction. One response is to suggest that the harm principle can be defined in a less stringent manner than Mill's formulation. This is a complicated issue that I cannot delve into here. Suffice it to say that if we can, then more options might become available for prohibiting hate speech and violent pornography.

There are two basic responses to the harm principle as a means of limiting speech. One is that it is too narrow; the other is that it is too broad. This latter view is not often expressed because, as already noted, most people think that free speech should be limited if it does cause illegitimate harm. George Kateb (1996), however, has made an interesting argument that runs as follows. If we want to limit speech because of harm then we will have to ban a lot of political speech. Most of it is useless, a lot of it is offensive, and some of it causes harm because it is deceitful, and because it is aimed at discrediting specific groups. It also undermines democratic citizenship and stirs up nationalism and jingoism, which results in harm to citizens of other countries. Even worse than political discourse, according to Kateb, is religious speech; he claims that a lot of religious speech is hateful, useless, dishonest, and ferments war, bigotry and fundamentalism. It also creates bad self-image and feelings of guilt that can haunt persons throughout their lives. Pornography and hate speech, he claims, cause nowhere near as much harm as political and religious speech. His conclusion is that we do not want to ban these forms of speech and the harm principle, therefore, casts its net too far. Kateb's solution is to abandon the principle in favor of almost unlimited speech.

This is a powerful argument, but there seem to be at least two problems with the analysis. The first is that the harm principle would actually allow religious and political speech for the same reasons that it allows pornography and hate speech, namely that it is not possible to demonstrate that such speech does cause direct harm to rights. I doubt that Mill would support using his arguments about harm to ban political and religious speech. The second problem for Kateb is that if we accept he is right that such speech does cause harm in the sense of violating rights, the correct response is surely to start limiting political and religious speech. If Kateb's argument is sound he has shown that harm is more extensive than we might have thought; he has not demonstrated that the harm principle is invalid.

3. The Offense Principle and Free Speech

The other response to the harm principle is that it does not reach far enough. One of the most impressive arguments for this position comes from Joel Feinberg, who suggests that the harm principle cannot shoulder all of the work necessary for a principle of free speech. In some instances, Feinberg suggests, we also need an offense principle that can act as a guide to public censure. The basic idea is that the harm principle sets the bar too high and that we can legitimately prohibit some forms of expression because they are very offensive. Offending someone is less serious than harming someone, so the penalties imposed should be less severe than those for causing harm. As Feinberg notes, however, this has not always been the case and he cites a number of instances in the U.S. where penalties for sodomy and consensual incest have ranged from twenty years imprisonment to the death penalty. These are victimless crimes and hence the punishment has to have a basis in the supposed offensiveness of the behavior rather than the harm that is caused.

Such a principle is difficult to apply because many people take offense as the result of an overly sensitive disposition, or worse, because of bigotry and unjustified prejudice. At other times some people can be deeply offended by statements that others find mildly amusing. The furore over the Danish cartoons brings this starkly to the fore. Despite the difficulty of applying a standard of this kind, something like the offense principle operates widely in liberal democracies where citizens are penalized for a variety of activities, including speech, that would escape prosecution under the harm principle. Wandering around the local shopping mall naked, or engaging in sexual acts in public places are two obvious examples. Given the specific nature of this essay, I will not delve into the issue of offensive behavior in all its manifestations, and I will limit the discussion to offensive forms of speech. Feinberg suggests that a variety of factors need to be taken into account when deciding whether speech can be limited by the offense principle. These include the extent, duration and social value of the speech, the ease with which it can be avoided, the motives of the speaker, the number of people offended, the intensity of the offense, and the general interest of the community at large.

How does the offense principle help us deal with the issue of pornography? Given the above criteria, Feinberg argues that books should never be banned because the offensive material is easy to avoid. If one has freely decided to read the book for pleasure, the offense principle obviously does not apply, and if one does not want to read it, it is easily avoidable. And if one is unaware of the content and should become offended in the course of reading the text, the solution is simple-one simply closes the book. A similar argument would be applied to pornographic films. The French film Bais-Moi was in essence banned in Australia in 2002 because of its offensive material (it was denied a rating which meant that it could not be shown in cinemas). It would seem, however, that the offense principle outlined by Feinberg would not permit such prohibition because it is very easy to avoid being offended by the film. It should also be legal to advertise the film, but some limits could be placed on the content of the advertisement so that sexually explicit material is not placed on billboards in public places (because these are not easily avoidable). At first glance it might seem strange to have a more stringent speech code for advertisements than for the thing being advertised; the harm principle would not provide the grounds for such a distinction, but it is a logical conclusion of the offense principle.

What of pornography that is extremely offensive because of its violent or degrading content? In this case the offense is more profound: simply knowing that such films exist is enough to deeply offend many people. The difficulty here is that bare knowledge, i.e., being offended by merely knowing that something exists or is taking place, is not as serious as being offended by something that one does not like and that one cannot escape. If we allow that films should be banned because some people are offended, even when they do not have to view them, logical consistency demands that we allow the possibility of prohibiting many forms of expression. Many people find strong attacks on religion, or t.v. shows by religious fundamentalists deeply offensive. Hence, Feinberg argues that even though some forms of pornography are profoundly offensive to a lot of people, they should still be permitted.

Hate speech causes profound and personal offense. The discomfort that is caused to those who are the object of such attacks cannot easily be shrugged off. As in the case of violent pornography, the offense that is caused by the march through Skokie cannot be avoided simply by staying off the streets because the offense is taken over the bare knowledge that the march is taking place. As we have seen, however, bare knowledge does not seem sufficient grounds for prohibition. If we examine some of the other factors regarding offensive speech mentioned above, Feinberg suggests that the march through Skokie does not do very well: the social value of the speech seems to be marginal, the number of people offended will be large, and it is difficult to see how it is in the interests of the community. These reasons also hold for violent pornography.

A key difference, however, is in the intensity of the offense; it is particularly acute with hate speech because it is aimed at a relatively small and specific audience. The motivations of the speakers in the Skokie example seemed to be to incite fear and hatred and to directly insult the members of the community with Nazi symbols. Nor, according to Feinberg, was there any political content to the speech. The distinction between violent pornography and this specific example of hate speech is that a particular group of people were targeted and the message of hate was paraded in such a way that it could not be easily avoided.It is for these reasons that Feinberg suggests hate speech can be limited.

He also claims that when fighting words are used to provoke people who are prevented by law from using a fighting response, the offense is profound enough to allow for prohibition. If pornographers engaged in the same behavior, parading through neighborhoods where they were likely to meet great resistance and cause profound offense, they too should be prevented from doing so. It is clear, therefore, that the crucial component of the offense principle is the avoidability of the offensive material. For the argument to be consistent, it must follow that many forms of hate speech should still be allowed if the offense is easily avoidable. Nazis can still meet in private places, or even in public ones that are easily bypassed. Advertisements for such meetings can be edited (because they are less easy to avoid) but should not be banned.

4. Democracy and Free Speech

Very few liberals take the Millian view that only speech causing direct harm should be prohibited; most support some form of the offense principle. Some are willing to extend the realm of state interference further and argue that hate speech should be banned even if it does not cause harm or unavoidable offense. The reason it should be banned is that it is inconsistent with the underlying values of liberal democracy to brand some citizens as inferior to others on the grounds of race or sexual orientation. The same applies to pornography; it should be prevented because it is incompatible with democratic citizenship to portray women as sexual objects, who are often violently mistreated. Rae Langton, for example, starts from the liberal premise of equal concern and respect and concludes that it is justifiable to remove certain speech protections for pornographers. She avoids basing her argument on harm: “If, for example, there were conclusive evidence linking pornography to violence, one could simply justify a prohibitive strategy on the basis of the harm principle. However, the prohibitive arguments advanced in this article do not require empirical premises as strong as this…they rely instead on the notion of equality” (1990, 313).

Working within the framework of arguments supplied by Ronald Dworkin, who is opposed to prohibitive measures, she tries to demonstrate that egalitarian liberals such as Dworkin, should, in fact, support the prohibition of pornography. She suggests that we have “reason to be concerned about pornography, not because it is morally suspect, but because we care about equality and the rights of women” (1990, 311). This is an approach also taken by Catherine McKinnon (1987). She distinguishes, much like Feinberg, between pornography and erotica. Erotica might be explicit and create sexual arousal, neither of which is grounds for complaint. Pornography would not come under attack if it did the same thing as erotica; the complaint is that it portrays women in a manner that undermines their equal status as citizens: “We define pornography as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; enjoying pain or humiliation or rape; being tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt; in postures of sexual submission or servility or display; reduced to body parts, penetrated by objects or animals, or presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture; shown as filthy or inferior; bleeding, bruised or hurt in a context which makes these conditions sexual” (1987, 176).

Langton agrees and concludes that “women as a group have rights against the consumers of pornography, and thereby have rights that are trumps against the policy of permitting pornography…the permissive policy is in conflict with the principle of equal concern and respect, and that women accordingly have rights against it” (1990, 346). Because she is not basing her argument on the harm principle, she does not have to show that women are harmed by pornography. For the argument to be persuasive, however, one has to accept that permitting pornography does mean that women are not treated with equal concern and respect.

To argue the case above, one has to dilute one's support for freedom of expression in favor of other principles, such as equal respect for all citizens. This is a sensible approach according to Stanley Fish. He suggests that the task we face is not to arrive at hard and fast principles that govern all speech. Instead, we have to find a workable compromise that gives due weight to a variety of values. Supporters of this view will tend to remind us that when we are discussing free speech, we are not dealing with speech in isolation; what we are doing is comparing free speech with some other good. For instance, we have to decide whether it is better to place a higher value on speech than on the value of privacy, security, equality, or the prevention of harm.

I suggested early in this essay that to begin from a principle of unregulated speech is to start from a place that itself needs to be vigorously defended rather than simply assumed. Stanley Fish is of a similar temperament and suggests that we need to find a balance in which “we must consider in every case what is at stake and what are the risks and gains of alternative courses of action” (1994, 111). Is speech promoting or undermining our basic values? “If you don't ask this question, or some version of it, but just say that speech is speech and that's it, you are mystifying—presenting as an arbitrary and untheorized fiat—a policy that will seem whimsical or worse to those whose interests it harms or dismisses” (1994, 123).

In other words, there have to be reasons behind the argument to allow speech; we cannot simply say that the First Amendment says it is so, therefore it must be so. The task is not to come up with a principle that always favors expression, but rather, to decide what is good speech and what is bad speech. A good policy “will not assume that the only relevant sphere of action is the head and larynx of the individual speaker” (Fish, 1994, 126). Is it more in keeping with the values of a democratic society, in which every person is deemed equal, to allow or prohibit speech that singles out specific individuals and groups as less than equal? The answer, according to Fish, cannot be settled by simply appealing to a pre-ordained ideal of absolute free speech, because this is a principle that is itself in need of defense. Fish's answer is that, “it depends. I am not saying that First Amendment principles are inherently bad (they are inherently nothing), only that they are not always the appropriate reference point for situations involving the production of speech” (1994, 113). But, all things considered, “I am persuaded that at the present moment, right now, the risk of not attending to hate speech is greater than the risk that by regulating it we will deprive ourselves of valuable voices and insights or slide down the slippery slope towards tyranny. This is a judgement for which I can offer reasons but no guarantees” (1994, 115).

Hence, the boundaries of free speech cannot be set in stone by philosophical principles. It is the world of politics that decides what we can and cannot say, guided but not hidebound by the world of abstract philosophy. Fish suggests that free speech is about political victories and defeats. The very guidelines for marking off protected from unprotected speech are the result of this battle rather than truths in their own right: “No such thing as free (nonideologically constrained) speech; no such thing as a public forum purged of ideological pressures of exclusion” (Fish, 1994, 116). Speech always takes place in an environment of convictions, assumptions, and perceptions i.e., within the confines of a structured world. The thing to do, according to Fish, is get out there and argue for one's position.

We should ask three questions according to Fish: “[g]iven that it is speech, what does it do, do we want it to be done, and is more to be gained or lost by moving to curtail it?” (1994, 127). He suggests that the answers we arrive at will vary according to the context. Free speech will be more limited in the military, where the underlying value is hierarchy and authority, than it will be at a university where one of the main values is the expression of ideas. Even on campus, there will be different levels of appropriate speech. Spouting off at the fountain in the center of campus should be less regulated than what a professor can say during a lecture. It might well be acceptable for me to spend an hour of my time explaining to passers-by why Manchester United is such a great football team but it would be completely inappropriate (and open to censure) to do the same thing when I am supposed to be giving a lecture on Thomas Hobbes. A campus is not simply a “free speech forum but a workplace where people have contractual obligations, assigned duties, pedagogical and administrative responsibilities” (1994,129). Almost all places in which we interact are governed by underlying values and hence speech will have to fit in with these principles: “[r]egulation of free speech is a defining feature of everyday life” (Fish, 1994,129). Thinking of speech in this way removes a lot of the mystique. Whether we should ban hate speech is just another problem along the lines of whether we should allow university professors to talk about football in lectures.

Although Stanley Fish takes some of the mystique away from the value of speech, he still thinks of limitations largely in terms of other regarding consequences. There are arguments, however, that suggest speech can be limited to prevent harm being done to the speaker. The argument here is that the agent might not have a full grasp of the consequences of the action involved (whether it be speech or some other form of behavior) and hence can be prevented from engaging in the act. Arguments used in the Skokie case would fit into this category. Most liberals are wary of such arguments because we are now entering the realm of paternalistic intervention where it is assumed that the state knows better than the individual what is in his or her best interests.

Mill, for example, is an opponent of paternalism generally, but he does believe there are certain instances when intervention is warranted. He suggests that if a public official is certain that a bridge will collapse, he can prevent a person crossing. If, however, there is only a danger that it will collapse the person can be warned but not coerced. The decision here seems to depend on the likelihood of personal injury; the more certain injury becomes, the more legitimate the intervention. Prohibiting freedom of speech on these grounds is very questionable in all but extreme cases (it was not persuasive in the Skokie case) because it is very rare that speech would produce such a clear danger to the individual.

Hence we have exhausted the options that are open to the liberal regarding limitations on free speech and one cannot be classed as a liberal if one is willing to stray further into the arena of state intervention than already discussed. Liberals tend to be united in opposing paternalistic and moralistic justifications for limiting free expression. They have a strong presumption in favor of individual liberty because, it is argued, this is the only way that the autonomy of the individual can be respected. To prohibit speech for reasons other than those already mentioned means that one has to argue that it is permissible to limit speech because of its unsavory content, or as Feinberg puts it, one has to be willing to say that

[i]t can be morally legitimate for the state, by means of the criminal law, to prohibit certain types of action that cause neither harm nor offense to any one, on the grounds that such actions constitute or cause evils of other kinds. ( Harmless Wrongdoing , p. 3)

Acts can be “evil” if they are dangerous to a traditional way of life, because they are immoral, or because they hinder the perfectibility of the human race. Many arguments against pornography take the form that such material is wrong because of the moral harm it does to the consumer. Liberals oppose such views because they are not overly interested in trying to mold the moral character of citizens.

We began this examination of free speech with the harm principle; let us end with it and assess whether it helps us determine the proper limits of free expression. The principle suggests that we need to distinguish between legal sanction and social disapprobation as means of limiting speech. As already noted, the latter does not ban speech but it makes it more uncomfortable to utter unpopular statements. J.S. Mill does not seem to support the imposition of legal penalties unless they are sanctioned by the harm principle. As one would expect, Mill also seems to be worried by the use of social pressure as a means of limiting speech. Chapter III of On Liberty is an incredible assault on social censorship, expressed through the tyranny of the majority, because it produces stunted, pinched, hidebound and withered individuals: “everyone lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship…[i]t does not occur to them to have any inclination except what is customary” (1978, 58). He continues:

the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind…at present individuals are lost in the crowd…the only power deserving the name is that of masses…[i]t does seem, however, that when the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that tendency would be the more and more pronounced individuality of those who stand on the higher eminences of thought. (1978, 63-4)

With these comments, and many of a similar ilk, Mill demonstrates his distaste of the apathetic, fickle, tedious, frightened and dangerous majority.

It is quite a surprise, therefore, to find that he also seems to embrace a fairly encompassing offense principle when the sanction does involve social disapprobation:

Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners and, coming thus within the category of offenses against others, may rightly be prohibited. (1978, 97 [author's emphasis]

Similarly, he states that “The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance” (1978, 53). In the latter parts of On Liberty Mill also suggests that distasteful persons can be held in contempt, that we can avoid such persons (as long as we do not parade it), that we can warn others against the persons, and that we can persuade, cajole and remonstrate with those we deem offensive. These actions are legitimate as the free expression of those who happen to be offended as long as they are done as a spontaneous response to the person's faults and not as a form of punishment.

But those who exhibit cruelty, malice, envy, insincerity, resentment and crass egoism are open to the greater sanction of disapprobation as a form of punishment, because these faults are wicked and are other-regarding. It may be true that these faults have an impact on others, but it is difficult to see how acting according to malice,envy or resentment necessarily violates the rights of others. The only way that Mill can make such claims is by expanding his argument to include an offense principle and hence give up on the harm principle as the only legitimate grounds for interference with behavior. Overall, Mill[special-character:#146s arguments about ostracism and disapprobation seem to provide little protection for the individual who may have spoken in a non-harmful manner but who has nevertheless offended the sensibilities of the masses.

Hence we see that one of the great defenders of the harm principle seems to shy away from it at certain crucial points and it is unlikely that a defense of free speech can rest on the principle alone. It does, however, remain an elementary part of the liberal defense of individual freedom.

Liberals tend to defend freedom generally, and free speech in particular, for a variety of reasons beyond the harm principle; speech fosters authenticity, genius, creativity, individuality and human flourishing. Mill tells us specifically that if we ban speech the silenced opinion may be true, or contain a portion of the truth, and that unchallenged opinions become mere prejudices and dead dogmas that are inherited rather than adopted. These are empirical claims that require evidence. Is it likely that we enhance the cause of truth by allowing hate speech or violent and degrading forms of pornography? It is worth pondering the relationship between speech and truth. If we had a graph where one axis was truth and the other was free speech, would we get one extra unit of truth for every extra unit of free speech? How can such a thing even be measured? It is certainly questionable whether arguments degenerate into prejudice if they are not constantly challenged. Devil's advocates are often tedious rather than useful interlocutors. None of this is meant to suggest that free speech is not vitally important; this is, in fact, precisely the reason we need to find good arguments in its favor. But sometimes supporters of free speech, like its detractors, have a tendency to make assertions without providing compelling evidence to back them up.

In a liberal society, we have found that the harm principle provides reasons for limiting free speech when doing so prevents direct harm to rights. This means that very few speech acts should be prohibited. The offense principle has a wider reach than the harm principle, but it still recommends very limited intervention in the realm of free speech. All forms of speech that are found to be offensive but easily avoidable should go unpunished. This means that all forms of pornography and most forms of hate speech will escape punishment. If this argument is acceptable, it seems only logical that we should extend it to other forms of behavior. Public nudity, for example, causes offense to some people, but most of us find it at most a bit embarrassing, and it is avoided by a simple turn of the head. The same goes with nudity, sex, and coarse language on television. Neither the harm or the offense principles as outlined by Mill support criminalizing bigamy or drug use, nor the enforcement of seat belts, crash helmets and the like.

Some argue that speech can be limited for the sake of other liberal values, particularly the concern for democratic equality; the claim is not that speech should always lose out when it clashes with other fundamental principles that underpin modern liberal democracies, but that it should not be automatically privileged. To extend prohibitions on speech and other actions beyond this point requires an argument for a form of legal paternalism that suggests the state should decide what is acceptable for the safety and moral instruction of citizens, even if it means limiting actions that do not cause harm or unavoidable offense to others. It is up to the reader to decide if one of these positions is persuasive. It has certainly been the practice of most societies, even liberal-democratic ones, to impose some paternalistic restrictions on behavior and to limit speech because it causes offense. As we have seen, even Mill seems to back away somewhat from the harm principle. Hence the freedom of expression supported by the harm principle as outlined in Chapter One of On Liberty and by Feinberg's offense principle is still a possibility rather than a reality. It is also up to the reader to decide if it is an appealing possibility.

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• Edwin Baker, C. 1992. Human Liberty and Freedom of Speech . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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• Soley, L. 2002. Censorship INC.: The Corporate Threat to Free Speech in the United States . Monthly Review Press.
• Stone, G. 2004. Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The Sedition Act of 1798 to The War on Terrorism .
• Strum, P. 1999. When the Nazis came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech We Hate . Kansas University Press.
• Sunstein, C., 1994, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech . New York: Free Press.
• –––, 1995. Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech . Free Press.
• –––, 2003. Why Societies Need Dissent . Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
• Ten, C.L., 1991, “Mill's Defence of Liberty,” in J.S. Mill—On Liberty in Focus , eds. John Gray and G.W. Smith. London: Routledge.
• Walker, S. 1994. Hate Speech: The History of an American Controversy . University of Nebraska Press.
• Waluchow, W.J. 1994. Free Expression: Essays in Law and Philosophy . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• West, C. 2003. “The Free Speech Argument Against Pornography”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33(3).
• West, Caroline, “Pornography and Censorship”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2005 Edition) , Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2005/entries/pornography-censorship/>.

[As of January 2008, typing “free speech” on Google will net millions of entries. Hence it is best to simply jump in and see what one can find. It is worth noting that almost all of them are devoted to the promotion of speech in the face of censorship. This reflects a strong bias on the internet in favor of the “slippery slope” view of free speech. There are not many entries where an argument is made for placing limitations on free expression. Wikipedia has a quite a few entries dealing with censorship, free speech, pornography, and crime statistics. Here are a few other cites to get you going.]

• American Civil Liberties Union
• Free Speech Movement archives (related to Berkeley in the 1960's)
• Freedom Forum , (a forum dedicated to free speech and a free press)
• Free Expression , Center for Democracy and Technology, (a website related to the issue of free speech and the internet)
• Electronic Frontiers Australia (an Australian website on censorship and free speech)
• The Kellor Center for the Study of the First Amendment

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Freedom of Expression, a Fundamental Human Right

About the author, ban ki-moon.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But around the world, there are governments and those wielding power who find many ways to obstruct it.

They impose high taxes on newsprint, making newspapers so expensive that people can't afford to buy them. Independent radio and TV stations are forced off the air if they criticize Government policy. The censors are also active in cyberspace, restricting the use of the Internet and new media.

Some journalists risk intimidation, detention and even their lives, simply for exercising their right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, through any media, and regardless of frontiers.

Last year, UNESCO condemned the killing of 77 journalists. These were not high-profile war correspondents, killed in the heat of battle. Most of them worked for small, local publications in peacetime. They were killed for attempting to expose wrongdoing or corruption.

I condemn these murders and insist that the perpetrators are brought to justice. All Governments have a duty to protect those who work in the media. This protection must include investigating and prosecuting those who commit crimes against journalists.

Impunity gives the green light to criminals and murderers, and empowers those who have something to hide. Over the long term, it has a corrosive and corrupting effect on society as a whole.

This year's theme is Freedom of Information: the right to know. I welcome the global trend towards new laws which recognize the universal right to publicly held information. Unfortunately, these new laws do not always translate into action. Requests for official information are often refused, or delayed, sometimes for years. At times, poor information management is to blame. But all too often, this happens because of a culture of secrecy and a lack of accountability.

We must work to change attitudes and to raise awareness. People have a right to information that affects their lives, and states have a duty to provide this information. Such transparency is essential to good government.

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How International Cooperation in Policing Promotes Peace and Security

The role of international policing is closely aligned with the principles of justice, peace, democracy and human rights, and is integral to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Voices for Peace: The Crucial Role of Victims of Terrorism as Peace Advocates and Educators

In the face of unimaginable pain and trauma, victims and survivors of terrorism emerge as strong advocates for community resilience, solidarity and peaceful coexistence.

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Most of the solutions we have described are tangible examples of sustainability in action. Yet our sailing journey also made us realize that the most important ingredient for a sustainable future is sustainability from within. By that we mean adopting a different way of perceiving the Earth and our role in it.

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Freedom of Speech and Expression

This article is written by Amanat Raza , from Faculty of law, Aligarh Muslim University and Riya Sancheti , from D.E.S’s Shri Navalmal Firodia law College, Pune. The article discusses the concept of freedom of speech and expression, its elements and grounds for restriction. 

Table of Contents

Introduction

We have certain basic rights as citizens of India. Fundamental rights are enshrined in the Indian constitution under Part III. These basic rights are fundamental rights that we get right from birth. No single person or state may take away the same from us.

In particular, there are six fundamental rights: the right to equality (Articles 14-18), the right to freedom (Articles 19-22), the right against exploitation (Articles 23 and 24), the right to freedom of religion (Articles 25-28), educational and cultural rights (Articles 29 and 30) and the right to constitutional remedies (Article 32).

We will just take a closer look at Article 19, which deals with six fundamental freedoms. Article 19 is the most significant and important article embodying the ‘basic freedoms’ Article 19(1) of the Constitution, subject to the power of the State to enforce restrictions on the exercise of certain rights, grants those constitutional rights. Thus, the object of the Article was to protect these rights from State interference other than in the lawful exercise of its power to regulate private rights in the public interest.

Origin of freedom of speech and expression

The idea of freedom of speech had originated a long time ago. It was first introduced by the Greeks. They used the term “Parrhesia” which means free speech or to speak frankly . This term first appeared in the fifth-century B.C. Countries such as England and France have taken a lot of time to adopt this freedom as a right. The English Bill of Rights, 1689 adopted freedom of speech as a constitutional right and it is still in effect. Similarly, at the time of the French revolution in 1789, the French had adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens.

The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 1948 under Article 19 which recognised the freedom of speech and expression as one of the human rights.

Freedom of speech and expression in India

John Milton says that “give me the liberty to know, to argue freely, and to utter according to conscience, above all liberties”.

The above sentence by John Milton clearly displays the essence of freedom of speech. He argued that without human freedom there would be no progress in science, law or in any other field. According to him, human freedom means free discussion of opinion and liberty of thought and expression.

Justice Louis Brandies had made a classic statement on the freedom of speech in the context of the U.S Constitution in the case of  Whitney v. California [1]

“ Those who won our independence believed that courage is the secret of liberty and liberty is the secret of happiness. These people believed that freedom to think, freedom to speak and freedom to assemble wilfully for discussion is futile and of no use. But the public discussion is a political duty and it should be the fundamental principle of the government of America. 

The importance of this right is that it helps us in attaining self-fulfilment and in discovering the truth. ”

Meaning of freedom of speech and expression

The right to express one’s own ideas, thoughts and opinions freely through writing, printing, picture, gestures, spoken words or any other mode is the essence of freedom of speech and expression. It includes the expression of one’s ideas through visible representations such as gestures, signs and other means of the communicable medium. It also includes the right to propagate one’s views through print media or through any other communication channel.

This implies that freedom of the press is also included in this category. Free propagation of ideas is the necessary objective and this may be done through the press or any other platform. These two freedoms i.e., freedom of speech and freedom of expression have their own respective qualifications.

According to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR ), the freedom to seek, receive, and convey information and all kinds of ideas irrespective of boundaries, either orally or in the form of writing, print, art or through any other media of their choice are included in the right to freedom of speech and expression.

Article 19 (1)(a) of the Indian constitution

In India, the freedom of speech and expression is granted by Article19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution, which is available only to the citizens of India and not to foreign nationals. Freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) includes the right to express one’s views through any medium, which can be by way of writing, speaking, gesture or in any other form. It also includes the rights of communication and the right to propagate or publish one’s opinion.

The right that is mentioned above, guaranteed by our constitution, is regarded as one of the most basic elements of a healthy democracy because it allows citizens to participate in the social and political process of a country very actively. 

Importance of freedom of speech and expression

It was well said by Cicero, a Roman politician as well as a lawyer that “ The people’s good is the highest law” . The manner in which this can be achieved can be inferred from our constitutional provisions, which demonstrate that if a person raises his/her voice against any evil then everybody will listen to the voice and stand against that evil to scrap it out from its root.

Let us have an example of this: compare the past when women were not allowed to vote with the present day. Now women are allowed to vote. How does this happen? It happens because of the right of free speech and expression. The right to free speech and expression have that power through which it can break any type of giant brick that comes in its way.

Other rights that allow or help Indian society develop and progress are supported by freedom of speech and expression which is also a fundamental human right. Free speech and expression have always been important throughout history as it facilitates many changes, one of which is the French revolution.

Free speech and expression not only includes the right to express what one thinks but it also includes listening to others. When a person expresses his/her opinion, it only carries the intrinsic value of that opinion and being silent on that opinion is an injustice to the basic human rights.

Union of India v Naveen Jindal and Anr. ,[2]

Facts: The respondent Naveen Jindal was not allowed to hoist the national flag at the office premise of his factory by government officials on the ground that it was not permissible under the Flag Code of India.

Judgment: In this case, the high court held that the restrictions that the Flag Code imposed on citizens on hoisting the National Flag were not permissible under clause (2) of Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. The court has also stated that displaying a flag is an expression of pride as well as an expression of genuine enthusiasm and it can only be restricted in accordance with what has been prescribed in the Constitution, otherwise, the restriction would discourage the citizens or Indian nationals from identifying with the flag of the country.

Virendra v. The State of Punjab and Anr . [3]

Facts: Serious communal tension had arisen in the state of Punjab between the Hindus and the Akali Sikhs because of the question of partition of the state on a linguistic and communal basis. There were two petitioners and both were from different newspapers. Their newspapers’ policy was to support the ‘Save Hindi agitation’. A notification was passed by the home ministry office under the impugned Act prohibiting the publication and printing of any material relating to the ‘Save Hindi agitation’. Both the petitioners filed a complaint alleging that the Punjab Special Powers (Press) Act, 1956 passed by the state legislature was unconstitutional.

Judgment: The court held that Section 2 of the impugned Act did not merely impose restrictions but imposed a total prohibition against the exercise of the right of freedom of speech and expression, making the same a violation of the right guaranteed by the Constitutional provision. 

Sakal Papers v. Union of India [4]

Facts: The petitioner was the owner of a private limited company, ‘Sakal’, which published daily and weekly newspapers in Marathi. This newspaper used to play a leading part in the dissemination of news and in moulding public opinion. They claimed that their net circulation of copies in Maharashtra and Karnataka on weekdays was 52,000 and on Sunday it was 56,000. However, the Central Government passed the Newspaper (Price and Page) Act, 1956, later, the Daily Newspapers (Price and Page) Order, 1960. Because of that order, the government fixed the maximum number of pages that could be published by the newspapers. So the petitioner filed a case challenging the constitutionality of that Act. 

Judgment: The court held that Section 3(1) of the Act was unconstitutional and also an order made under the same would be unconstitutional.

Elements for the right to freedom of speech and expression

The main elements for the right to freedom of speech and expression are as follows:

• This right is available only to a citizen of India and not to the person of other nationalities i.e., foreign nationals.
• The freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian constitution includes the right to express oneself through any medium, such as in words of writing, printing, gesture, etc.
• This right is not absolute, which means that the government has the right to make laws and to impose reasonable restrictions in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, friendly relations with foreign states, the security of the state, public order, decency, morality, defamation and contempt of court and incitement to an offence.
• Such a right ought to be implemented as much by the action of the State as by its inaction. Thus, failure on the part of the State to guarantee the freedom of right and expression to all its citizens would also constitute a violation of Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian constitution.

Freedom of press

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost” is stated by Thomas Jefferson to define the importance of freedom of the press.

To preserve the democratic way of life it is necessary that people should have the freedom to express their feelings and to make their views known to people at large. Freedom of speech includes propagation of one’s views through print media or any other communication channels like radio and television, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed under A rticle 19(2) of the Indian constitution.

Although freedom of the press is not mentioned in Article 19 of the Indian Constitution, yet it has been a part of freedom of speech and expression as considered by judges of the Supreme Court through decided cases.

In the leading case of Romesh Thapar v. The State of Madras ,[5]  it has been decided by the supreme court that freedom of the press is an intrinsic part of freedom of speech and expression.

Why freedom of the press is important in the Indian context?

An American lawyer and free press advocate  Trevor Timm have stated that “ An independent press is one of the important pillars of democracy ”. Freedom of the press has always been a barricade against the secret government, against tyranny and against authoritarianism. The press has a very important role in showing the real face of political parties and also any type of incident that has been disguised and cannot be seen by the common people.

It is the press who revealed the income of a kachori wala (in U.P., Aligarh) recently and also showed the face of some dhongi type babas such as Ram Raheem and many others. It is the media who have the power to provoke people against a political party by showing or revealing their truth. It is used to measure the checks and balances in a democracy.

In the case of Indian Express Newspaper v. Union of India ,[6] it was held that the press plays an important role in the democracy machinery. The courts have a duty to uphold the freedom of the press and invalidate all laws and administrative actions that would take that freedom.

An important aspect to be noted is that the freedom of the press has been specifically mentioned in the United States Constitution,[7] while it is a mere inference made by courts in the Indian context, which explains the possible variation in the adjudication of disputes relating to this right in both jurisdictions. 

What are the elements of freedom of the press?

There are three elements of freedom of the press and these are as follows:

• Freedom of access to all types of source of information
• Publication freedom, and 
• Circulation freedom

What is the reason behind the degradation of freedom of the press

In the initial phase of freedom of the press, the views of Jawaharlal Nehru regarding press was that he wanted the press free from all evils and also free from all forms of danger involved in the wrongful use of that freedom. But Indira Gandhi had opposite or conflicting views in respect of Jawaharlal Nehru. She didn’t have much faith in the press and her misgivings were first expressed when she was addressing the International Press Institute Assembly in New Delhi on November 15, 1996, when she blamed the press for giving wide publicity to the student unrest in the country.

The press has slowly been losing its importance in the country. Many politicians take advantage of the press to win an election by giving rise to conflict amongst the people. Many a time, freedom of the press has been suppressed by the legislature. There is a case in respect of that condition,  Sakal Paper v.Union of India. ,[8] in which, the Daily Newspapers (Price and Page) Order, 1960, fixed the number of pages and the size of the pages which a newspaper could publish. It was held that it violated the freedom of the press and was not a reasonable restriction under Article 19(2).

Freedom of Commercial Speech

The current judicial position of commercial speech in India is that it can be seen as a part of freedom of speech and expression with reasonable restrictions given or guaranteed under Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution.

Are we having the freedom to advertise?

The freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India has been given to every citizen. Various judicial pronouncements have increased the ambit of freedom of speech and expression. Now it includes:

•  Right to acquire and disseminate information.
• The right to communicate through any media, in the form of an advertisement, movie, speech, etc.
• Right to free debate and open discussion.
• Freedom of press.
• Freedom to be informed.
• Right to remain silent.

Thus, it can be seen that we have the right to advertise. In the case of Tata Press Limited v. Mahanagar Telephone Nagar Limited ,[9] the Supreme Court held that commercial speech or commercial advertisement was also a part of freedom of speech, which could be restricted only within the limits of Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution.

Right to Broadcast

The concept of freedom of speech and expression has evolved to include in its ambit all available means of expression and communication because of the advancements in technology. This includes broadcast media, electronic media and many other types of media.

In the case of Odyssey Communications (P) Ltd. v. Lokvidayan Sanghatana , [10] the supreme court held that the right of the citizens to display films on state channels such as Doordarshan came under the purview of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution.

Right to Information

The right to know or to get information is one of the aspects of freedom of speech and expression. Freedom to receive information is also included in the freedom of speech and expression through various supreme court judgments. Right to Information Act, 2005 , which especially talks about the right of the people to ask for information from the government officials.

Rights of voters to know about their candidates

In the case of Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms ,[11] it has been held that the amended Electoral Reform Law passed by the Parliament was unconstitutional as it violated the right of the citizens to know under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian constitution.

Right to Criticize

In a monarchy, we know that the king is supreme and people are his subjects. This system of relationship gets reversed in a democratic form of government. The people are supreme and the state authority is a servant of the people. In Kedar Nath Singh v. The State of Bihar ,[12] the supreme court held that mere criticism of the government is not sedition unless this criticism leads to incitement of violence or breach of public order. Similarly, there is a case of Manipur, where a journalist named Kishorechand Wangkhem was charged for criticizing the chief minister and charged with the offence of sedition under the National Security Act. However,  he was released as the court found that the people of India had the right to criticize under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution.

In another case of S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram ,[13] it was held that everyone has got the right through the Indian constitution to form his/her opinion on any issue of general concern. 

Right to Expression Beyond Boundaries 

The advancement in technology or the revolution in communication and electronic media has narrowed the gap of transnational barriers or we can say that it has diminished this barrier. It has made the transmission of information possible, even to other parts of the world within a fraction of second. In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India ,[14] the Supreme Court analysed whether Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution was confined to the Indian territory and finally held that the freedom of speech and expression was not confined to the national boundaries.

Right not to Speak

This right has also been included in freedom of speech and expression. This right came to the notice of people after the judgment in the leading case of Bijoe Emmanuel v. The State of Kerala .[15] This case is also known as the National Anthem case . In this case, three students were expelled by the school authority on refusal to sing the National Anthem.

However, these children stood from their seats in respect, when the national anthem was playing. The validity of the expulsion of children was challenged before the Kerala High Court. The court held that the expulsion of students on the ground that it was their fundamental duty to sing the national anthem was upheld. 

However, on a further appeal by the students before the Supreme Court, it held that the students had not committed any offence under the Prevention of Insult to National Honor Act, 1971 . Also, there was no law through which their fundamental rights under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution could be curtailed. And also it was held that expulsion of children from school violated the right of freedom not to speak under Article 19(1)(a).

Some of the important cases relating to the freedom of speech and expression are as follows:

People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India [16]

This case challenged the validity of Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, which stated that if there occurred any public emergency, or in the interest of public safety, the Central Government or the State Government or any other officials were authorized to take temporary possession of any telegraph, on behalf of the government. Two conditions were observed while dealing with this case:

• The occurrence of public emergency 
• In the interest of public safety

For the application of the provisions of Section 5(2), these two conditions were the sine qua non . If any of these two conditions were not present, the government had no right to exercise its powers under the said Section.

Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India [17]

This case challenged the validity of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1956, on the ground of restriction that it took away or abridged this freedom. The Supreme Court held that an advertisement is a form of speech only if every advertisement was held to be dealing with commerce and trade and not for propagating any idea.

A. Abbas v. Union of India [18]

It is the first case in which the issue of the prior censorship of films came into consideration by the supreme court of India. The petitioner’s film was not given ‘U’ certificate so he challenged the validity of censorship under the criteria as it violated his fundamental rights of freedom of speech and expression. The court, however, held that the motion picture stirs emotions more deeply than any other form of art. Hence pre-censorship was valid and was justified under Article 19(2).

Grounds of restriction

It is necessary to preserve freedom of speech and expression in a democratic country. And it is also necessary to restrict this freedom to maintain social order otherwise some people might misuse this freedom. There are some restrictions imposed through Clause (2) of Article 19 on freedom of speech and expression on certain grounds.

Article 19(2) states that “ nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause ( 1 ) shall affect the operation of the existing law, neither can it prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such type of law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right bestowed by the said sub-clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, friendly relations with foreign states, the security of the State, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence ”.[19]

The ground for restriction is as follows: 

Security of the state  

Article 19(2) imposes reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression in the interest of the state. The term ‘security of the state’ should be distinguished from ‘public order’ as security of the state includes an aggravated form of public order. For e.g., waging war against the state, rebellion, insurrection, etc. The term ‘security of the state’ in Article 19(2) does not only mean danger to the security of the entire country but it also implies danger to the security of a part of states or threat to a part of states. 

Friendly relations with a foreign state 

This ground of restriction was added through the Constitutional First Amendment, 1951. The main objective behind adding this provision was to forbid unrestrained vitriolic propaganda against a foreign-friendly state, which could jeopardize the maintenance of good relations between India and that state. If the freedom of speech and expression disturbs or hampers the friendly relations of India with foreign states, the government has the right to impose a reasonable restriction. 

Public order 

This ground of restriction was also added through the Constitutional First Amendment,1951. A situation had arisen in the case of Romesh Thapar by the Supreme Court and to meet that situation, this ground had been added in the constitution. The word ‘public order’ depicts the sense of public safety, public peace, and peace of the community. In Om Prakash v. Emperor ,[20] it has been said by the judge that anything that disturbs public peace can be said to disturb public order automatically. There is also a test that determines whether an act affects law and order or public order. 

Decency and Morality  

The word to express or say something should be a decent one that it should win the heart of the opposite person and it should not affect the morals of the society. So our Constitution has considered this view and added this ground in our Constitution. On the ground of decency and morality, Sections 292 to 294 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 provides an example of a restriction on the freedom of speech and expression. These are the terms of variable content having no fixed meaning or we can also say that these words are of wide meaning. It varies from society to society and time to time depending upon the morals prevailing in contemporary society. The word morality and decency is not confined to sexual morality only; it has a broader scope.

Contempt of court 

In a democratic country, we know that the judiciary plays an important role in governing a country in a peaceful manner so in such types of situation it is important to respect the institution and its order. What hampers the administrative law? How does anything interfere with justice? We know that there is a limitation in a judicial proceeding and anything that curtails its freedom leads to hampering of the administrative law and also anything can interfere with the decision of justice. 

Contempt of court can be defined in two categories i.e., civil contempt and criminal contempt. Contempt of court has been defined in section 2(a) of the contempt of court act, 1971. Initially ‘truth’ was not a defence under contempt of court but in 2006 an amendment was made to add ‘truth’ as a defence. In the Indirect Tax Practitioner Assn. v. R.K. Jain [21] case, the court has held that truth which is based on the facts should be allowed as a valid defence. 

Elements or essential needed to established a contempt: 

• Making of a valid court order.
• The respondent should have knowledge of that order.
• The respondent should have the ability to render compliance.
• Intentionally or willfully disobey the order.

Defamation 

Article 19(2) prevents any person from making any statement that defames the reputation of another person. One who gets the freedom of any type should not misuse that freedom to hurt or affect the reputation or status of another person. Generally, a statement that injures the reputation of a man results in defamation. The right to free speech is not qualified. So it does not mean to hurt any person’s reputation which is protected under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.  

Incitement to an offence  

This ground was also added by the Constitutional First Amendment act, 1951. It is obvious that freedom of speech and expression does not include the right to incite people to commit an offence. The word ‘offence’ has been described under section 40 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Any type of offence takes place in two ways: 

• By the commission of an act
• By the omission of an act 

Sovereignty and Integrity of India   

To maintain the sovereignty and integrity of a state is the main duty of a government. This ground has been added by the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act, 1963 . 

From the above analysis, it can be stated that grounds contained in Article 19(2) show that they are all concerned with national interest or in the interest of the society. 

Conclusion 

Civil society provides one of the most basic guarantees to citizens i.e., freedom of expression in the context of speech. After concluding we can say that the right to freedom of speech and expression is an important fundamental right, whose scope has been widened to include freedom of the press, right to information which also includes commercial information, right to not speak and right to criticize. 

In the modern world, the  right to freedom of speech does not include only freedom to express one’s view through words but it has also included several means of communication to express one’s views. The right that we talked about is subject to reasonable restriction under Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution. 

To know more about the topic please Click Here. 

References 

• Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)
• Union Of India vs Naveen Jindal & Anr on 23 January 2004, 2920 of 1996
• Virendra v. The State of Punjab, 1957 AIR 896
• Sakal Papers v. Union of India, 1962 AIR 305
• Romesh Thapar v. State of Madras , 1950 AIR 124
•  Indian Express Newspaper v. Union of India, 1986 AIR 515
• https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
• Tata Press Limited v. Mahanagar Telephone Nagar Limited, 1995 SCC (5) 139
• Odyssey Communications (P) Ltd .v. Lokvidayan Sanghatana, 1988 AIR 1642
• Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms, AIR 2001 Delhi 126
• Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar, 1962 AIR 955
• S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram, 1989 SCR (2) 204
• Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, 1978 AIR 597
• Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala, 1987 AIR 748
• People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India, 490 of 2002
• Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India, 1960 AIR 554
• A. Abbas v. Union of India, 1971 AIR 481
• Article 19(2), Constitution of India, 1950.
• AIR 1948 Nag, 199
• Indirect Tax Practitioner Assn. v. R.K. Jain,  NO.15 OF 1997
• The constitution of India, P.M. Bakshi, 8th Edn. ( New Delhi: Universal Law Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., 2007) 
• Indian Penal Code, Ratanlal and Dhirajlal, Thirty-third Edition, 2006

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• Essay On Freedom

Freedom Essay

500+ words essay on freedom.

We are all familiar with the word ‘freedom’, but you will hear different versions from different people if you ask about it. The definition of freedom varies from person to person. According to some people, freedom means doing something as per their wish; for some people, it means taking a stand for themselves. Ultimately, the fact is that every individual wants to be free and lead their life as per their choice.

Freedom Meaning

Freedom is all about a state of independence where individuals can do what they want without any restrictions. We inherit freedom from the day we are born. It is a quality that each individual possesses. Freedom is a feeling that is felt from within. It can also be defined as a state of mind where you have the right to do what you can think of. The concept of freedom is applied to different aspects of life, and it’s not an absolute term.

All societies describe freedom in their aspect. People of different cultures see freedom in different ways, and accordingly, they enjoy their freedom. We should remember that our freedom should not disregard the rights of others. As good human beings, we should respect others’ freedom and not just live freely. We have to consider the rights and the feelings of people around us when living our freedom.

Creative minds flourish in societies that encourage freedom of opinion, thoughts, beliefs, expression, choice, etc.

Indian Freedom Struggle

The Indian freedom struggle is one of the most significant progress in the history of India. In 1600, the Britishers entered India in the name of trade-specific items like tea, cotton and silk and started ruling our country. Later on, they started ruling our country and made our Indian people their slaves. So, our country has to face the most challenging times to gain independence from British rule. In 1857, the first movement against the British was initiated by Mangal Pandey, an Indian soldier.

India also started various movements against the Britishers to get independence from their rule. One of them includes the Civil Disobedience Movement that started against the British salt monopoly. India could not manufacture salt and had to buy it from the British people by paying huge sums.

After we gained independence, India became one country that gave its citizens some freedom with limited restrictions. Now, India is a free country and the world’s largest democracy.

Freedom of India

During the days of struggle with the Britishers, India drafted a Constitution, which became applicable after independence. Our Constitution provides several freedom rights relevant to all Indian citizens equally. More importantly, these rights are constitutionally equal to every citizen.

Our constitutional rights are the right to equality, freedom, right against exploitation, freedom of religion, culture and educational rights, and right to constitutional remedies.

Importance of Freedom

We can understand the actual value of something when we achieve or earn it by sacrificing our lives. Freedom also means liberalisation from oppression, freedom from racism, opposition, discrimination, and other relatable things. Freedom doesn’t allow us to violate and disregard others’ rights.

The Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech is one of the fundamental human rights of an Indian citizen. An individual can convey his emotions, needs, and wants through speech. For a healthy democracy, the right to freedom of speech is essential for the citizens. The framers of the Constitution knew the importance of this right and declared this a Fundamental Right of every Indian citizen. The Constitution of India guarantees the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression under Article 19(1)(a). It entitles every citizen to express an opinion without fearing repression by the Government.

Conclusion of the Freedom Essay

At last, we can sum it up by saying that freedom is not what we think. It is a concept, and everybody has their opinions about it. If we see the idea of freedom more broadly, it is connected with happiness. Similarly, it has added value for other people.

Students of the CBSE Board can get essays based on different topics, such as Republic Day Essay , from BYJU’S website. They can visit our CBSE Essay page and learn more about essays.

Frequently Asked Questions on Freedom Essay

What were the slogans used during the indian struggle for freedom.

Slogans used during the Indian independence movement include ‘Karo ya Maro’ (Do or die), ‘Inqlaab Zindabad’ (Long live the Revolution) and ‘Vande Mataram’ (Praise to Motherland)

What is the meaning of freedom?

In simple words, freedom means the ability to act or change without constraint and also possess the power to fulfil one’s resources.

What are examples of freedom?

Even the act of letting a bird out of the cage is an example of freedom. A woman regaining her independence after ending a controlling or abusive marriage is another instance of freedom achieved.

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