Criticizing Editorials in the New York Times is the Real Threat to Free Speech, Says the New York Times
The newspaper of record has beclowned itself with yet another execrable editorial about “cancel culture,” but if we point this out, then we are obviously part of the problem
It is time to state the obvious: free speech is not a threat to free speech.
Speech about the rights guaranteed us under the First Amendment is not a threat to the rights guaranteed us under the First Amendment.
Similarly, what people say about college professors, or the classroom, or the state of free speech on campus today is not a threat to free speech on campus today. “What people say” is, in fact, free speech, whether they say it on Twitter or in the editorial pages of The New York Times.
If it so chooses, the New York Times can continue to publish wrongheaded editorials about free speech, editorials whose arguments are utterly hostile to free speech, or to academic freedom, or to a robust and vigorous debate in the public square. Editorials hostile to all these things are not a threat to free speech. They are free speech. The New York Times has the right to get it wrong — continuously, endlessly…
