Below is my column in The Hill on how Democrats in some blue states are moving from censoring speech to compelling speech in renewed attacks on free speech. They are facing resistance in the courts despite determined efforts to force others to mouth approved viewpoints.
Here is the column:
More than five years ago, I wrote in these pages of a growing trend on the left toward compelled speech — the forcing of citizens to repeat approved views and values. It is an all-too-familiar pattern. Once a faction assumes power, it will often first seek to censor opposing views and then compel the endorsement of approved views.
This week, some of those efforts faced setbacks and challenges in blue states like Washington and Illinois.
In Washington state, many have developed what seems a certain appetite for compelled speech. For example, Democrats recently pushed through legislation that would have compelled priests and other clerics to rat out congregants who confessed to certain criminal acts. Despite objections from many of us that the law was flagrantly unconstitutional, the Democratic-controlled legislature and Democratic governor pushed it through.
The Catholic Church responded to the enactment by telling priests that any compliance would lead to their excommunication.
U.S. District Court Judge Iain D. Johnston enjoined the law, and the Trump Administration sued the state over its effort to turn priests into sacramental snitches. Only after losing in court did the state drop its efforts.
In the meantime, the University of Washington has been fighting to punish professors who refuse to conform to its own orthodox values. In 2022, Professor Stuart Reges triggered a firestorm when he refused to attach a prewritten “Indigenous land acknowledgement” statement to his course syllabi. Such statements are often accompanied by inclusive and tolerant language of fostering different viewpoints in an academic community. However, when Reges decided to write his own land acknowledgment, university administrators dropped any pretense of tolerance.
Reges was not willing to copy and paste onto his syllabus a statement in favor of the indigenous land claim of “the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.” Instead, he wrote, “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property, the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”
His reference to the labor theory is a nod to John Locke, who believed in natural rights, including the right to property created through one’s labor.
In my forthcoming book, “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” I explore the foundations of the American Republic, including the influence of Locke. The Framers would have been appalled by efforts to compel speech as an example of “democratic despotism.” The Framers saw the greatest danger to our system as coming not from a tyrant but the tyranny of the majority.
Reges came face-to-face with the rage of a majority faction defied. He was told that although the university land acknowledgment was optional, his own acknowledgment was not allowed because it contributed to “a toxic environment.”
This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in Reges’s favor and allowed his lawsuit to move forward. Judge Daniel Bress wrote that “student discomfort with a professor’s views can prompt discussion and disapproval. But this discomfort is not grounds for the university retaliating against the professor.”
Reges’s lawsuit, brought with the help of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, is a major victory for free speech.
However, the desire to both silence and compel speech continues to grow in tandem.
In Illinois, Democrats have taken up the cudgel of compelled speech on the issue of abortion. Again, over objection that the law was unconstitutional, Democrats and Gov. JB Pritzker passed a law that said that all healthcare providers, including pro-life and religious pregnancy help centers, must extoll to their patients the “benefits” of abortion, even if they have faith-based objections to abortion.
The Catholic Conference of Illinois and other religious organizations are represented by the Becket Fund, a leading defender of religious liberty in the courts.
A district court recently struck down the law, but Illinois refuses to give up. It is appealing the case in the hope of forcing pro-life health professionals to espouse the benefits of abortions.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, Chicago’s archbishop, warned this week that “The Church’s pro-life mission is under attack in Illinois” and called on every Catholic to oppose “this inhumane mandate.”
Note that neither the constitutional guarantee of free speech nor that of free exercise deterred these efforts to compel speech. It is the very face of democratic despotism as the majority brushes aside disfavored views and values as “toxic” or “harmful.” It shows how, 250 years after our founding, the seeds for majoritarian tyranny remain in this (like in any) democratic system.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.
Trying to change the way people speak is thought by philosophers like Wittgenstein to change the way people think.
It’s a form of mind control. It’s an affront to freedom of thought.
I don’t see any difference between forcing people under your control to:
say “pregnant person” rather than “pregnant woman”
say “Trump Kennedy Center” rather than “Kennedy Center”
say “xe” instead of “he”
say “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico”
Both are examples of attempting to shape the way free people think. I reject both as brimming over with hubris.
These pockets of felony stupid in Washington and Illinois occur against a purpose built Constitution that protects the individual from the “madding crowd”. What troubles this writer the back story. There had to be discussion in the decision making about the survivability of the measure against constitutional scrutiny. Or was there? There is the line of reasoning of Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez that the Constitution is just not helpful. Was that the guiding principle for the decision? It is encouraging that these measures were chewed up and spit out by the Article lll people. That is the process of “they came at us in the same old way, and we sent them along in the same old way”. But the back story informs how best to fashion civic and political speech to neutralize these pockets of stupid root and branch. Not to mention the savings taxpayers in those pockets get when foolish measures and laws do not have to be litigated.
Not sure why Professor Turley is painting this as a Democratic party problem. Democrats and Republicans are trying to suppress academic freedom in the name of preferred political objectives.
How is the UW story any different from Texas A&M firing Professor McCoul after she was confronted by a student who disagreed with a discussion on gender theory? Her dismissal, which violated TAMU’s commitment to academic freedom, was in response to political pressure from Texas political leaders and the governor. This sends a chilling message to the entire academic community in Texas.
UW and TAMU took similar steps to erode academic freedom, yet Turley chooses to act like this is only a problem on the Left.
Both parties at fault, and the article should have reflected that, unless Turley’s primary motivation is only to fuel the “Age of Rage.”
Democrats and Republicans are trying to suppress academic freedom in the name of preferred political objectives.
Gonna get that Democrat excuse of attempting to craft a moral equivalency in here before dodging and disappearing.
At least in the topics he chooses to write about, Prof. Turley seems to apply a double-standard in his conception of free speech.
That said, I applaud J.D. Vance for marginalizing Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes as fringe voices who are a disgrace to Republican values. The political party that best disciplines its fringe will win in 2026 and ’28.
Are you still a Democrat?
Those who can’t tell the difference between Democrats and Independents are drinking the MAGA koolaid. Winning is all about attracting Independents. Writing off I’s as the same as D’s is a loser mentality. It’s a surefire way to feel good about your purity and lose elections.
JT
Good article and it’s spot on with the tyranny of the majority on display in the blue states and liberal universities. Evidencing their relentless attacks on freedom of speech, expression and religious values. Who are these blue haired demons to decide what beliefs or views are toxic or harmful? Is anti abortion toxic to the unborn child or to the young person that follows their path only to later live in feelings of guilt, shame and remorse? These people are evil and every American should be made fully aware of their pursuit, you will own nothing and you will like it.
The force of the effort to “fundamentally change” the United States of America was always in one direction-Marxism/Communism. Fortunately in these cases of compelled beliefs by the Government (Communism), some lawful Judges saw the danger and Constitutional violations. However, we have seen through the last 10 months that not all Judges are lawful or Constitutional. I renew my call for Criminal penalties for those responsible for willful Constitutional violations by anyone in the United States…….
always in one direction? Can you cite your sources please?
WEF
Globalism/Israel
You will own nothing and you will like it.
The Federal Reserve
Defund the Police
Division and Identify politics
always in one direction? Can you cite your sources please?
Because it’s only one direction? More sources than the ones mentioned in the article? You are far more entertaining when a circus ringmaster has you perched on a stool, happily clapping your flippers and barking while balancing a beach ball on your nose.
Sealioning:
Sealioning is a form of adolescent trolling where someone persistently demands answers to insincere questions to provoke a response, often pretending to seek a civil debate while actually trying to exhaust or frustrate others with no intention of real discourse. This behavior is characterized by a facade of politeness and a refusal to acknowledge previous answers.
Often used as a tactic by whining Democrats in online forums and blogs
FYI…Yale…funded with billions of Taxpayer Dollars directly, via States, non-profit status, via federal, loan guarantees both for the student, cities, and directly.
Defund IT! End all Federally funding!
Yale has Exactly ZERO Republican representation…a statistical impossibility, based on ability
We need to go scorched Earth on Democrats….I want them Abolished!
that was yesterday’s column stupid.
I would bet that he’s not stupid
But you are.