Even speech we don’t like must be allowed at UNC

TO THE EDITOR:

Friday’s letter by Scott Williams entitled, “Tancredo and his beliefs have no place on campus” (April 23) reflects many students’ misconceptions about what the right to free speech is.

Regardless of whether Tancredo actually is a racist, he still has the right to voice his opinion insofar as he does not incite a crowd to violence. If we believe that all people are equal in the eyes of the law, then any right denied to any person must be denied to all. Those who deny a racist, or any individual for that matter, the right to speak his opinion cannot rightly be said to be defenders of minorities. The smallest minority is the individual. The question is whether any individual is being deprived of her rights.

You might contend that no one has a right to speak in a hateful manner towards another person. Why is this so? Well, because we typically we do not like such speech, because we want everyone to be treated with dignity and respect. So the wrong-making feature of such speech is that we do not like it.

However, if we invite such sentiments into our discussion of free speech, we will find ourselves in dire straits indeed — because if we are legitimate in limiting speech simply because we do not like it, we will have crossed the threshold between freedom and fascism.

I disagree with just about every single thing Tancredo has ever had to say, but I will defend his right to say whatever he likes unto death.

Neil Backus
Junior
Philosophy, Political Science