By Ron Paul, MD
April 1, 2025
We do not have free speech to talk about the weather. Our Founders, particularly James Madison who drafted the Bill of Rights, understood that our rights are not privileges granted to us by government. No, it was understood at the founding that these basic natural rights outlined by Madison were granted by our Creator and thus no mere mortal could take them away. And first among these is the First Amendment which recognizes that most basic of our natural rights: the right to express ourselves in any way we wish.
Unfortunately the US government has not always been in accord with this sentiment and has many times in our history been at war with our freedom of speech. From the alien and sedition acts at the beginning of our republic to Abraham Lincoln's war on speech to the jailing of antiwar activists during both World Wars to Kent State, the political class is all for free speech unless it is threatening to the political class.
Recently a new front has been opened in the war on free speech and it is one that Americans must take seriously. On university campuses across the country students - both American and foreign guests - have taken to protesting US support for Israel's actions in Gaza, where tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed.
The political class in the United States is determined to defend Israel from its critics and has responded to these protests by threatening and blackmailing the universities if they do not crack down on speech the powers-that-be do not like. Both Presidents Biden and Trump have used the power of US government funding to demand a crackdown on speech they don't like, with President Trump recently pulling 400 million dollars in federal funding for Columbia University if they don't silence the protesters.
The real scandal is that nearly every US university - both public and "private" - is government funded in the first place. But for politicians to use the power of the purse to deny students the right to express themselves - as long as peaceful - just adds insult to injury.
Last week a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University was arrested on the street by plainclothes government agents for reportedly simply writing an editorial in her university newspaper expressing her views on the Israel/Palestine conflict. She faces deportation from the country. And she is not alone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly bragged about sending hundreds of students home because they express a political position he disagrees with. Others - including American citizens - have been expelled from their schools and have even had their degrees rescinded. For peacefully expressing a political position that powerful people in Washington disagree with.
You may also agree with the political position of these students. But to cheer their punishment by the US government is to turn your back on the founding principles of this country. Freedom of speech is a natural right not reserved for American citizens but for all of humanity. And it has been a natural right worth defending for nearly 250 years.
First they came for foreign students expressing controversial positions and many Americans cheered because they were not foreign and did not like the opinions. But make no mistake: this war on speech will not end with only foreigners being punished. It never does.