{"id":1013,"date":"2025-10-03T08:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T08:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/10\/03\/2025-10-03-the-bounds-of-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:11:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:11:45","slug":"2025-10-03-the-bounds-of-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/10\/03\/2025-10-03-the-bounds-of-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The bounds of free\u00a0speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Olivia Emerick<\/a> · Copy Chief<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u2014 NYT<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Recent events have opened the floodgates on discourse regarding free speech, censorship and the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks ago, Disney (ABC) briefly suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for his remarks on Charlie Kirk’s assassination. His words were not a critique of Kirk, but of how President Trump and his supporters reacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also likened Trump’s reaction to Kirk’s death to “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Wednesday following Kimmel’s monologue, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), appeared on a right-wing podcast hosted by Benny Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to CNN, Carr said, “Frankly, when you see stuff like this \u2013 I mean, look. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. I think you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. And again, you know, the FCC is gonna have remedies that we could look at,” Carr added later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same day, Sinclair and Nexstar, which own dozens of stations affiliated with ABC, announced that they would indefinitely preempt the show. After Kimmel was pulled from the air, people from both the right and left erupted in defense of free speech. According to a YouGov poll on the event, “Two-thirds (68%) of Americans believe it is unacceptable for the government to pressure broadcasters to remove shows that include speech it disagrees with.” After seeing the public’s reaction, ABC reinstated “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on its stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, you probably claim to support free speech. Most of us read “1984” or “Animal Farm” in high school; we know it’s objectively bad when a person’s voice is taken away from them. But what if it’s someone we disagree with? What if it’s someone who is not using his voice to generate constructive discourse, but to spread hate and discord?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can see how this balance plays out in mass media, but also at a smaller scale on social media and even on our own campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free speech is a good thing \u2013 obviously. We should feel able to have differing opinions, compare one thought to another and come away with something new. We should also feel able to criticize those in power without fear of censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we should not use free-dom of speech to defend saying harmful, offensive or derogatory words. As Christians, this should be clear. And yet, freedom of speech has become the go-to justification of people spewing bigotry: “This is America, I can say whatever I want.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should be thankful for free speech. We should be able to recognize when it is stripped from others, even people with whom we disagree. But on a personal level, we should never use it as a justification for hate speech. Even if you have the freedom to say something, it doesn’t mean you should. Is it helpful? Is it constructive? Or is it causing more division in an already hate-filled world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s concerning that a critique of the president and a small joke at his expense led to Kimmel being temporarily pulled from the air \u2013 especially since the administration claims to be a staunch proponent of free speech, as did Kirk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent events have opened the floodgates on discourse regarding free speech, censorship and the media. Two weeks ago, Disney (ABC) briefly suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for his remarks on Charlie Kirk’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[27,32,106],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staff-editorials","tag-editorial","tag-issue-2025-10-03","tag-olivia-emerick"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",591,680,false],"thumbnail":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",130,150,false],"medium":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",261,300,false],"medium_large":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",591,680,false],"large":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",591,680,false],"1536x1536":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",591,680,false],"2048x2048":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2025-10-03-05-the-bounds-of-free-speech-1.jpg",591,680,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Recent events have opened the floodgates on discourse regarding free speech, censorship and the media. Two weeks ago, Disney (ABC) briefly suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for his remarks on Charlie Kirk's","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1967,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/1967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}