They are coming for free speech

It's another case of "freedom for me but not for thee."

Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull is a public domain work.

America’s founding documents declared King George a despot and a tyrant, so naturally we enshrined broad rights in our Constitution, including an expansive right to speak our minds in the First Amendment. Unlike people in other countries, we can insult our leaders, spread Nazi propaganda, and indulge in hate speech with only social, not legal, consequences.

But there are limits even here. Laws cannot limit what we are protesting, but they can limit where and when we protest, forbid us from inciting crimes, and prohibit us from groundlessly harming others or their reputations.

That last one is a major – and complicated – exception to our First Amendment rights: we have no right to defame others. Defamation is negligently making untruthful statements that injure the reputation of another, either in writing (libel) or verbally (slander).

When it concerns public figures, though, particularly politicians, our First Amendment rights to speak and debate are strongest. We still cannot share information about them that we know or should know to be false, but we have more leeway to be wrong accidentally.

A case called New York Times v. Sullivan recognized this right. According to David Enrich’s Murder the Truth, Sullivan responded to a series of lawsuits brought by Southern governmental authorities that tried to make it too expensive for national media to cover the civil rights movement, not because of defamation, but because the Southern authorities didn’t like the coverage. The decision was uncontroversial, even revered, for decades after it was rendered.

A full-page newspaper advertisement published in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. It was paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. The advertisement was used as an exhibit in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). Public domain image.

But like so many Constitutional rights, this right has come to be at risk as billionaire donors like Peter Thiel, Republican politicians like Donald Trump, and Republican-appointed judges like Clarence Thomas work to reverse it.

At least for the other side of the aisle.

Once again, this is a case of “freedom for me but not for thee.” Rich donors and largely Republican politicians want the ability to lie about the rest of us while “opening up” the libel laws against whomever they proclaim to be their enemies.

This is the legal equivalent of the Charlie Kirk situation: just as Kirk could say terrible things while people who quoted him after his death were hounded online or fired, Trump wants free reign to commit fraud and spread conspiracy theories while suing the Des Moines Register for publishing a poll that made the wrong call, threatening newspapers and networks for unfavorable coverage, and siccing the FCC on stations whose late-night comedy offends his delicate sensibilities. There are even signs he plans to start sending masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after citizens whose speech hurts his feelings. Such thin skin. So anti-democratic.

This isn’t just a national issue. With book bans, teaching bans, and ag gag laws, Iowa’s GOP has been getting in on the anti-free speech action. Meanwhile, true to form, it set up a mouthpiece at the University of Iowa, the ironically named “Center for Intellectual Freedom.”

The Center’s vaunted desire to “provide a space where lively discussion on topics can occur” extends to including just three Democrats in its 26-member board, seeking closed doors for its inaugural meeting and, when that wasn’t possible, setting invitation-only speaking privileges, an agenda full of unfounded, right-wing talking points, and making the “open” meeting so difficult to get into that one state legislator needed “6 phone calls, 4 emails, and repeated texts” to get in. That legislator – a member of the Iowa House’s Higher Education Committee, but a Democrat – was, of course, neither invited nor allowed to speak.

Free speech does not by itself make us a democracy, but there is no democracy without it. Share your concerns with your friends, your elected officials, and especially candidates for office in 2026 before we all find out what they come for after it’s gone.

Kelcey Patrick-Ferree and Shannon Patrick live in Iowa.

Originally published in the Press-Citizen on December 13, 2025.