Free Speech for a select few: A critical analysis of Doug Ford’s anti-protest measures on universities
Doug Ford’s”Upholding Free Speech on Ontario’s University and College Campuses” law, despite supposedly allowing for the freedom of everyone to have the platform to speak out their views, regardless of left or right — at least in theory, is in reality an attack on democracy and the means to resist far right viewpoints through protest.
The far right would have the populace believe that it is the “social justice left”, supposedly all fully subsumed in the ideology of totalitarian Communism, who are the ones attacking democracy by destroying their rights to speak what they want regardless of how hateful they are via violent protest. Yet looking at the law itself, it could be seen that the law, rather than allowing for a marketplace of ideas, hypocritically upholds the ability of the far right to espouse any view they want to, regardless of how hateful they are, while shutting down any resistance to the potential legitimization of far right beliefs.
Ford’s new measures requires that Universities and colleges should be places for open discussion and free inquiry. and that the university/college should not attempt to shield students from ideas or opinions that they disagree with or find offensive. It claims that while members of the university/college are free to criticize and contest views expressed on campus, they may not obstruct or interfere with the freedom of others to express their views. Any student body that refuses to do so, would get defunded. Any university that refuse to uphold these views? Also defunded. Student discipline measures, the law states must be taken against any organization that tries to supposedly suppress free speech on campus.
Enforcement of anti-protest measures would be monitored by HEQCO, which would undertake research on campus free speech and to assess each institution and provide advice to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
While framed in the guise of protecting democracy, this free speech bill sets a dangerous precedent with regards to dissent against the proliferation of far right viewpoints in society. The anti-protest laws effectively can allow the government to stifle any dissident against the platforming of the far right. Ford’s directive cites the University of Chicago statement prohibiting “ongoing disruptive protesting”. Yet he has given such vague criteria for what constitutes disruptive protesting and this in turn leaves the road open to prohibit all protests if the far right feels that they’ve stumbled out of line. Who decides what period is too long? Who decides how big a protest can become before it qualifies as “disruptive”? The new anti protest law opens many loopholes for abuse by far rightists whenever they feel that “social justice warriors” have supposedly overstepped their bounds.
Even worse, the potential for universities to develop is stifled. If a university steps out of line, they can get defunded by the government for resisting this free speech law. This in turn would force them to cut back on classes rather than allow students to learn from a wide variety of programs and topics and further broaden their horizon as they university has to defund programs themselves just to survive with less government funding. Rather than foster greater education and understanding, anti-protest measures may end up weakening the ability of universities to deliver education by forcing at gunpoint universities to accept far right viewpoints or to face defunding.
The only groups that would get away and make any sort of speech or ideological outreach, regardless of how toxic it is is the far right and their apologists, of which Doug Ford has been quite comfortable acquinating himself with. Months before becoming PC leader, Doug Ford expressed his support for Trump like right-populist politics in the US at a event hosted by the far right Rebel Media podcast. Ezra Levant the founder of Rebel Media, has himself expressed support for Doug Ford. Ford himself has also appointed ex-Rebel Media Host Andrew Lawton as a PC Candidate despite the latter being expelled from The Rebel for making homophobic posts, and hosted Jordan Peterson at the Ontario PC Youth BBQ. Elements of the far right such as Faith Goldy and the Proud Boys have supported Ford’s run for premier, and given how they themselves have railed against the supposed “stifling” of their ideological beliefs in universities, the new free speech law gives the far right a weapon to cut through any attempts to resist the spread of their ideological beliefs.
The far right and their apologists may argue, in support of Ford’s ideas, that everyone should have the freedom of speech and thus their voices have the “right” to be heard. However, the freedom to say anything does not mean that everyone has the right to be heard. Just as one may espouse hateful opinions, so may others simply refuse to tune in to said hateful opinions. Freedom of speech does not mean that everyone is forced to hear out what one says strapped to a chair. If one has toxic sociopolitical worldviews, they are not entitled an audience. People can choose to simply turn them off or just ignore them. The far right has willingly misinterpreted freedom of speech as “we should have no accountability for our worldviews and everyone must be forced to listen and debate with us”.
And of course there’s also the fact that providing platform to those that want to argue the merits of genocide is never a justified position in any shape or form. If a racist tries to deny the holocaust or actively call for a white ethnostate, they should not be surprised that people would try to shut them down. Yet even despite the moral bankruptcy of platforming such insidious ideas, advocates of platforming of the far right argue that we should give the far right the space to espouse their repulsive worldviews is that because their worldviews are reactionary and/or repulsive, when exposed to an audience or challenged in respectable debate, they will be rejected outright and debunked within seconds, which would, according to this train of thought, weaken the far right rather than strengthen it. However, this claim ignores the fact that the extreme right has an entirely different perception of what constitutes truth or lies. Bring them to debate? Rather than admit that they’re wrong they will only double down their convictions and perceive the outcome of the debate as the further proliferation of their toxic ideologies.
Let’s say for instance, you have an extreme pro-lifer, climate denier, or a holocaust denier that is invited to speak what they want, and then you decide to challenge them to a debate. You bring up every fact at your disposal and expect to trounce the debate. Expect that…it doesn’t go that way. The extremist on the other side could, even if every ounce of evidence is used against them, claim that the groups that challenged their worldviews are influenced by propaganda but their fringe views are somehow the “empirical truth”. They will spread this idea that they won because they supposedly laid out the truth to their followers, and their followers may be inclined to take their word for it rather than have a serious look in the mirror about the bankruptcy of the ideas that fringe/extreme speakers are trying to legitimize. Groups like neo nazis already have a warped view of the way the world works. What is twisted and warped or just plain wrong, to them it’s the truth “supposedly” suppressed for generations. If someone is dead set in arguing morally bankrupt positions and have already adapted a distorted worldview where their argument was already in the right, how would debating work to educate the population on the bankruptcy of their ideas
Thus it is clear that allowing outright neo nazis to express their worldviews does little to weaken their worldviews. By contrast, the less one does to give space for their worldviews or even seek to undermine their worldviews, the weaker they end up becoming. After getting punched, Richard Spencer worries that all he will be remembered as is the guy that got punched rather than for his neo nazi ideas. Furthermore, after a protests directed against his planned college tour, Spencer, rather than claim that the lack of debate against his murderous views only makes him stronger as Milo tried to claim before him, admits that his anti-fascist opponents may actually be winning. So much for the idea that not debating the far right actually makes them stronger as they prey on fears about a monolithic social justice conspiracy stifling their rights to free speech.
Ultimately, Doug Ford’s “Upholding Free Speech on Ontario’s University and College Campuses” law, rather than protect democracy from a supposed monolithic social justice conspiracy seeking to drive humanity to totalitarianism, actually weakens democracy. It ensures freedom of speech for only a select few far rightists in the sense that they are allowed to ramble on and on about the inherent “evils” of any policy to their left, while suppressing any efforts to hold them to account to the consequence of their worldviews by forcing everyone to either listen to them or simply remain silent. Any university or student association that resist this policy will be defunded or even possibly disbanded. While proponents of giving free speech to far right figures have argued that greater exposure through debate would weaken the far right, there is little evidence to show that greater exposure would simply weaken the far right, especially since the far right itself, despite accusing others of living in echo chambers and unable to see the wrongness of their ideological convictions, lives in an echo chamber of it’s own construction where every single time their ideology has been proven wrong or discredited has been seen as a victory simply because they believe what they believe in are the empirical truth and that they win for espousing their viewpoints no matter how many times saner heads shoot them down even in debate. Ultimately, rather than preserving free speech and the fostering of intellectual development for universities, Ford’s own anti protest laws only allow far right voices to run rampant among universities with little ways to hold far right voices accountable — and little guarantee that the “accepted” way of doing so, namely debate and discussion, would work as a means of preventing the spread of far right viewpoints in society.