The Right Needs to Conserve Free Speech
The latest national battle over speech follows the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Jimmy Kimmel, a TV personality of modest talents, opined on his ABC show on Sept. 15 that the murderer was associated with the “MAGA gang”—which he wasn’t. The wrath of the right descended on Mr. Kimmel, who was suspended for a week, then reinstated.
“In the wake of the tragedy, Kimmel should have waited for things to cool down before speaking out,” says Harvey Silverglate, a lawyer who’s been fighting in the civil-liberties trenches for more than five decades. But he insists that “we should not be afraid of free speech. Free speech is what saves us from civil war.”