‘It’s not about the flag; it’s about free expression’

I would like to thank the Bangor Daily News for fairly representing my comments in the Nov. 3-4 article “Flag-burning ‘lesson’ provokes UMaine student.”

The article, however, should have been headlined “Free-expression lesson provokes UMaine student.” It’s not about the flag; it’s about free expression.

I have discussed examples like burning the Constitution and the flag in my history of mass communication course for many years with hundreds of students without incident until this semester in order to ask what free expression means.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s definition of free expression contains the key. He wrote in 1929 that the “principle of free thought” is not about “free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the

thought that we hate.”

I ask students to think about the “thought that we hate.” Is it abortion? Holocaust denial? The Ku Klux Klan? Gay rights? If we don’t tolerate thought that we hate, we don’t believe in the First Amendment.

We talk about John Milton’s plea for free speech in the 1640s. He urged letting truth and falsehood “grapple” in a “free and open encounter” in the pursuit of truth.

We talk about John Stuart Mill writing in the 1800s that if “all mankind minus one” is heard, we cannot learn the truth. We must hear everyone’s opinion because it might contain a grain of truth. If any opinion is silenced, our beliefs are nothing more than biases.

The United States has an abysmal history of committing violence against free expression. Within a decade of adopting the First Amendment, Congress passed a sedition act making it illegal for several years to falsely criticize the government. Threats and violence plagued the media supporting social change of all kinds.

I tell the class about abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison, who burned the Constitution in the 1850s, calling it a “covenant with death” and an “agreement with Hell” because it permitted slavery. Garrison already had experienced arrest, jailing, beatings and being dragged through the streets with a noose around his neck.

To make this history relevant, I talk about burning the flag. Not to espouse it, but because it is a current example of hated thought that resonates with students. In its time, abolishing slavery was a hated thought equivalent to burning the flag today, as were women’s suffrage, child labor and the eight-hour workday.

I try to emphasize the dangers faced by those who express thought that we hate. I want students to understand what tremendous courage it took for journalists like Garrison to express ideas that threatened or took their

lives – the courage it took to burn the Constitution.

To illustrate how much courage this takes, I tell students they have the First Amendment right to burn the flag. If they did, though, they probably would be arrested, and I wouldn’t be able to bail them out. Eventually, probably, the Supreme Court would get them off.

As a rhetorical device, I discuss credit for burning the Constitution, as Garrison did, or the flag. I tell them no one has ever followed through in previous years, that I wouldn’t have the courage to do what Garrison did, and I don’t expect them to, either. I have been using these examples for many years, and students have accepted this discussion in previous years without incident.

The student who elected to be interviewed for the BDN article should be commended for exercising her right to free expression. She understood the purpose of discussing free expression, including flag-burning.

I have received e-mails from a handful of thoughtful conservatives who added important ideas to this discussion. Shouldn’t free expression of thought that liberals hate be included – like the cartoons of Mohammad published by a Danish newspaper or burning the Quran? How about anti-abortion or anti-gay rights messages? Or school prayer and creationism?

Whatever the issue we discuss in the context of the history of free expression, students seem to feel the class is relaxed and open. In a routine anonymous midterm evaluation, students wrote that I am “very open to all ideas and always listen to opinions,” “considerate . . . of the students’ needs and views.” I “take everyone’s opinion in class and integrate it or add it.” One even appreciated my humor.

I have my own theory of free expression based on the ideas of Milton, Mill, Holmes and others. It goes, “Truth minus lies equals lies; truth plus lies equals truth.” We need to hear all opinions, true and false, hated and

cherished, to reach any semblance of truth – that’s why we need free expression.

To protect thought that we hate, I support the solution proposed by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who wrote in 1927 that the antidote to dangerous ideas is “more speech, not enforced silence.”

I trust we can look forward to more speech about free expression of thought that we hate. Every opinion should be heard.

Paul Grosswiler is an associate professor of communication and journalism at the University of Maine.