In America, your opinion can cost you your job, your student status on a college campus and future opportunities – if you choose to express it. What the framers of the Constitution feared, is now a growing debate over free speech and censorship.

Over the span of months, President Donald Trump’s administration has changed its perspective on free speech, a platform the president and his cabinet campaigned on. Following the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the rise of “hateful speech” has been used to fuel firing, investigations and censorship. 

Whether in schools or on social media, the right to speak freely is essential. But, free speech does not mean free from social consequences. If we just follow the government and do what is told, we lose our ability to think for ourselves, to question and speak out. Having opinions that differ is important as it protects individual freedoms, challenges us to see a viewpoint in a different perspective and encourages progress.

Hate Speech is any form of expression used to vilify, humiliate or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons. Censorship is the suppression of speech, communication or information. There is also self-censorship, the act of refraining in fear that others would see it as objectionable. While hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, speech that incites violence is not protected.

On his first day back in office, Trump signed Executive Order 14149, restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship. In Section 1 of the order, Trump stated that former president Joe Biden had “censored American” speech on “online platforms” and they “infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American Citizens.”

Section 2 secures the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech, ensuring “no federal government officer, employee or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

Trump Administration Contradiction

However, nine months later, Trump’s administration is contradicting its beliefs. This raises serious concerns about how they will use “hate speech” to undermine Americans’ First Amendment rights.

“There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a recent interview following the Kirk assassination. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” 

Quickly after, Bondi amended her statement on X, saying “any hate speech that crosses the line into violence is not protected by the first amendment.” But the damage was done. 

Kirk, despite his controversial beliefs, believed in free speech, and acknowledged that hateful speech is in fact protected in the First Amendment.

“Hate speech does not exist legally in America,” Kirk said in an X post on May 2, 2024. “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.” 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, posted on Sept. 15, that “America will not host foreigners who celebrate the death of our fellow citizens.” He stated that “visa revocations” are under way for those “cheering on the public assassination of a political figure” and said to “prepare to be deported.”

But, just because the government doesn’t agree with some of its citizens doesn’t mean they should be punished. Truthfully speaking, the Trump administration team is using Kirk’s death as a reason to start censoring. It is evident in Kirk’s previous tweet on X, that he believed all speech is protected. This raises the question; why is the government trying to censor the voices of the American people?

Censoring citizens will give the government power to control what Americans speak on and perceive in the media. Censorship is used to shape the public perception, control access to information and suppress dissent. They control the public viewpoint to spread propaganda. Propaganda is dissemination of facts and information used to influence public opinion. 

This week, the Pentagon released new restrictions for journalists covering the Department of Defense, including a new requirement of journalists needing to sign a pledge not to gather information unless it has been authorized for release. This shows ways the government uses propaganda as a tool to maintain control over information.

“Agreeing not to look where the government doesn’t want you to look and, by extension, not to print what it doesn’t want you to print, is propaganda, not journalism,” Seth Stern of Fress Press Foundation said in a Times Magazine article.

Impact on Educators

Even teachers and educators are being targeted. The Texas Education Agency Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, sent a letter to all superintendents across the state. 

He acknowledges that school educators have posted “inappropriate content” on social media following the death of Charlie Kirk. Morath advises superintendents to document any “vile“ content to TEA’s Education Educator Division, in order for the educator to be reviewed and investigated. So far, there have been 180 complaints.

“While the exercise of free speech is a fundamental right we are all blessed to share, it does not give carte blanche authority to celebrate or sow violence against those that share different beliefs and perspectives,” Morath said. 

In the letter, his argument is that teachers work to serve more than “5.5 million impressionable young minds.” However, the TEA Code of Ethics’s only mention of social media is that it prohibits teachers having “inappropriate communication” with students with “social network” being an example. 

Texas is an “at will employment” state meaning an employee can be fired at any time, for any reason provided that is not illegal. While they are not being arrested for their posts, they are still losing their jobs and livelihood, a choice made by their employer. 

Teachers should retain the right to post their opinions. How would students see their posts? Why would they? Social media is part of teachers’ personal lives, the TEA has no right to investigate or fire teachers based on their opinions, especially since their codes of ethics does not explicitly outline what is or is not allowed. While the code mentions “morals” the interpretation of morals can be argued, and vastly differs between individuals. 

Media Censorship

On Monday Sept. 22, ABC announced the show will return on Tuesday, however Tuesday morning, two Television networks, Sinclair and Nexstar, both partial owners of ABC, said they will prevent Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Before, on Sept. 15, ABC “indefinitely” suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show after Kimmel’s monologue over Kirk’ s death. Walt Disney’s valuation dropped by 6.4 billion since dropping Kimmel. 

“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 in his monologue.

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, publicly stated Kimmel’s commentary was “truly sick.” Speaking on a right-wing podcast, he warned that the network could “do this the easy or hard way” implying that some networks could lose their broadcast licensing if the networks didn’t self-censor. 

Following this news, American Civil Liberties Union wrote an open letter with over 400 artists, actors, journalists signing the right to defend and preserve their constitutionally protected rights. Jennifer Aniston, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel were a few who signed the letter in support of Kimmel.

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” Walt Disney said in their statement. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

This is not the only example of government censorship in the last century. The Red Scare was a period of time in the United States where the public feared communists and left-wing ideologies. After World War 2, during the second Red Scare, Americans feared the Soviet Union and their communist ideology. After being announced as a new lead role, actress Jean Muir was fired a few days later after being accused of being connected to the Communist Party. Her name was listed in the Red Channels, a blacklist of actors, musicians and artists who “sympathized with the far left.” Despite Muir stating she was not a communist, she was blacklisted from television.  

In February, the Trump Administration team blocked Associated Press journalists from being in the Oval Office, unable to cover events. Trump blocked the news outlet because they continued to use Gulf of Mexico, instead of Gulf of America, defying Trump’s new executive order. A month later, a federal judge ordered the White House to allow Associated Press journalists to return to the Oval Office, ruling it is unlawful to block the news service.

Why Protecting All Speech Matters

Government censorship is not a world anyone would want to be in. Before the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, the government had restricted freedom of speech. For more than 50 years there has been an Emergency law to give “unlimited powers” to prosecute dissidents and protestors. In 2020, they had the cybercrime law to silence voices online that visited the government, and they were punishing them by imprisoning them.

Countries like Syria demonstrate how dangerous it is when government officials take the rights of citizens. 

If the First Amendment restricts hateful speech, it will further erode rights in the Constitution. Who will decide what is hateful and what will they consider hateful speech? There is a risk that hateful speech laws can be used unevenly, targeting those with opposing beliefs. It creates an unfair and unjust system. 

Despite hate speech being morally wrong, it is still technically a right. Protecting speech, including vile speech, is of utmost necessity. Freedom of speech is an essential component of a free democracy. It is the foundation our very nation was built on. Diverse beliefs and holding the government accountable is how change happens. 

Free speech has never been equally protected as many believe it to be. Marginalized groups have already been losing their rights, and their voices.  

Founded in 1966, the Black Panther Party confronted politicians and challenged the police, and protected Black citizens from brutality. They provided food, clothing and transportation. They wanted to change American society. But the FBI viewed the party as an enemy to the U.S. government and tried to dismantle it by using counterintelligence programs like using agent provocators, sabotage, misinformation and lethal force. 

In 2020, George Floyd died after a police officer pinned him to the ground, with the police officer’s knee into his neck until he was unresponsive. His death amplified the Black Lives Matter movement, which aimed to fight against police brutality and racism. However, during the BLM movement, some conservatives were posting hateful, racist and offensive posts, and even launching the All Lives Matter movement. 

Amidst this, conservatives lost their jobs for their social media posts that were racist. One police officer was fired over calling BLM protesters “terrorists” and a writer for “Law & Order” spin off was also fired because of his Facebook post, where he is seen holding a rifle on his front porch, captioning it “Curfew.” 

This demonstrates that it doesn’t matter what party an individual is a part of, no one is truly safe. People lost their jobs for expressing views in the same way as condemning Kirk. Hate speech is determined by what party holds power in the moment, so it’s very dangerous to make any amendment to free speech. 

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), established that public schools cannot censor student speech. But then Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988), the court ruled schools can censor students for any “legitimate pedagogical concern” leaving it up to administrators for interpretation. Censoring youth will make them scared to write, fearing they will be penalized, and grow up thinking that it’s okay to be censored.

As of 2021, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has found that 1.4 million undergraduate schools may have been punished or threatened with discipline for their speech. 

The topic of free speech has been an ongoing issue for centuries and is far from over. 

*Editor’s note: Faye Zayed is a student writer. All views expressed in the commentary are her own and are independent of the district, Rouse High School and the publication.