Boler: All Speech is Not Free

Boler: All Speech Is Not Free

Boler argues two things, first that all speech is not equal and secondly, that it is the obligation of educators to require students to “critically analyze” all speech, including biased and racist hate speech directed at the marginalized groups by those in the dominant culture, or the culture of power.

In his first argument, Boler states that although all Americans are supposedly guaranteed the right of free speech by the Constitution, because of the ideology of the historically entrenched culture of power, all voices do not carry the same value, importance and “weight”. In fact, the marginalized group is deprived of their right to speak at all. His message is that although the words in the Constitution provide freedom of speech to all citizens, the dominant straight, white, Christian, able-bodied, male, property owners carry more weight with their voices, therefore having more power and freedom in our society. His solution to the inequity and disparity of speech in this country, is to adopt an “affirmative action pedagogy” that would acknowledge the voices of the marginalized group even if it means restricting the voices of the dominant culture. As we discussed in class, this is a very controversial issue, but as reparation for the harm done in the past, historically marginalized groups should be given privileges that help level the playing field in the future.

Second, he argues that to accomplish this goa, teachers must make their classrooms vehicles for critical analysis. All speech, including that of the dominant culture should be challenged and speakers held accountable for their statements. By so doing, classrooms become a place to not only teach the dominant culture about its offensive and ignorant belief system, but provide an opportunity for the marginalized culture to acquire “critical agency”, the tools to empower and defend oneself against hate speech and verbal abuse in the future.