Free speech is a fundamental element to a democracy. In America, it’s sometimes taken for granted. Free Speech: Challenge of Our Times, presented by Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership and Arizona PBS, takes a deep look into this constitutional right and how we as Americans can protect it. The programs pull a diverse spectrum of viewpoints from academics, politicians and free speech thought leaders. 10/30 minute programs airs Wednesdays 4 a.m. beginning 10/2.
- #101 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-101-gtzw1q/ – Former U.S. Senators Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., discuss the role of disagreement and civil dialogue in American politics and civic culture. 10/2
- #102 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-102-kfc85h/ – First Amendment lawyer and author Floyd Abrams, who represented The New York Times in the landmark Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, explains why free speech must be protected. 10/9
- #103 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-103-amo9vq/ – Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Righteous Mind” and co-founder of Heterodox Academy, explores “America’s Escalating Outrage” and its impact of universities in America. 10/16
- #104 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-104-ifswvf/ – Scholars Robert P. George and Cornel West discuss the importance of open dialogue in pursuit of civil discussion and the serious and respectful exchange of ideas, on university campuses and in American society. 10/23
- #105 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-105-op0dk4/ – Middlebury Professor Allison Stanger and Reed Professor Lucia Martinez Valdivia examine issues that surround free speech on campus when protests turn extreme. 10/30
- #106 – on demand only – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-106-brkqqs/ 11/6
- #107 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-107-dbixee/ – Bret Weinstein, evolutionary biologist; Heather MacDonald, the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute; and Ulrich Baer, professor of German and Comparative Literature at New York University;talk about negotiating controversial speakers on campus. 11/13
- #108 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-108-r6bbrs/ – Professor Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago, who authored the school’s statement of principles on free expression, discusses the appropriate limits on free speech in institutions of higher learning. 11/20
- #109 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-109-pnlchx/ – Experimental psychologist and Harvard University Professor Steven Pinker explores the fundamental right of free speech. 11/27
- #110 – https://www.pbs.org/video/free-speech-challenge-of-our-times-110-7ncdsn/ – Steven Hayward of Powerline and University of California, Berkeley, presents the intellectual suicide of American universities and the causes and remedies associated with it. 12/4