Essays on Freedom of Thought and Expression
Below are four essays that we hope will help teachers to articulate the reasons why freedom of thought and expression are so important in schools, and the ways those freedoms foster healthy intellectual development.
These essays were authored by highly-regarded educators at the request of the Educational Liberty Alliance. Each piece is a reflection on the relevance of a selected philosophical quote to the learning process, to academic excellence, and to the betterment of society generally.
We look forward to hearing about the impact that these essays have on discussions about freedom of thought and expression in schools across the country. Please use our contact portal to share your stories with us.
On the Power of One's Own Thoughts:
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power."
-Frederick Douglass
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, one of the foremost education historians working today, has written an essay about why freedom speech is essential for improving the lives of disadvantaged people.
Read the EssayOn the Pursuit of Truth:
"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."
-J. S. Mill, On Liberty
Professor John McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, has written an essay about why John Stuart Mill’s emphasis on cultivating epistemic openness—a willingness to hear all sides—is an essential skill for teachers to model at all levels of the educational system.
Read the EssayOn the Importance of Intellectual Humility:
"There is no greater barrier to understanding than the assumption that the standpoint which we happen to occupy is a universal one."
-H. Richard Niebuhr
Professor John Rose of Duke University has written an essay about the dangers of totalizing theories and the importance of intellectual humility.
Read the EssayOn the Opportunity for Self-Discovery:
"The teacher ought also to be especially on his guard against taking unfair advantage of the students' immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher’s own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters of question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness in judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own."
-American Association of University Professors Declaration of Principles, 1915
Professor Erec Smith of York College of York College of Pennsylvania has written an essay about the importance of individuality and self-discovery.
Read the Essay