Perché la libertà di parola non è un valore accademico

The title of this essay is intentionally provocative, for there are many who believe that freedom of speech is the preeminent academic value. Stanley Fish’s challenge to that popular view depends on a distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. Freedom of speech is a democratic value. It says that in a democracy government should neither anoint nor stigmatize particular forms of speech, but act as an honest broker providing a framework and a forum for the competition of ideas and policies. In this vision, every voice has a right to be heard, at least theoretically. In the academy, on the other hand, free inquiry not free speech is the reigning ethic, and academic inquiry is engaged in only by those who have been certified as competent; not every voice gets to be heard.