Warns of government overreach on campus speech issues
Tony Banout, the inaugural executive director of the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression, will deliver the 2025 Presidential Lecture and Conversation, “What are We Talking About When We Talk About Free Speech?”
The lecture will be held Monday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. in Tilton Hall. It will also be livestreamed.
Banout has spoken and published widely on free expression, constructive engagement of difference, and the civic relevance of religious diversity. He’s been a strong advocate for ideological diversity and inclusion in academia, and challenged government intervention into campus speech issues.
“Words are powerful, speech is powerful, expression is powerful. It follows then that just like any powerful reality, free speech can be used for good or for ill,” Banout said during an address last month at Stetson University. “Why, then, do democracies enshrine and abide by protections for speech that is used to hurt or offend? Why protect that which can dehumanize and debase?
“The answer, I believe perhaps counterintuitively, is that a just democratic society requires free speech as foundational to justice and democracy. Therefore, our democratic society should protect free speech.”
At Clark, Banout will discuss a wide range of topics in his lecture an in a follow-up Q&A, including the language of “limits” and “absolutism,” student self-censorship and contemporary culture, academic freedom, and social media’s role in shaping public discourse.
Banout earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, where he was a Martin Marty Center Junior Fellow and Provost Dissertation Fellow. His career has spanned leadership in social sector organizations including healthcare and community organizing, as well as academia. For over a decade, he served as the senior vice president for Interfaith America, guiding a national civic organization in the development of strategies and programs devoted to democratic discourse and civil conversation across deep difference. Banout serves as a board member of the Heterodox Academy.
“A just democratic society requires free speech as foundational to justice and democracy.”
Tony Banout
“Robust engagement of diverse viewpoints in a climate in which all are encouraged and equipped to participate is an essential accelerant in the determination of good ideas from bad ones—a task that lies at the heart of any great university’s mission,” Banout wrote last year in Inside Higher Ed. “However, this issue is not for the state to solve. Ultimately it is the responsibility of higher education leaders to stand up for true principles of free inquiry and expression. Doing so would defuse the temptations of government overreach. That is the higher principle on which we must stand.”
In the address at Stetson, Banout argued that justice “is about both the basic arrangement and how we assess, argue for and change particular laws. And it is absolutely about the ability and freedom that individuals have to challenge those laws. I believe each human has dignity, and I believe democracy is a system of government that most uplifts those givens — by treating each citizen as an equal or participating member of the political community. Thus, democracy as a social arrangement, with all its messiness and all its imperfections, is itself a question of justice. … Democracy is what is at stake when we deny free speech.”