What sets the United States apart from other nations, argues attorney and legal scholar Jonathan Turley, is its commitment to free speech. Turley, the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of public interest law at George Washington University, led a discussion hosted by Colgate\u2019s Center for Freedom and Western Civilization in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turley has testified in multiple congressional proceedings, and his columns have appeared in publications including the New York Times<\/em> and Wall Street Journal<\/em>. Additionally, he serves as a legal analyst for Fox News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The First Amendment, he said, is \u201cthe most revolutionary thing we ever produced in this country.\u201d But right now, he cautions, \u201crage is all around us,\u201d threatening unity and providing \u201csomething of a license to say and do things that you would not ordinarily do.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s addictive. It\u2019s contagious,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you agree with someone, their rage seems righteous, and if you don\u2019t, it\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tension between rage and free speech, he added, is a delicate issue. \u201cThe greatest danger is not the speech itself \u2014 it\u2019s when the government uses the rage in speech to limit it, curtail it, and arrest people who use it,\u201d Turley argued. \u201cWe\u2019re not defined by the rage. We\u2019re defined by free speech, by the hope that with the help of free speech, we might be able to overcome the things we hate most about each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turley\u2019s forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage<\/em>, attempts to define and defend the American right to free speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Attorney and legal scholar Jonathan Turley led a discussion hosted by Colgate\u2019s Center for Freedom and Western Civilization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":17980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1226,1165,2978,2977,233,2982,2980,2981,2979,2983],"coauthors":[2668],"class_list":["post-17923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scene","tag-center-for-freedom-and-western-civilization","tag-colgate-university","tag-constitutional-rights","tag-first-amendment","tag-free-speech","tag-jonathan-turley","tag-legal-scholar","tag-political-discourse","tag-public-interest-law","tag-the-indispensable-right"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4F5","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/08\/scene-featured-rage-080625.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18194,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17923\/revisions\/18194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17923"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}