This book considers the application of free speech principles in controversial contexts discussing United States law and equivalent law in Europe, Canada and Australia. Anthony Gray examines the extent to which speech of public sector employees is and should be protected. He tackles the difficult question of hate speech and the degree to which regulation of it has been permitted, and should be permitted. The growing controversy of speech in a university setting is discussed along with the roles campuses play in fostering intellectual debate which democracies depend on. Lastly, Gray looks at free speech issues at stake in the exponential growth of online activity and analyzes questions the of liability these tech companies have and their role as facilitators of mass communication, to what extent does the first amendment even apply, and the potential of the internet to support democratic traditions. Overall, Gray finds that in these several key areas, free speech rights are not as strongly protected as they should be. Courts have often bowed to decision makers balancing away free speech rights in favor of other objectives and instead need to re-assert the importance of free speech in these disparate contexts.

This title was first published in 2000. This text presents a two-volume collection of theoretical articles on the topic of freedom of speech. The articles have all been written since the early 1970s. The first volume begins with an encyclopaedia entry, functioning as an overview of the topic, and further articles deal with justificatory theories of freedom of speech, the scope of the First Amendment, the value of free speech, communication control in law and society, and what kinds of acts raise freedom of speech concerns. The second volume turns to doctrinal theories, examining insults, incitements and governmental subsidies. Areas addressed include distinctions between content regulations, Robert Post's concepts of the public forum and public discourse and their bearing on free speech doctrine, and the significant arena for free speech controversies in the future.

Although academic freedom in teaching and learning methods is crucial to a nation’s growth, the concept comes with numerous misnomers and is subjected to much academic debate and doubt. This volume maps out how truth and intellectual integrity remain the fundamental principle on which the foundation of a university should be laid.

"This book on freedom of speech and expression starts (Chapter 1) with an inter-cultural history of this valued right through the ages and then recalls (Chapter 2) the benefits for which we rightly value it. But what about speech that frustrates these benefits? Supporters of the benefits of free speech have reason to exercise voluntary self-restraint on speech which frustrates the benefits. They should also cultivate a second remedy: the art, illustrated in chapter 1, and called by Gandhi the art of 'opening ears', by other kinds of speech and conduct. Such voluntary methods are to be preferred to legal constraints. But (chapter 3) legal constraint is sometimes necessary. In the 21st century, social media funding based on manipulation of personal speech data requires skilful legislation and enforcement in favour of social media that protect our freedoms"--

French philosophy since World War II has been preoccupied with the issue of difference. Specifically, it has wanted to promote or to leave room for ways of living and of being that differ from those usually seen in contemporary Western society. Given the experience of the Holocaust, the motivation for such a preoccupation is not difficult to see. For some thinkers, especially Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Gilles Deleuze, this preoccupation has led to a mode of philosophizing that privileges difference as a philosophical category. Nancy privileges difference as a mode of conceiving community, Derrida as a mode of conceiving linguistic meaning, Levinas as a mode of conceiving ethics, and Deleuze as a mode of conceiving ontology. Reconsidering Difference has a twofold task, the primary one critical and the secondary one reconstructive. The critical task is to show that these various privilegings are philosophical failures. They wind up, for reasons unique to each position, endorsing positions that are either incoherent or implausible. Todd May considers the incoherencies of each position and offers an alternative approach. His reconstructive task, which he calls "contingent holism," takes the phenomena under investigation—community, language, ethics, and ontology—and sketches a way of reconceiving them that preserves the motivations of the rejected positions without falling into the problems that beset them.

Ban it! the initial arguments for campus speech codes -- Wayne dick's plea: the critics fight back -- See you in court: the campus hate speech cases -- Hostile environment takes a front seat -- The attack on hostile environment -- And the verdict is -- The debate: 1998-2008.