Breaking the silence: charting the past and future challenges of free speech on campus in America, Europe, and Spain

Abstract

Treball de Fi de Grau en Dret. Curs 2022-2023

Tutor: Víctor Ferreres Comella

Over the last few years, as university students, we have witnessed a tremendous increase on polarization, extremism, and confrontation over delicate issues usually concerning on the scope and limitations that free speech might face not only in our daily basis, on social media, or in the public discourse, but specially within the campus’ context. This has led to major disagreements between the students’ community, faculty staff, and even professors, around the conversation on what actually free speech necessarily needs to imply when applied on campus. This work aims to provide to the reader an introduction to this fundamental right in our modern democratic societies, grounding it on the particular challenges and problems it might face on today’s university campuses all around Spain, Europe, and the United States, while comparing the current state of affairs in these three different and diverse regions. Over the next pages, we aim to provoke inquiries on the reader over the importance of this issue for the future of democracy in our societies, especially when it comes to the foundations of the democratic discourse, which starts in classrooms all around our cities while confronting opposed views and ideas that benefit the nurture of knowledge.