My journey began when my son took a writing course, first semester in college. He wrote a story from the POV of a Black person. No no! Can’t do that! I learned what it meant to be woke at a college. It meant an Afrobeat band couldn’t play a party because the Black lead singer didn’t look Black enough. It meant people with “incorrect” opinions couldn’t speak on campus. Cancel Culture was everywhere. Can you believe it? Free speech was a right-wing issue!

 

Until it wasn’t. A public discussion on Palestine was almost shut down because the panel was too pro-Palestinian. Then came Trump. Suddenly universities could be defunded for allowing protest. Now it wasn’t Cancel Culture telling people at schools what not to say; it was our government. So this is how it happens. Someone always wants silence. This is how democracy falls.

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This is the story of What I Didn’t Know about Free Speech: A Filmmaker’s Journey. I interviewed brilliant people on the right, left, and in the middle, students and professors, Smith College African-American activist Loretta Ross and PBS luminary Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University.