Free Speech Movement

Introduction

The term free speech activism refers to attempts by individuals or groups to expand the scope of acceptable expression. Over the years, two broad functions have been proffered to support a policy and practice of increasingly unencumbered expression: Freedom of speech facilitates the exercise and maintenance of political rights, and it allows individuals to conceptualize and create their lives free of unnecessary, external intrusions. Whether literal or symbolic, expression can be expanded (or restricted) by modifying either explicit legal regulations or notions of social propriety. The wide variance throughout much of U.S. history, in terms of both the definitions of speech and the rules governing it, reflects the dynamism of American society more generally. While today in the United States the principle of free expression elicits near-universal approbation, such was not always the case. To the contrary, free speech became a bedrock principle of American life through a complex historical process marked by gradual shifts in social forces and changes to legal institutions and concepts.

In the pre-revolutionary colonies, speech was regulated and enforced by local custom and code. Improper speech fell into one of two categories, both of which had migrated with the colonists from their native England. The first category was dissident religious expression deemed blasphemous by regional governors. Such sacrilegious expression was outlawed and carried punishments that varied depending on location and period. To avoid moral opprobrium or physical danger, religious dissidents were often compelled to relocate. The second category of prerevolutionary proscribed speech was seditious libel, which criminalized speech that criticized the government. Seditious-libel laws did not distinguish between truthful and untruthful speech, and required prepublication approval from the government. The 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, however, marked a gradual departure from traditional enforcement of such laws. Charged with impugning the government's integrity, Zenger was defended by Andrew Hamilton, who persuaded the jury that Zenger's criticism was substantially true and therefore should not be punished. The jury acquitted Zenger, and a new standard in seditious-libel cases, which barred prior restraints on truthful speech, was introduced. This standard, though, was applied unevenly for several decades.

Mario Savio

In the fall of 1964, Mario Savio emerged as spokesman for the Berkeley free speech movement (FSM). Dismissed as a radical and a troublemaker by local officials, including Alameda County deputy district attorney Edwin Meese, Savio was revered by University of California students. With the end of the Vietnam War, though, the FSM members dispersed, and Savio led a mostly quiet, private life until his death in 1996.

Savio was born in Queens, New York, in 1942. His father was a machinist who could only afford to send Mario to Queens College. Savio then transferred to Manhattan College, where he excelled at physics. He applied to the University of California at Berkeley and entered as a junior philosophy major in the fall of 1963. During the spring of 1964, Savio participated in a successful student protest of the San Francisco Hotel Association, which had refused to hire African Americans for any jobs ...