When the State Talks Too Much: Urban Life in the Age of Government Speech.
When the State Talks Too Much: Urban Life in the Age of Government Speech.
The United States I remember from the 1970s through the early 2000s—during my time as a student, naval officer, and university faculty member—valued truth-telling, democracy, tolerance, and fair politics. In more recent years—particularly in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election—these values seem to have eroded, with shifting public attitudes toward authority, truth, and political legitimacy.
Governments across the country have taken more active roles in public communication—for example, through public health messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic, pressures on platforms to moderate disinformation related to elections or vaccines, and national security efforts aimed at curbing online extremism and foreign influence campaigns.
While often framed as necessary for protecting public safety and democracy, these actions can collide with concerns about free speech, transparency, and political neutrality. As a result, they have fueled ongoing debates about government overreach, censorship, and the boundaries of free expression for citizens and legal residents.
To be clear, the right of Americans to speak freely has never been absolute. It is, has always been, and always will be limited, among other ways, by "government speech." Government speech refers to the legal doctrine allowing the government to promote its own messages without being bound by First Amendment neutrality requirements.
This trend reflects an expanding scope of government speech, with courts increasingly permitting public authorities to shape messaging in areas such as license plates, public education, and digital platforms. Critics argue this trend risks silencing dissenting voices by framing more and more actions as government expression rather than regulation of otherwise-rightfully-unfettered private speech.
Most recently, through sweeping executive actions, federal agencies have extended government speech even further to exert greater influence over schools, libraries, public health networks, and cultural institutions—setting not only policy but also the acceptable parameters of expression.
This raises an unsettling but important question as to whether this shift signifies government overreach and censorship, or a fundamental redefinition of the relationship between the power of the state and the use of free speech throughout society. And what if anything does the shift imply for urban systems throughout the country?
While not absolute, free speech as a right is foundational in the United States. It’s foundational because the conversations, dissent, art, journalism, protest, and even offensive or controversial ideas that it shields make it essential to a vital, prosperous society. It's not just about having the right—it's about what society gains from people actually using it.
In broad terms, when people can freely express themselves, it fuels innovation, challenges power, drives social change, and creates a culture where truth can surface through open discourse. In that sense, the value of free speech lies not just in the freedom itself, but rather in the functions it serves for a prosperous, democratic and dynamic society.
Legal scholar Thomas I. Emerson, in his seminal work The System of Freedom of Expression, outlined this understanding in his four core functions of free speech: personal self-fulfillment, discovery of truth, participatory governance, and social stability. These functions are not merely theoretical—they are essential to the vitality of America's urban systems.
Cities have traditionally been spaces for self-fulfillment. From the murals of Oakland to the spoken word collectives in Atlanta to Chicago’s drag ballrooms and far beyond, urban areas have served as platforms for people to express their identities. Expressive freedom allows individuals to explore, define themselves, grow, flourish, and create prosperity for themselves and their communities.
In contrast, when expression is restricted—through bans on gender-affirming art, zoning policies that limit cultural gatherings, excessive policing, or other such state actions that abridge free expression — much of the positive personal and social impact that exists in the potential for self-discovery and personal growth perforce remains inchoate. The alchemy of freedom, imagination, possibility, and belonging that gives a city its soul risks being replaced by alienation, isolation, and exclusion.
Urban environments can be crucibles for the discovery of truth. Knowledge and innovation thrive in their libraries, universities, newsrooms, coffee houses and beyond. When individuals can freely express diverse and even conflicting views through such outlets, they contribute to a robust marketplace of ideas, thus driving individual empowerment, fueling economic growth, strengthening democratic institutions, and enabling societies to adapt creatively to challenges and to shape a more equitable, forward-thinking future.
However, rising book bans, restricted curricula, and attacks on local journalism hinder this process, potentially leading to reduced economic competitiveness and diminished global influence.
Free expression in local institutions such as school boards, planning commissions, and city councils enables residents to participate on the front lines of participatory governance, where they can influence public decisions most directly. On the other hand, when civic input is treated as antagonism, through crackdowns on protests or limits on public comment, the public's ability to hold officials accountable diminishes, weakening the democratic fabric of urban life.
Contrary to much popular belief, free expression in urban areas also anchors social stability. Freely expressive dialogue fosters cohesion and acts as a release valve, allowing people to vent frustration and seek redress without resorting to violence. This is why cities that treat protest as legitimate civic expression tend to foster stronger community engagement and, in some cases, policy innovation. Conversely, suppressing dissent deepens mistrust and disengagement.
Critics variously claim that the recent and ongoing expansion of government speech imperils all four of these vital functions. And they certainly have some substantiating evidence to back up their claims.
According to legal scholar Ronald K.L. Collin’s post ‘Executive Watch,’[1] in his first 80 days in office, President Trump issued 18 Executive Orders that raise significant First Amendment concerns, often targeting speech based on viewpoint. These include restrictions on DEI initiatives, legal advocacy, campus protests, and the expression of gender identity, as well as actions impacting public information access, such as defunding libraries and dismantling media outlets like Voice of America.
Especially in the area of immigration enforcement, the federal government has actively and recently stepped up its abridgments of the rights of lawful permanent residents to freely speak their minds.
For instance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio clearly has the authority under Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a relic of the Cold War, to expel non-citizens for speech he deems contrary to American “foreign policy.” But the scope of the authority is limited to cases in which the government can prove by clear and convincing evidence that an individual has met the legal grounds for deportability, such as by having committed a crime involving moral turpitude for which a sentence of one year or longer may be imposed.
Yet Rubio has used this authority to arrest and possibly deport foreign nationals legally residing in the United States, ostensibly for nothing more than publicly expressing pro-Palestinian views, thus raising the concern that the federal government is using immigration enforcement to suppress political dissent, particularly among non-citizens, and possibly setting precedents that influence the scope of free speech protections in the United States.
In a similar abridgement of free speech, the White House indefinitely barred Associated Press (AP) reporters from attending presidential events after the AP refused to adopt the term "Gulf of America" for the Gulf of Mexico. The administration claimed the AP's use of the traditional name spread misinformation. AP sued, alleging a violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. A federal judge ruled that the White House must lift the access restrictions while the lawsuit proceeds, though the ruling is stayed pending an appeal.
The U.S. Naval Academy recently removed nearly 400 books from its Nimitz Library following an order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office to eliminate materials promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Notable titles reportedly removed include Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Memorializing the Holocaust, and Half American, among others addressing race, gender, and civil rights.
These examples, while not exhaustive, illustrate a growing pattern of state and federal interventions with serious implications for expressive freedom. While to my knowledge none of the federal government’s recent actions suppressing or altering scientific findings about climate change, retaliating against whistleblowers, or limiting public access to climate data clearly violate any landmark First Amendment rulings, they raise serious free speech concerns, especially in their potential to chill speech among government scientists and restrict public discourse on environmental issues.
And it’s not only the federal government that’s been abridging free expression.
According to Inside Higher Education, earlier this year, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed an executive order directing Louisiana State University (LSU) to discipline law professor Ken Levy who spoke critically about him in a Jan. 14 lecture, along with President Donald Trump and students who support Trump. Levy was removed from the classroom, prompting legal action. A judge ordered his reinstatement, but an appeals court blocked the order.
A Texas law requiring age verification for adult websites was challenged on First Amendment grounds. While the Fifth Circuit upheld the law, it struck down provisions requiring health warnings about pornography. The Supreme Court declined to block the law, raising concerns about potential chilling effects on free expression.
In Beaufort County, South Carolina, students successfully campaigned to reinstate 91 books removed from school libraries. The documentary "Banned Together" chronicles their efforts, emphasizing the broader national trend of book bans and the importance of protecting intellectual freedom in educational settings.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, in Marion County, Iowa, county officials have recently censored good-faith criticism of public officials.
Recent controversies around free speech in the U.S. now touch upon areas like government pressure on social media platforms to remove content, restrictions on press access, and censorship in schools. Major court cases are also addressing tensions between free expression and anti-discrimination laws, as well as concerns over government influence on private institutions. These developments reflect growing legal and political scrutiny of First Amendment boundaries in diverse settings.
From the point of view of urban policy, towns, cities and institutions must thus weigh permissible expression against other priorities: safety, social cohesion, and the ethical treatment of others. Not all challenges to the use of government speech are constructive; some can unduely destabilize or paralyze collective action. Yet when the default government response to dissent, or to expressions that recognize complexity, is suppression or denial, rather than legitimate argumentation, the result is likely not to be security or stability but rather depravation and alienation.
Drawing upon Thomas I. Emerson’s framework, expressive freedom is not merely a constitutional right but the lifeblood of urban vitality. It fosters personal self-fulfillment, enables the discovery of truth, facilitates participatory governance, and sustains social stability. When state authority suppresses dissent and mandates conformity, it doesn’t merely silence voices—it also erodes the very mechanisms through which urban systems innovate, adapt, and thrive.
It is incumbent upon those who want to preserve the dynamism and resilience of American towns and cities to closely examine—and, when necessary, push back against—the expanding reach of government speech. Freedom of expression is not simply a safeguard of individual liberty; it is a foundational pillar of democratic society and a critical engine of urban prosperity.
Bill Bowen
IMPORTANT PROGRAMING NOTE
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[1] https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/executive-watch-breadth- cand-depth-trump
Bill - thanks for this thoughtful piece. I also see the issue of free speech being impinged upon by technology and a social movement to normalize stupidity. I don't mean this as lacking knowledge, although this is often the outcome, but instead as a defect in understanding that can lead to immoral or harmful action. I have been amazed by friends and family who seem perfectly content practicing willful neglect when it comes to critical thinking. This is creates an an interesting dynamic. At one of end of the spectrum we are bombarded by free speech as unfettered and unfiltered opinion being portrayed as fact and vetted as absolute knowledge at scale. One need only lightly touch social media to see this in action and then experience the unrelenting gravitational pull within a plethora of like minded media outlets - tribalism at the core. Combine this with an electorate that was bored to tears in high school government and history classes while simultaneously being stripped of the ability to engage in abstract thinking, because we thought it was more important to teach coding rather than thinking, and we are left with an audience of Americans who are essentially "stupid." This leads them wide open to political maneuvers designed to control their thoughts and actions complete with enticing short cuts that creating fertile ground for hypocrisy and misinformation to flourish. For example, the ten commandments are much easier for a person to interpret and memorize than the reams of philosophical debates on morality and ethics. So when we become convinced that hanging the commandments on the walls of our schools is equivalent to teaching the complexities of history, government, art and expression, philosophy and ethics, and science we are, in fact, practicing stupidity. It also gets me wondering whether book banning even matters when there aren't many people interested in reading them in the first place.