Should cancel culture be canceled?

Is “cancel culture” a toxic online trend or a tool for social justice? Is it an effort to shut down free speech and expression, or an exercise in effective accountability? Debate on both sides has run rampant over the past year with no clear answer.

When it comes to the cancel culture debate, an important litmus test to apply when thinking about whether something—or someone—should be canceled is this: Does the punishment fit the crime? Vigorous debate, and even unpopular ideas, must be protected. Not only protected but encouraged. When people become scared to speak freely or are punished for expressing an unpopular view, American society inches closer to becoming homogenous, and where freedoms and diverse thoughts are suppressed.

The Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment to ensure for all Americans the right to free speech and free expression, without persecution. Everyone should feel free to exercise those rights without fear of backlash.

Problems arise when an expression of this First Amendment right is not respectful. The KKK should be canceled, even though hate speech has been held by the U.S. Supreme Court to be legally protected speech in such cases as Matal v. Tam (2017) and Virginia v. Black (2003). But beyond hate speech and other terribly unacceptable speech, while I don’t condone disrespecting the flag or the national anthem, I strongly support people being allowed to speak their mind without fear of being canceled for it.

In July 2020, 153 artists, writers, and intellectuals made the public case that cancel culture should be, well, canceled, by signing “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.” Among its signatories: J.K. Rowling, MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, feminist Gloria Steinem, musician Wynton Marsalis, former ACLU president Nadine Strossen, and Margaret Atwood, who wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted,” the letter reads, citing “an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming

san Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneels during the national anthem before a 2016 game against the seahawks in seattle. he has not found an nfl job the last three seasons.