Even as debates over cancel culture have swept the nation, free speech defenders have disagreed about what, exactly, cancel culture is, and what it means for freedom of speech. In many ways, these disagreements represent differences of opinion about how best to protect and uphold true freedom of speech. 

And what better way to deal with questions about free speech than with a debate? Ken White is an attorney, a co-host of All the President's Lawyers, and a frequent commenter on issues of speech and law. Greg Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit whose mission is to "defend and sustain the individual rights of students and faculty members at America's colleges and universities." In the following exchange, the pair debate the resolution: Free speech law is the best defense against cancel culture.

For more than a generation, the United States Supreme Court has reliably protected unpopular speech from government sanction. The Court's staunch defense of the First Amendment is remarkable because it has transcended political partisanship and upheld speech that offends everyone, including the powerful. 

In overturning flag burning laws, the Court protected (literally) incendiary speech that remains intolerable to many Americans. Years later, in upholding the right of Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funerals of servicemen with vile homophobic insults, the Court aggrieved both the left and the right, permitting violation of norms of veneration of the military and against hate speech. The Court has protected scatological and humiliating ridicule of public figures and overturned laws purporting to bar "disparaging" or "immoral or scandalous" trademarks, firmly establishing that offensive speech is free speech.