Jacob Mchangama was a young lawyer and blogger in 2005 when his country, Denmark, was thrust into the global spotlight after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad—a practice widely considered taboo among many Muslims. Mchangama’s fascination with free speech began as a worldwide conversation erupted about a complicated topic made even more complex by the collision of differing cultural and religious values.
Today, Mchangama is one of the world’s leading authorities on this fundamental freedom. In 2014 he started Copenhagen-based Justitia, a global think tank focused on free speech and the rule of law. In 2020 he launched The Future of Free Speech Project, which publishes cutting-edge research on the topic. Two years later, he released a book, Free Speech—A History from Socrates to Social Media. And in 2023, he brought all of this expertise to Vanderbilt, becoming a research professor of political science in the College of Arts and Science and opening The Future of Free Speech, an independent and nonpartisan think tank, on campus. In October 2024, Vanderbilt hosted the inaugural Global Free Speech Summit, which attracted hundreds of attendees from around the world. Vanderbilt Magazine recently sat down with Mchangama to learn more about his vital work and find out what he thinks the rest of us can do to help protect and promote freedom of expression.
What do most people get wrong about free speech?
Most people in the United States are committed to free speech and view it as an essential value. However, when it comes to specific topics, many create exceptions that align with their ideologies and worldview. In today’s polarized America, these exceptions often follow tribalist lines—conservative versus liberal is one example. But without a principled approach to free speech, those in power get to define the limits for you, leading to different standards of free speech depending on which identity group someone belongs to. This division can undermine the universal application of free speech, force public discourse into echo chambers and ultimately lead to a lack of shared understanding.
Your book was released in 2022, and the paperback will be released this year. What has changed between those two publication dates?
Since the first release date, Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas attacked Israel and there’s been a breakthrough in generative AI. In other words, a lot has happened in these few years, and it all has far-reaching implications for free speech. This is addressed in a new epilogue I wrote last fall for the paperback version.
Thinking about Vanderbilt’s commitment to institutional neutrality, what role do universities play in restoring free speech as a fundamental value to society?
Institutional neutrality is a precondition for universities to have credibility and open space for students and faculty to speak freely. Unfortunately, many universities have inserted themselves in all kinds of debates, making them appear as political actors. The result is a collapse of trust. At the same time, it’s also helpful for students to be faced with opinions that are different than their own. This allows them to practice being tolerant instead of it being just a concept.
What are some tangible ways readers of Vanderbilt Magazine might help reverse this free speech regression?
The most important thing is to rekindle civic commitment to tolerance of other viewpoints. Free speech depends not on the wording of laws but on whether there’s value in the hearts of the people who benefit from them. Are we willing to tolerate viewpoints that we strongly disagree with? It ultimately depends on a critical mass of people accepting free speech as an essential value—maybe the most important value—of a democratic society.
I’d also like to invite alumni who work in fields related to free speech to please reach out. This is not something anyone can fix on their own. We need to build a robust alliance that includes various opinions. However, one opinion must remain constant: that free speech is the basis.
The second annual Global Free Speech Summit is coming up later this year. How was the inaugural event? And what else can you share about your current work in free speech?
Our goal is to make the Global Free Speech Summit the world’s leading conference on this topic. Last year, we made a good start with an exceptional lineup that included Salman Rushdie, Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s first digital minister, and many other dissidents and critical thinkers from around the world who ponder free speech every day. People traveled from as far as New Zealand and Australia to attend. We are good at talking about how free speech is going in the wrong direction, but we don’t hear enough about when we get it right. That’s one of our goals for this year’s summit. We have to do more to showcase how free speech can combat the harms of the world.
Also, we are collaborating with the Department of Computer Science on a project that will map censorship in countries worldwide and in large language models like ChatGPT. We want to see which ones are most speech restrictive or speech permissive.
Jacob Mchangama was interviewed by Lena Anthony, BS’03.
