Should free speech be absolute?
From The Transatlantic by Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
April 7, 2026 · 39 min · Season 2 · Episode 8
About this episode
The episode discusses the differences in free speech traditions between the US and Europe, including political implications and the importance of defending free expression.
Bakhti is joined by Sarah McLaughlin, a senior scholar focused on global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Sarah and Bakhti discuss the difference in free speech traditions between the United States and Europe, threats to speech on both sides of the Atlantic, and why Americans apply free speech selectively along political lines . Sarah also talks through why Americans should defend the right to free expression even, and especially, when it is painful for them. --- Sarah McLaughlin is the Senior Scholar, Global Expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and author of Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech. She writes regularly about the state of free speech around the world and her work has been featured in outlets including Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and The Los Angeles Times. This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky and Carly Breland, inconjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.
People in this episode
Host: Bakhti Nishanov
Guest: Sarah McLaughlin
Topics covered
- free speech
- global expression
- political speech
- censorship
- US and Europe
- free expression rights
Keywords
- free speech
- censorship
- political speech
- global expression
- US Europe relations
- Sarah McLaughlin
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times
Books & works: Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech
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