Not about free speech

Roger Cohen has an op-ed today about a kerfuffle in France surrounding the firing of a political cartoonist:

The offending piece in Charlie Hebdo, a pillar of the left-libertarian media establishment, was penned last month by a 79-year-old columnist-cartoonist who goes by the name of Bob Siné. He described the plans — since denied — of Jean Sarkozy, 21, to convert to Judaism before marrying Jessica Sebaoun-Darty....

“He’ll go far in life, this little fellow!” Siné wrote of Sarkozy Jr.

He added, in a separate item on whether Muslims should abandon their traditions, that: “Honestly, between a Muslim in a chador and a shaved Jewess, my choice is made!”

[...]

Philippe Val, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, requested an apology from Siné, to which the veteran “chroniqueur” replied, with some brio it must be said, that he would much rather cut off his testicles.

That did it for Val, who promptly fired Siné, who shot back by bringing legal action against the paper for “defamation.”

Cohen believes that Siné crossed the line into anti-Semitism, but that he should not have been fired, arguing that such drastic action risks making Siné into a martyr and "stirring, rather than assuaging, what remains of French anti-Semitism". Fair enough.

But Cohen also criticizes the firing of Siné on free speech grounds, which I don't think makes any sense. Says Cohen:

I’m with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who wrote in 1919 that: “I think we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death.”

[...]

...I remain a free-speech absolutist. In that spirit, I defended the publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Curtailing speech is generally far more dangerous than allowing even vile views to be aired, not least by a cantankerous has-been like Siné.

I'm glad that Cohen feels so strongly about free speech, but it's not really applicable to the situation he describes. Free speech, after all, is the right of an individual to express viewpoints without fear of retribution from the government. It also imposes on government a duty to protect an expresser of unpopular viewpoints from violence or suppression at the hands of his fellow citizens. What free speech does not do is protect an employee of a newspaper from being fired by his editor. The cartoonist Siné ought to have the right to say whatever anti-Semitic thing he wants--but that doesn't entail a right to a megaphone to broadcast those views.

Those who accuse Charlie Hebdo of a double standard for printing the infamous "Muhammad Cartoons" and yet firing Siné for his offensive remarks are unclear on the same point. In the case of the Muhammad Cartoons, a Danish newspaper was materially threatened and intimidated by a large number of offended Muslims. Reprinting the cartoons in solidarity with that paper really was an assertion of free speech, because it forced the government to uphold its duty to protect those with unpopular views (although personally, I thought the reprinting unnecessary and a little overdramatic). Unless we interpret Siné's gig at Charlie Hebdo as a "right"--something that it is clearly not--I don't see how refraining from firing him for his offensive remarks stands up in any way for free speech or rights in general.

Of course, all that said, an editor may freely choose to adopt an editorial philosophy that borrows from the logic of free speech, and permit the staff to express whatever inflammatory views it wants, even if they contradict the publication's mission. Indeed, as Cohen suggests, there can be wisdom in letting unpopular views be expressed unhindered so that they can be properly discredited in the marketplace of ideas.

However, there are limits to this approach: an off-kilter remark now and again might be permissible, but if a consistent pattern of offensive bigotry emerges, the editor may want to rethink having such a person on staff. In this case it looks as though the editor Philippe Val did precisely that.