National Essay Contest Winners Sound Off on Free Speech
For the first time in its history, the Buckley Institute opened its annual essay contest to all American high school, undergraduate, and Yale University students. We received around a hundred outstanding submissions from across the country.
Participants were invited to submit original essays on free speech in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Woodward Report. We’re delighted to announce the following winners and share excerpts from their work.
Princeton High School’s Katie Qin took first in the high school category, examining the complex relationship between free speech and societal progress:
“Why are our campuses so polarized, and why is dialogue between opposing views so difficult? The answer lies in technology, which has exacerbated polarization (1). We no longer have to confront ideas we disagree with…The way we communicate has changed; we have lost the ability to be tactful, empathetic, and courteous.”
Second place winner Melony Tidmore of Liberty University Online Academy observed how the flourishing or curtailment of free speech has shaped defining periods in history, juxtaposing the products of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment with innovation under totalitarian regimes. Drawing from her experience of being in Israel on October 7 and how acts of antisemitism have affected learning on Columbia’s campus, third place winner Rimonne Zakheim of Berman Hebrew Academy argued that ethical considerations must sometimes outweigh “unfettered freedom.”
Aneesh Swaminathan of Johns Hopkins University led the national undergraduate essay contest with an instructive examination of William Buckley’s persistent prioritization of truth when it came to free speech:
“To Buckley, the ends, the ‘truths,’ were incontrovertible moral and philosophical standards. It was not meant to be debated or questioned; rather, they were to be distilled and disseminated as wisdom to preserve Western society and cultivate a virtuous citizenry. Rebuking John Stuart Mill’s analogization of free expression as a ‘marketplace of ideas,’ Buckley writes, ‘Let truth and error do battle in the arena of ideas. Truth will vanquish. Let the student and the citizen witness the struggle . . . and they will ally themselves with truth.’”
Bringing John Stuart Mill, Hannah Arendt, and Plato into conversation, second place winner Arnav Vyas of Princeton argued for stronger free speech constraints on campus to allow for education. Third place winner Jason Garcia of Eastern Kentucky University closed out the category by submitting free speech as not only essential to intellectual discovery but also to “one’s sense of self and community.”
Taking first in the Yale category, Mahesh Agarwal asserted that “restricted freedom is no freedom at all,” analyzing the cost of illiberalism via China’s COVID policies and Singapore’s liberal arts education experiment:
“…while there are lessons to be learned from countries like China and Singapore, their stability is a dangerous mirage. Without the distractions of free expression, a government might be able to build fast trains and citizens may settle into pacific lives, content for politics to occur in the background. But recent events in both China and Singapore show how illiberalism can hold a people hostage. At some point, the train will roll towards a cliff and people will realize that they have no way to say ‘stop.’”
Second place winner Abhinay Lingareddy made a compelling case for uncivil discourse, declaring that organizations should empower people to embrace the discomfort that often accompanies courageous free speech. Third place winner Justin Crosby offered a thoughtful meditation on the aesthetics of free speech via reflections on “Silliman’s Halloween-gate,” emphasizing the dangers of quiet intolerance and the need for personal moral improvement.
Finalists accepted their prizes at Buckley’s Fourteenth Annual Conference.