Can the First Amendment save us?

[Commentary] The most distressing aspect of the recent period of aggression toward freedom of speech and press in this country is the willing rejection of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s starting premise: that overcoming the natural and, in his terms, “logical” impulse to persecute others who disagree with or are different from us is the hallmark of a civilized society. When you relish intolerance, you are reversing course on one of the most profound tenets of modern thought. So that when a president stokes the fears and prejudices that exist beneath the surface, he models a different—and divisive—kind of behavior for citizens.

In this way, just as our unparalleled protections of speech and the press have over decades laid the foundation for a broader ethos of tolerance, so can the lack of respect for these same rights quickly send us careening backward toward a pathos of intolerance that reaches far beyond speech, infecting all of our decision-making.

[Lee C. Bollinger became Columbia University’s 19th president in 2002.]