Remarks of Commissioner Pai on Receiving Freedom of Speech Award at the Media Institute's 2016 Awards Banquet

We’ve had success in calling attention to government initiatives that threatened our constitutional freedoms. The most salient example was the Federal Communications Commission’s ill-advised “Critical Information Needs” study. This study involved researchers funded by the agency that licenses television stations going into broadcast television newsrooms and asking questions about editorial judgment. The FCC ultimately scrapped this study, thankfully. My op-ed in The Wall Street Journal may have started us down the path toward this decision. But what compelled the FCC to stop was the opposition of Americans from around the country and across the political spectrum. I wish I could say that the past is prologue, and that the future of free expression is bright. But I’m not so sure. I fear that our cultural consensus on the importance of being able to speak one’s mind is eroding. And nowhere is that consensus more at risk than on college campuses.