Free speech is a joke when laughing is a crime

If you were wondering why young Americans are less enthralled with the idea of “free speech” than their elders, look no further than this week’s appalling conviction of Desiree Fairooz.

Fairooz is a 61-year-old woman from Bluemont, Va., and an activist with Code Pink, the antiwar group well-known for its theatrical protests.

During the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions, our current attorney general, Fairooz was sitting in the hearing when she heard something she felt was ridiculous: an assertion from Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., that Sessions had a track record of “treating all Americans equally under the law.”

Fairooz was right about one thing — the assertion is ridiculous. Sessions, who was considered too racist in the 1980s to be elected to a federal judgeship, has a well-documented history of discrimination.

So she did what plenty of Americans who believe in the idea that they have a right to free speech might have done: She laughed.

Officers came over and pulled her out of the hearing, and the Justice Deparment — now under the purview of the apparently thin-skinned Sessions — decided to prosecute her.

They won, too: Fairooz was convicted of “disorderly and disruptive conduct” and “parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds.”

For laughing.

There’s been a lot of smug, self-righteous chatter about free speech for Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter in the Bay Area lately. I’m not buying it, and I’m not the only one.

Forty percent of people age 18-34 believe the government should be able to censor offensive speech toward minorities, a larger proportion than any other age group.

These young people don’t feel this way because they’re fragile or delicate — far from it. It’s because they grew up in a society that expects them to cede the floor to racists and hatemongers, while accepting violent pushback against activists on the other end of the spectrum.

While Baby Boomers are lecturing them about “tolerance” for hateful speech and misrepresenting the history of Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement, young people are thinking about the Occupy protesters who were pepper-sprayed by police at UC Davis.

They’re thinking about the hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters tossed in jail for demonstrating against police brutality.

Now, they’ll be thinking of Desiree Fairooz.

If “free speech” applies only to some Americans, it’s hardly free.

When I point this out, some (comfortable, reasonable) people like to tell me that free speech is a must in a liberal society. They tell me it ensures a “marketplace of ideas” from which people can pick the strongest ones. The assumption, of course, is that people will “inevitably” pick the best ones.

That assumption’s based on an Enlightenment-era idea about the rationality of human beings. It makes my heart swell with nostalgia.

Look, kids, we used to imagine everyone had a fair chance in the marketplace! We used to believe people would make rational judgments!

The marketplace doesn’t mean much to a generation facing staggering levels of student debt and a society mired in wealth and income economic inequalities.

For this generation, it’s an easy leap to recognize that the marketplace of ideas is unequal, too. Today’s public squares are owned by businesses, and Facebook and Twitter can do whatever they’d like with your free speech. What those platforms certainly don’t seem to be doing is much to drown out the trolls and abusers who plague outspoken women and people of color in particular.

As for the inevitability of rational judgment, it’s past time to put that old chestnut to rest.

If you believe in science, you may be aware of the growing body of research about the profound limitations of the human mind to successfully integrate facts contrary to our long-held belief systems. (If you don’t believe in science, well, this might be why.)

Usually, people are swayed not by facts but by our emotions and our social group. Which brings me back to our current “debate” around free speech.

It’s easy to believe in free speech if you’ve always had a platform for your own. It’s easy to talk about speech as a universal right if you’ve never been dragged to jail for your laughter or your protest. It’s also easy to tolerate hateful speakers if their vitriol isn’t directed at you.

The younger generation — more diverse and more disadvantaged than their parents — is less interested in free speech because they see its benefits accruing only to those who want to do them harm. I understand where they’re coming from.

Personally, I believe that free speech is a right worth having and protecting. But like all rights, free speech needs to have equal worth for everyone. At the moment, it doesn’t.

Sadly, the reason it doesn’t is quite simple: Far too many Americans believe our country’s less-enlightened values of prejudice, greed and power are more important right now. A country where Desiree Fairooz can be convicted for laughing at a lie is a country where young people quickly learn whose rights have worth and whose do not.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner