Two years ago this weekend the Michigan Court of Appeals
affirmed one of the most cherished rights Americans have enjoyed for over two
centuries – freedom of speech. The ruling amounted to a rebuke of the Michigan
Education Association, which had sued the Mackinac Center for Public Policy for
quoting words uttered by the union’s president at his own news conference.
When then-MEA President Luigi Battaglieri
told reporters, "Frankly, I admire what they [the Mackinac Center] have
done," he was exercising his free-speech rights to tell the world his thoughts
about one of the nation’s most influential state-based policy institutes. We were gratified by his very public words and we repeated them
publicly. But we were shocked by his subsequent attempt to use the courts to
silence us.
Disposing of the MEA’s lawsuit, the
judges said the Mackinac Center’s speech "falls squarely within the
protection of the First Amendment …."
The MEA, and everyone else for that matter, has the right
to say what they think of the Mackinac Center’s research. The union even has the right to tell teachers to
stop reading Mackinac Center journals. Like MEA officials, we don’t agree
with everything we hear. But we believe the remedy for speech with which you
disagree is more free speech, not a muzzle on the speaker.
That’s one reason we haven’t sued the union for publishing
various complaints about Mackinac Center studies and reports on education over
the years, even when they
negatively characterize us or call us
names. We understand
the union is merely exercising free speech to protect its own financial and
political interests. Instead of suing, we’ve submitted
our own ideas to the court of public opinion.
Meanwhile, the union has continued to sue its competitors.
Two years ago, the court of public opinion
decisively sided with the Mackinac Center in affirming free speech and
denouncing attempts to silence it. And that is worth commemorating at least once
a year.
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Joseph G. Lehman is executive vice president of the
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a nonpartisan research and educational
institute headquartered in Midland, Mich.
