Defend Speech Even When Your Side Hates It

The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, and visionaries who are making the 21st century more libertarian—or at least more interesting—by challenging worn-out ideas and orthodoxies.

This week’s guest host is Billy Binion, who talks with Jenin Younes, a civil liberties attorney who first gained national attention when she sued the Biden administration for pressuring social media companies to censor content it didn’t like. That case, Murthy v. Missouri, ultimately reached the Supreme Court.

A former New York City public defender, Younes is now the National Legal Director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, where she is preparing to sue the Trump administration. She and Binion discuss her unlikely path to civil liberties advocacy, the threats to free speech coming from both the left and the right, and why defending the First Amendment should be a universal cause—even when that speech is offensive.

https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/01/defend-speech-even-when-your-side-hates-it/
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0:00–Introduction
1:00–Younes’ commitment to civil liberties
3:38–State of free speech in America
7:34–Opposing COVID restrictions
12:33–Jimmy Kimmel, the FCC, and Murthy v. Missouri
27:39–Trump’s record on free speech
39:41–Noncitizens and constitutional rights
42:23–Censorship in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk assassination
48:33–Pam Bondi and hate speech
57:52–How can we protect free speech?

Producer: Paul Alexander
Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser
Illustration: Eddie Marshall