Four Reasons We Should Care About Free Speech

Why does free speech matter, and why is it worth defending?

Speakers: Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of History of Education and Berkowitz Professor in Education, University of Pennsylvania

Tanya Fitzgerald, Professor of Higher Education and Dean of the Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia.

In the first part of this talk, Professor Jonathan Zimmerman will explore four fundamental reasons free speech remains essential to a free society. Touching on questions of political accountability, social justice, artistic expression, and education, he examines how freedom of expression shapes the way we challenge power, contest ideas, create culture, and learn from one another. Drawing on insights from his acclaimed work on free speech, Zimmerman reflects on why these freedoms matter—and why protecting them remains vital to democratic life.

The second part of this event will be a conversation between Professor Zimmerman and Tanya Fitzgerald, Professor of Higher Education and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at The University of Western Australia. Professor Zimmerman and Professor Fitzgerald will delve further into the discussion about free speech and democratic life.

Jonathan Zimmerman is Professor of History of Education and Berkowitz Professor in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. A former Peace Corps volunteer and high school teacher, Zimmerman is the author of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools and eight other books. He is also a frequent oped contributor to the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other popular newspapers and magazines. Zimmerman previously taught for 20 years at New York University, where he received its Distinguished Teaching Award.

Professor Zimmerman is a Forrest Research Foundation Thinker in Residence. His visit to Perth is supported by the Forrest Research Foundation and the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies.

Tanya Fitzgerald is Professor of Higher Education and Dean of the Graduate School of Education at The University of Western Australia. She has held leadership positions in universities in New Zealand, England, and Australia. Tanya’s research interests focus primarily on histories of women’s higher education, social change, and higher education policy and leadership. Current projects included an analysis of leadership in elite universities (funded by the ESRC) and a history of women academics. A recent co-edited book (with Helen M Gunter and Jon Nixon) is Intellectual leadership, higher education, and precarious times (2024, Bloomsbury Academic). Tanya is internationally recognised as a leading interdisciplinary scholar in the history of education field. In 2020 she was made a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, in 2021 elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and in 2025 appointed to the Australian Research Council College of Experts.

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