Does Anyone Believe In Free Speech? With Rikki Schlott

Rikki Schlott is a journalist at the New York Post, a fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind. As a Gen Z voice in the national conversation on free speech, she’s become a sharp critic of academic orthodoxy and cancel culture.

Schlott also hosts two podcasts—Lost Debate and We Never Had This Conversation—where she challenges dominant narratives and explores the generational divide over expression, politics, and power.

We discussed:

• How cancel culture ebbs and flows with cultural disruptions - from 2016 to 2020 and post-October 7th
• The generational divide on free speech - why older generations defend it more consistently than Gen Z
• Why academia creates censorious environments and whether government intervention on campuses is appropriate
• The political inconsistency of free speech advocacy - how both sides abandon principles when in power
• Social media's role in free speech debates and why Elon Musk's Twitter takeover led to an unbalanced discourse