What I Didn't Know About Free Speech on College Campuses tells the story of filmmaker Julie Akeret's journey of discovery about the realities of free speech in higher education -- from a mild irritation to a deep fear for our country, from Left to Right and back again. The film was was intended to be a small project about free speech on college campuses, motivated by her son's freshman year experiences – until a powerful totalitarian challenge threatened this most American of rights. Akeret came to see that even a very basic freedom can be understood and championed in many different ways. And in the hunger for power, it can even be ignored.

And so, the issue returned to the place where the film began: on campus. From cancel culture to hate speech and cultural appropriation, Akeret investigates the state of free speech rights at colleges and universities in the U.S. Today, American universities that allow student protest are denied billions of dollars in funding. In response, some universities have restricted or outright banned protest activities. If speech is no longer free in America, is it still America?

Directed by Julie Akeret • 61 minutes • SDH captions

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