I Came to America for Free Speech—Then I Saw How It’s Policed: Part 1

When ideology is religion, campus bureaucracy becomes the inquisition.

Hey, Thought Criminals out there!

This is Part 1 of a personal essay recounting my experience with free speech in America. I decided to break it into two parts because, well, it’s long—too long for one sitting, even for those of us who enjoy a good intellectual rebellion.

I also want to make one thing clear: My time at Springfield College was overwhelmingly positive. This essay focuses on one specific aspect of that experience, not the entirety of it. It’s a reflection on the cultural dynamics of free expression, not a hit piece on the school itself.

Additionally, I’ve chosen to leave out several names of private individuals because this isn’t about calling people out—it’s about examining the bigger cultural forces at work.

Part 2 coming soon—assuming I haven’t been sent to the Ministry of Truth by then. Stay tuned.

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I grew up in a country where free speech doesn’t exist—not in any real sense, anyway. Cambodia, my home for most of my life, is a de facto authoritarian state, where speaking too freely can cost you more than just social standing; it can cost you your safety, your future, even your freedom. But the government’s grip on speech isn’t the only thing that stifles expression. Cambodian society, marinated in a rigid top-down culture, discourages questioning, challenging authority, or voicing dissent. People don’t just fear the government—they fear each other, tiptoeing around invisible tripwires of what can and cannot be said. The result? A nation that self-censors by instinct, where silence isn’t just compliance—it’s survival.

But I was fortunate to be educated in international schools—primarily British ones—where I was steeped in a Western ethos that treated free speech as a fundamental right. Within the insulated world of my classrooms, I was taught to think critically and challenge assumptions. While the country around me skirted around taboos, I was reading Orwell and discussing the perils of censorship. While students in Cambodian public schools were expected to recite what they were told, I was graded on how well I could defend an argument. Debate was encouraged. Independent thinking was a virtue. And it was there that I came to see free speech not just as a right but as the most radical, progressive, and necessary idea of all.

By the time I finished high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But writing—the kind that truly mattered—wasn’t something I could do freely in Cambodia. Not without constraints. Not without risk. At my British high school, I completed the IGCSE and A-Level programs (similar to AP classes in the U.S. but for British schools), which made it easier to pursue higher education in a Commonwealth country like Canada, Britain, or Australia—where most of my classmates ended up. But I made a different choice—an ideological one. I moved to the United States, the country that, for better or worse, has been the most relentless in its defense of free speech.

When I arrived in the U.S. in 2018, I was eager to immerse myself in the quintessential American college experience—dorm life, parties, football games, the works. I enrolled at Springfield College, a small school in Western Massachusetts, to study English Literature and Creative Writing. But while I was busy adjusting to life in America, the country itself was still reeling from the political earthquake of 2016.

Photo Credit: Springfield College

It was two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, and the shock of his election had sent ripple effects through institutions traditionally associated with liberal or left-leaning ideologies—Hollywood, corporate America, media, and academia. His victory was seen not just as a political loss for Democrats but as an existential crisis for progressive values. In response, these institutions moved further left, doubling down on activism, identity politics, and ideological conformity.

Hollywood went into full-blown panic mode, flooding entertainment with politically charged narratives. Saturday Night Live became the unofficial resistance comedy show, with Alec Baldwin’s Trump impression turning every skit into a political statement. The Handmaid’s Tale was framed as a dire warning about America’s descent into authoritarianism, despite being adapted from a novel written in 1985. Films like The Hunt (2020) and Don’t Look Up (2021) served as thinly veiled commentaries on Trumpism, reinforcing the idea that America was locked in a battle between enlightened progressives and dangerous reactionaries.

Corporate America followed suit, embracing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at an unprecedented scale. Training programs like Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility seminars became corporate standard practice. Major brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, and Disney positioned themselves as champions of social justice, integrating political messaging into their marketing strategies. Legacy media—The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN—abandoned traditional journalistic neutrality, embracing an openly activist stance against Trump and his supporters. Cancel culture became a pervasive force, with journalists, celebrities, and even ordinary people being publicly called out or ousted for failing to align with the ideological moment.

Yet nowhere was this transformation more pronounced than in academia—and I was right in the thick of it. I didn’t realize it then. But looking back now, every English Literature course I took was saturated in meta-critical theories that filtered everything through the lens of power dynamics. Whether analyzing a theme, a character, or an entire novel, almost every essay was expected to be framed through critical race theory, feminist theory, Marxist theory, or queer theory. God forbid one just read a book and talk about, say, its narrative structure or prose. That was for the unenlightened.

I’ll admit it—I was all in at first. By my second semester, I was fluent in the language of systemic oppression and power structures, so convinced of its righteousness that I declared a Social Justice minor. I deconstructed A Raisin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman with all the fervor of a true believer, dismantling the myth of the American Dream. Essay after essay, I laid out how profoundly America had failed its marginalized communities, as though I—a college freshman—had unlocked some hidden truth that generations before me had simply ignored.

Take my Shakespeare class, for example. My final research project bore a title that, in hindsight, makes me laugh at how serious I was: “The Dehumanization of Women in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Othello.” With all the righteous indignation of a budding revolutionary, I argued that Shakespeare’s women were little more than currency in a patriarchal barter system, their value determined by their ability to be transferred from father to husband. Marriage, I insisted, was just another tool for female subjugation. I even went so far as to psychoanalyze the male characters’ obsession with virginity, tying it to their fragile masculinity and desperate need for control.

And if that doesn’t quite capture the level of self-seriousness I had back then, let me introduce you to my first-ever article for The Springfield Student, my college newspaper: “Cheney Hall – Involuntary Assimilation”—a scathing takedown of… my school’s dining hall. Why? Because I was mad that my mandatory $5,890 meal plan didn’t include enough Asian food. And in a moment of spectacular overreach, I likened this culinary injustice to the forced assimilation of Native Americans. (Yes. Really.) I cringe rereading it now, but here’s a gem from that article:

As a person with Asian heritage, cuisine has always been an important aspect of my culture, and in a time like this when I am required to pay and eat a cuisine that is American-oriented, I cannot help but feel like I am being forced to assimilate to the mainstream culture.

One of the first things that I have learned when I arrived here was about the cultural assimilation of Native Americans through Americanization policies that attempted to transform Native American culture to European–American culture, and how unfairly Native Americans were treated. With my Multicultural Education class, we celebrated Native American Indian Heritage Month, because this commemorative month does not only act as a platform for Native people to share their culture, traditions, music, crafts, dance, and concepts of life, but it also serves as a reminder that the United States of America is always a country that advocates choice and promotes diversity. It was one of the highlights of my experience in America and the reason why I am so proud to be here. And though I could not really expect Springfield College to fulfill the needs of every individual on campus, I do, however, expect it to uphold the values that it teaches its students and stand by the ideals that this great nation stands for.

At the time, I felt like I was doing meaningful work—unpacking layers of oppression, exposing historical injustices, and challenging outdated beliefs. And to some extent, I was. These theories offered valuable insights and sharpened my analytical skills. Nonetheless, what I didn’t recognize then—what I only see clearly now—is how narrow and rigid this intellectual framework had become.

There was only one way to interpret literature: through the lens of oppression. One way to analyze characters: as either the oppressed or the oppressor. Every novel, every poem, every play—no matter how intricate or ambiguous—was reduced to a binary struggle of power and victimhood. The complexity of human nature, the richness of interpretation, the sheer depth of literature itself—all of it was flattened into a singular ideological reading.

Then I started to notice something else too. Certain ideas were welcome; others were not. If I wrote an essay critiquing capitalism through a Marxist lens, it was met with praise. If I argued that a novel reinforced systemic racism, I got nods of approval. But the moment I questioned these assumptions—if I so much as hinted at a counterpoint—there was a shift in the air. A palpable tension. Disagreeing with the prevailing discourse wasn’t just frowned upon. It felt dangerous.

Over time, I saw how dissent—whether from classical liberals, centrists, or the rare conservative brave (or foolish) enough to speak in a place like Springfield—was quietly policed. No one outright banned opposing viewpoints; that would be too obvious. Instead, those who veered too far from the ideological script were greeted with scornful glances, passive-aggressive suggestions to “read more theory,” or, if they persisted, polite but firm reminders to consider the implications of their arguments. The message was clear: conform, toe the party line, or learn to enjoy social exile. Indeed, we weren’t being urged to think critically; we were being trained to affirm a predetermined narrative. Truth-seeking was replaced with ideological compliance.

Eventually, I felt it too. Instead of writing essays that reflected what I genuinely believed, I found myself crafting arguments I knew would earn approval. Not because I was convinced—but because I knew the cost of pushing back. A bad grade. Awkward stares from classmates. The unspoken accusation of being on the “wrong” side. The pressure wasn’t explicit, but it was undeniable.

It wasn’t progressive ideas that pushed me away from progressivism. It was the dogma. The performative moral absolutism. The creeping realization that what we were engaged in wasn’t critical thinking—it was ideological conditioning.

At some point, I had to ask myself: How could I keep writing about the virtues of Marxism when its real-world application had led to the systematic murder of nearly three million people in my home country under the Khmer Rouge? How could I keep insisting that America was irredeemably oppressive when every summer, I returned to Cambodia and was reminded—by family, by friends, by strangers—of how much they longed to be here?

After the killing of George Floyd was caught on camera, America erupted. The collective trepidation was visceral—how could this happen in 2020? The video was undeniable, horrifying. For a brief, fleeting moment, there was unity in that horror. Conservatives, liberals, moderates—nearly everyone agreed that what had happened was wrong. It felt like a moment of reckoning, one that could lead to genuine discussions about policing, race, and reform.

I remember feeling that urgency myself. Full disclaimer: I even attended a Black Lives Matter protest in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was early on, before everything spiraled, when it still felt like a movement focused on justice. People gathered, held signs, chanted, and mourned. It was solemn, purposeful, and peaceful.

But then the protests escalated into full-blown riots. Looting, arson, vandalism—none of it could be ignored, though many tried. As cities burned, businesses were ransacked, and innocent people lost everything, I found myself asking the question that, in hindsight, marked my first real ideological divergence from the script: Is this actually productive?

The response was swift, rehearsed, and self-righteous: Property is insured. Human lives can’t be replaced. It was the go-to justification, repeated with the kind of smug certainty that made questioning it feel taboo. But really? That’s the answer? That’s the moral trade-off? Destroying a family-owned restaurant or torching a mom-and-pop shop—many of them minority-owned—was just collateral damage? And we were supposed to accept $1 to $2 billion in property damage as an unfortunate but necessary casualty in the pursuit of justice?

The media certainly seemed to think so. Outlets bent over backward to preserve the image of the protests as purely virtuous, dismissing concerns about violence as right-wing talking points. CNN gave us the now-infamous “fiery but mostly peaceful” graphic, as correspondent Omar Jimenez reported in front of a burning building in Kenosha. MSNBC hosts insisted that “peaceful protests” remained the dominant narrative, as footage of looting and assaults played in the background. In Seattle and Portland, activists took over entire neighborhoods, declaring them autonomous zones—lawless experiments that precipitously devolved into chaos.

However, at Springfield College, the moral panic took on its own uniquely performative flavor. In August 2020, an Instagram account with the handle @blackatspringfieldcollege emerged, rapidly becoming the digital town square where discontent was put on display. The account operated under a veil of anonymity, its bio offering nothing more than a proclamation: “A platform for Springfield College’s Black community to be heard. Shining light on the reality of being Black at Springfield College. DM Submissions.”

Soon, posts began flooding the feed against maroon and white backgrounds, ranging from vivid firsthand accounts of racism to vague grievances about hostile environments with little to no detail. Some stories were undeniably troubling. Others? Well, they read more like dormitory gossip dressed up as civil rights violations—like the post from a white girl who claimed her two Black friends weren’t allowed into a junior/senior townhouse party and got “dirty looks.” Never mind the countless non-racial reasons why they might not have been let in—maybe they weren’t on the guest list, maybe the host only allowed close friends, maybe they just weren’t cool enough. But in the logic of the account, there was only one possible explanation: racism.

Naturally, the account didn’t stop at being a digital diary. It abruptly morphed into a tool for activism, and soon after, into something more vengeful. The first cancellation attempt was only a matter of time.

That fall, as classes limped along remotely thanks to COVID-19, the leadership of four Black student organizations—Men of Excellence, Women of Power, the Student Society for Bridging Diversity (SSBD), and the Black Student Union—requested an audience with the college president. Their purpose? To lay down a list of demands in response to the summer’s racial reckoning. The proposals ran the usual gamut of modern academic orthodoxy: from a mandatory one-credit anti-Black racism course for all incoming students to a strict zero-tolerance policy on hate speech. It was Springfield College’s turn to perform the ritualistic self-flagellation expected of every institution scrambling to prove its moral purity.

When the college president sent out a campus-wide email outlining the school’s enthusiastic compliance, Trevor Lamberton—a senior majoring in Applied Exercise Science and the captain of the men’s gymnastics team—took issue with one particular proposal. Lamberton screenshotted the email, circled the anti-racism course requirement, and posted it on his Snapchat with the caption: “Thank god this is my last year here.”

Within hours, someone screenshotted his post, sent it to @blackatspringfieldcollege, and the anonymous page gleefully re-uploaded it, along with this solemn bit of digital pearl-clutching:

This screenshot was sent anonymously and with upset and concern because a member of the Springfield College community posted this. This has been an ongoing issue on the campus of people saying they aren't racist, but just like this post on social media, people are mad because they would have to take an anti-racism class. The question is if you aren't racist, why is taking an anti-racism class such a big deal?

I didn’t know Trevor Lamberton personally. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see how quickly some people who did know him turned on him with the zeal of medieval inquisitors. The comment sections under the @blackatspringfieldcollege post swelled with outrage, each reply like a digital torch in a virtual witch hunt.

One comment read:

Don’t post publicly if you don’t want to be addressed publicly, SIMPLE. Y’all can vouch for him all you want, but the fact is, this is ignorant asf. Should’ve kept your opinion to yourself if you didn’t want others’ opinions. Some things are better left unsaid 🤷🏽‍♂️ This kid legit went out of his way to post the snap, and now y’all are whining about how he’s being addressed. Y’all sound privileged asf 💯

Another was more succinct:

Trevor a punk ass bitch, plain and center. Idk why y’all writing paragraphs when I said it in two run-on sentences.

Of course, as @blackatspringfieldcollege framed it, not wanting to waste one’s college credit on an anti-Black racism course essentially made them a racist. Nuance wasn’t necessary. Intent didn’t matter. A single line of text—“Thank god this is my last year here”—was enough to brand Lamberton with a scarlet letter on campus. After all, if you weren’t racist, why would you object? The logic was foolproof in its circularity: Question the orthodoxy, and you confirm your guilt. Refuse the struggle session, and you prove why it’s needed.

The consequences came swiftly. Lamberton was removed from his position as captain of the men’s gymnastics team, presumably due to pressure from alumni—the primary donors for the gymnastics program. Though the school never issued a formal statement about his removal, it was clear that appeasing the outrage took precedence over fair process or an open discussion. The message was unmistakable: dissent, even in its most benign form, would not be tolerated.

It wasn’t long before a counterpoint to @blackatspringfieldcollege surfaced—an anonymous Instagram account called @conservativesatsc. If @blackatspringfieldcollege was a confessional booth for criticisms of systemic oppression, @conservativesatsc was its irreverent mirror, a space for students tired of ideological conformity to voice their frustrations. It, too, accepted anonymous submissions, re-sharing students’ experiences, but this time from the perspective of those who felt silenced by the progressive dogma on campus.

The response was immediate—and furious. Unlike @blackatspringfieldcollege, which had been embraced as a necessary space for marginalized voices, @conservativesatsc was labeled hateful, dangerous, even extremist. While one was seen as an act of courage, the other was an act of hostility.

To its critics, the very existence of the page was an attack. People didn’t just reject its arguments; they saw the anonymity itself as proof of cowardice, as though the students behind it had any reason to feel safe in revealing their identities. Students and faculty alike launched into a digital witch hunt to unmask the faceless heretics running the page. Some scoured the list of followers like political commissars sniffing out deviants who might secretly harbor wrongthink. Friends eyed each other warily. DMs were sent. Screenshots circulated. It became a political litmus test: Who followed? Who liked? Who dared comment? As if a single name in the wrong column was proof of latent fascism.

Soon, the paranoia reached the faculty. Some suspected that professors—especially the ones who weren’t outspokenly progressive—might be involved. And in the Department of Literature, Writing, and Journalism, one name in particular made the rounds: Professor Dennis Gouws.

Professor Dennis Gouws was an English professor who had committed the unpardonable sin—brace yourself—of teaching courses on Victorian Manhood and Men in Literature (which the college canceled in 2016). Never mind that Women and Literature also existed and wasn’t considered controversial. The mere fact that a man dared to focus on masculinity—especially one who didn’t openly disavow it—was enough to make him a subject of suspicion.

But his real crime? The piece of evidence that all but confirmed his guilt? The collection of non-progressive quotes taped to his office door, including one from Ben Carson, former neurosurgeon, that read: “Young men, particularly young white men, aren’t signing up in great numbers for military (service) anymore because they don’t want to fight for a country that hates them.”

A screenshot I obtained from a faculty colleague of Professor Dennis Gouws, who had shared pictures of various quotes he had taped to his office door.

I don’t know if Professor Gouws ever realized he was under suspicion or if any formal actions were taken against him. Maybe he did. Maybe he noticed the hushed whispers, the side-eyes in faculty meetings, the sudden frost in the air whenever his name came up. Or maybe he had better things to do than worry about the fever dreams of overzealous campus commissars.

To be clear, I never had a class with him. I had no personal connection to the man. This is not some impassioned defense of my beloved professor—I had none. My point isn’t about Gouws as an individual but about the broader climate of ideological scrutiny that had taken hold. While Gouws may have escaped direct consequences—if there were any at all—I do know that one student wasn’t as lucky.

Eric Palchanis, a History major, had the audacity to be openly right-leaning in class. Worse still, he was bisexual, which made his ideological deviation even more treasonous. Intersectionality is all well and good—until one steps out of line. Then their “queerness” is revoked like a gym membership they forgot to renew.

The reason people were sure he was behind the account? The logic was impeccable in its absurdity: @conservativesatsc had mentioned that its administrator was pre-law, and History was a common major for pre-law students. (English Literature was, too, but thankfully no one suspected me—I had the social camouflage of being a “good progressive.”)

Leading the charge was the President of the Women of Power club, who was positive Palchanis was the mastermind behind the account. She wasn’t content with mere accusations murmured in group chats or flung across Zoom calls—no, this required escalation. She took her suspicions straight to Student Affairs, because when ideology is religion, campus bureaucracy becomes the inquisition.

Therefore, the Associate Vice President of Student Affairs requested a meeting with Palchanis. What was said in that room? I don’t know—I wasn’t privy to their conversation. But I do know this: when campus bureaucrats start summoning students over anonymous speech, free expression isn’t a right—it’s a conditional privilege, revoked the moment you stray from the party line.

A screenshot I retrieved from Eric Palchanis’s Instagram story, where he posted an email he received from the Associate Vice President of Student Affairs.

I was never big on canceling people. I never joined an online mob, never reveled in the digital stoning of some poor fool who said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But I do regret something—I regret my silence. I regret being part of the self-silencing majority—the students who nodded along in seminars, played the game, knew better but bit their tongues because the cost of dissent was just too high.

I don’t buy into the progressive mantra that “silence is violence.” But silence is surrender. And looking back, I surrendered too easily.

Bari Weiss once wrote, “We live in the freest society in the history of the world. There is no gulag here, as there was in the Soviet Union. There is no formal social credit system, as there is today in China. And yet the words that we associate with closed societies—dissidents, double thinkers, blacklists—are exactly the ones that come to mind.”

I made the ideological choice to come to America—the freest society in the world. And yet, for a time, I forgot why I was here. I bowed my head and watched as free speech—this country’s most radical, most precious right—eroded not by government decree but by cultural coercion. By all of us—heirs to the Enlightenment and the American experiment—who seem disturbingly keen to cast it aside.

That’s a mistake I will not make again.