“The consequences of not having free speech”: Free Speech Gains Support, Debating Shoutdowns; Alec Torres on Good Speechwriting

On the first episode of Pod and Man at Yale of the year, Hilda Barragan-Reyes ’26, Abhinay Lingareddy ’26, and Eric Arabadzhiev ’28  talk about new Yale student survey results pointing to an increase in support for free speech. They also debate the free speech value of shout downs and whether institutional neutrality really matters for free speech. 

• Arabadzhiev ’28: “I think, across the board, that sort of censorious behavior is not one that we should be welcoming onto a campus that supposedly its mission is to seek truth.”
• Lingareddy ’26: “I’m not endorsing shouting down as productive. I don’t think the form of speech should always be productive. I don’t think that’s the only value of speech. I think speech is often a form of expression.”
• Barragan-Reyes ’26: “I think it’s hard to discount the consequences of expressing certain views on campus, as we saw during the Israel conflict that’s still going on.”
• Lingareddy ’26: “Yale has power. Yale has money. What is all that money for. What is all that power for and influence for if we’re just going to be institutionally neutral.”

Alec Torres ’13, past speech writer for President Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Kevin McCarthy walks through what it means and what it takes to write a great speech: 

• Torres '13: “What makes a great speech is the unity of having a moment worthy of greatness and then meeting the moment with something beautiful and something profound.” 
• Torres '13: “In any craft, if you’re good enough at it over time, and devote yourself to it, you’ll hit those flow points where it’s almost like you’re not working… the creative aspect of it can flow through you freely without blockages. The ancients would call it the muse. Maybe an inspiration of the Spirit in more Christian terms.”  
• Torres '13: “I try to unlock in my own mind why I personally should care about what I’m writing about. Why does it actually matter?” 
• Torres '13: “Too zealously guarding one’s reputation and fearing malign influences of other people is a recipe for unhappiness and, in my opinion, ultimate failure professionally too.”

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