Late night shows and free speech: where do we draw the line with government oversight?

The recent controversy surrounding Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show probably needs no introduction, but we’ll get you up to speed: the program was pulled from ABC on Sept. 17 for his comments about the individual accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk, and national debate has continued until his show was reinstated in an announcement from ABC on Monday. Following this incident, there’s been a lot of conversation about the First Amendment in the last week, especially related to free speech.

Since the original cancellation, critics have called out ABC for caving to pressure from the Trump Administration to reprimand Kimmel, most notably from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr and President Trump himself. Carr said, when it came to ABC that, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” suggesting that Kimmel be suspended in a podcast – and ABC’s announcement to pull Kimmel followed hours later. Comments like these continued for the following week, with Trump suggesting on Air Force One that networks that run negative coverage of the Trump administration should have their licenses revoked. These statements have since been mostly rolled back – with Carr and Trump now saying the FCC had no role in the cancellation and that the choice to pull Kimmel was entirely business related, blaming it on “bad ratings.”

But by then, the writing was on the wall – and accusations of the Trump administration applying unconstitutional pressure to ABC to restrict Kimmel’s right to free speech began to swirl.

Now, despite all of the controversy, Kimmel has been reinstated, so what’s the big deal? ABC has the right, as a private company, to make decisions about their programs and employees as they see fit – the only legal obstacle could be employment contracts or other related issues. Government censorship is unconstitutional as outlined in the First Amendment, but private corporations like ABC can restrict speech and enforce their own policies. But in Kimmel’s case, it seems words speak louder than actions – a hint of government involvement, even if it’s purely verbal statements from individuals in charge, can raise red flags. This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has come under fire for legal issues related to the First Amendment. The administration lost a lawsuit in April against the Associated Press, who cited violations of freedom of speech and the press in their complaint.

This win for the AP forced the White House to reinstate full access for the organization after banning them from various parts of White House coverage in February. It’s also not the first time that Carr has gone after TV corporations in alignment with Trump’s policies: he investigated both ABC and NBC for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies of their parent companies, Disney and Comcast, earlier this year.

Carr’s main justification for his threats against ABC is that Kimmel was engaging in “news distortion,” which the FCC does prohibit when there is evidence to suggest that news reports have been deliberately misrepresented during a broadcast. But legal experts say Kimmel’s standing as a comedian expressing an opinion during an entertainment show makes this viewpoint hard to defend.

Even within the FCC, there is opposition to Carr’s decisions in the form of Anna Gomez, the only Democratic member of the organization. In an interview with Vanity Fair last Friday, she said, “while what happened to Charlie Kirk is inexcusable, I’m concerned that we not allow this act of political violence to be used as justification for government censorship and control. And this is the clearest and most alarming attack on the First Amendment and free expression by our government in recent memory.” Gomez also emphasized that Carr and Trump’s threats are empty and unconstitutional, because “the FCC would not be able to take action as extreme as revoking a broadcast license just because of, perhaps, an inappropriate joke by a comedian.”

Carr has said he won’t stop investigating broadcast programs that he perceives as biased against conservatives, but over the last week has softened his initial comments about ABC (although Trump has now threatened to sue ABC over Kimmel’s reinstatement in a Truth Social post on Tuesday night).

Regardless, at present there appears to be no indication that any actual unconstitutional action was taken to pressure ABC into making their decisions. But we argue that even the mere suggestion of government intimidation as it relates to free speech is dangerous.

The constitution is intended to protect citizens against this type of retaliation from the government when push comes to shove, but words hold power.

We weren’t in the network meetings, so we probably won’t ever know exactly what went into the decision to take Kimmel off the air and put him back on again. However, it’s not unreasonable, given the circumstances, for the public to assume that Carr’s statements had some kind of effect – just like it’s not unreasonable to assume that backlash to ABC’s initial choice could have played a part in reinstating Kimmel on Monday.

At The Record, we are uniquely aware of the value of fostering free speech – we do it in our opinion section every week. We follow specific ethical guidelines when considering opinion submissions, but above all we strive to produce a page that reflects the many different ideas and views of our campus community, in the hopes of providing a space for constructive dialogue about a wide range of topics.

In this sense, freedom of speech is at the heart of what we do, even as a small-scale publication, and we want to hold government leaders and large media organizations to the same standards even if they are private entities.

The FCC serves a vital purpose in regulating national broadcast networks and enforcing communication laws, but even the suggestion or threat to revoke licenses because of unfavored speech goes too far.

The entire concept of free speech hinges on the idea that for better or for worse, all citizens, including people you disagree with, are entitled to express their opinions without fear of government retaliation – the way the constitution intended it.

While we acknowledge that ABC can and should make their own decisions about their contributors and content, the government should unequivocally stay out of it when it comes to constitutionally protected free speech – now and always. This is especially true if this particular administration’s goal, as the president himself has said, is to “immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”