Five Universities. Hundreds of Conversations. The Dial is Shifting

What if the next generation isn’t just closed off, just unheard? 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on the ground representing the Free Speech Union at O-Weeks across the country and the dial feels like it’s finally shifting. 

We hit five universities and seven campuses - Canterbury, Otago, Victoria, AUT, and Auckland. 

For years, we’ve been told that young people are hostile to free speech, unwilling to debate, or too fragile for disagreement and honestly? The “Gen Z hates free speech” stereotype, didn’t match what I saw.  

Thousands of students walked past, and we had hundreds of respectful conversations.  

Students came up with thoughtful, serious questions: 

“Is cancel culture actually bad?” 

“Where should the line be between hate and speech?” 

“What about harm?” 

“How do we deal with disagreement without it turning into hatred?” 

I came away deeply encouraged. Not because everyone agreed, but because students wanted to wrestle with these ideas.  

I found young people across the country curious, engaged and up for grappling with the hard questions. You heard that right– even students in Wellington were up for a conversation! 

A lot of them also told me they’d never had a genuine, good-faith conversation about free speech before.  

During O-week they had the opportunity to hear that there is a principled, consistent case for free speech, one that protects everyone, regardless of ideology. They experienced that disagreement doesn’thave to mean division. 

So, what does this mean and what’s coming next? 

For a long time now, you, our supporters have been telling us that you want to see us doing more than just defending free speech in courtrooms or advocating for policy change. You want us to be proactive in building a culture of open dialogue from the ground up.  

If we want free speech to survive long-term, it can’t just be defended in courtrooms and Parliament.  

It has to be believed in – and defended - by my generation.  

We need to understand that free speech isn’t “nice to have” - it’s what protects every other right when things get tense. 

We need young people to build the confidence to speak, and the maturity to listen, even when it’s uncomfortable.  
Because the future of open society will be decided by the people who are learning right now how to handle disagreement.  

You’ve been itching for us to take this to the next generation, and we’ve been listening, and in response, we’re launching Speakeasy. 

So what is Speakeasy? 

Speakeasy is the FSU’s youth initiative - built to help young New Zealanders practice open dialogue. 
To ask hard questions. To test ideas. To disagree well. And to understand why free speech is a cornerstone of democracy. 

 And to make sure we do this right, we’ve brought philosopher and educator Peter Boghossian to New Zealand for the next three months.   

Peter is a philosopher, educator, and a leading voice on how to have productive conversations across deep disagreement. 

He's bringing Spectrum Street Epistemology to Speakeasy: a practical, non-confrontational way to explore how people arrived at their beliefs - focused on understanding, not winning. (It’s genuinely one of the most effective tools I’ve seen for lowering the temperature and raising the quality of a conversation.) 

Will you help us build this? 

I am emailing you, %recipient.first%, because you have backed this work - and this is how we take it to the next generation. I want to invite you to be part of something game-changing. 

How can you support what we’re doing?  

• Donate to help launch Speakeasy – Your support will fund training, materials, events, and getting Speakeasy into more schools and universities. 

• Put your hand up to volunteer – This is a big project, and we need people around the country who can help us open doors and deliver it locally. Volunteer Here

• Visit the Speakeasy site (and share it with a young person) – If you’ve got kids, grandkids, nieces/nephews, or you know a student who is hungry for real conversation please pass it on.

• Follow Speakeasy on social media – Help us reach the people this is for. 

If you care about young people believing in free speech, not as a slogan, but as a democratic habit, then Speakeasy is how we build that future. 

The future of free speech will not be decided in theory. 

It will be shaped by the next generation. 

Let’s make sure they’re ready.