Racism and free speech: Commentary on O'Donohue and Fisher (2022)
Abstract
In arguing for the addition of an enforceable section on free speech to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017; hereinafter, referred to as the Ethics Code), O'Donohue and Fisher (2022) rely on insufficient evidence of a threat to free speech. They also privilege individualistic over communitarian values and calibrate the risks of racist speech narrowly, and at the individual level. A recent resolution by the American Psychological Association (2021) calls upon all psychologists to "eliminate processes and procedures that perpetuate racial injustice" (para. 29, p. 3). In response to that call, I examine evidence pertinent to the proposal and conclude that the recommended addition to the Ethics Code is not empirically supported and could serve to institutionalize racism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Read the paper
Related studies
- Regulation of nucleolus assembly by non-coding RNA polymerase II transcripts
- For a Healthy Histone Code, a Little SUMO in the Tail Keeps the Acetyl Away
- Discovering a binary CTCF code with a little help from BORIS
- Article Commentary: Stabilizing the Code–-Methods to Preserve RNA Prove Their Worth
- Foreword to the Special Issue for the RINTC (The Implicit Seismic Risk of Code-Conforming Structures) Project
- Commentary: Promoting Health and Well-being in Pediatric Primary Care Settings: Using Health and Behavior Codes at Routine Well-child Visits
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.