Sarah McLaughlin
FIRE Staff Speaker
Sarah graduated magna cum laude from Drexel University in 2014 with a B.S. in political science and a minor in history. In 2012, Sarah began working with FIRE as a Program Assistant through Drexel’s cooperative education program and remained on FIRE’s staff for through the rest of her undergraduate career. After graduation, Sarah defended students and faculty facing censorship in FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program, where she worked for five years. She also served as director of FIRE’s Targeted Advocacy program, where she focused on U.S. universities’ relationship with international threats to free speech and art censorship. Her writing about free speech issues, including protest and blasphemy laws, has been featured in publications including Foreign Policy, Artsy, The Huffington Post, and New York Daily News.
Recent Writings
- Belfast hip-hop group Kneecap at the center of international firestorm,
- ‘I hate freedom of opinion’ meme leads to sentencing in German court ,
- Should the government punish you for allegedly ‘undermining’ American diplomacy?,
- Is it ‘hate speech’ to say Jesus needs a haircut?,
- Quran burner assassinated in Sweden — and another arrested in the UK,
- 60 Minutes and Vice President Vance put Europe’s worrying speech restrictions into the spotlight,
- Trump’s threat to deport anti-Israel protesters is an attack on free speech,
- China’s censorship goes global — from secret police stations to video games,
- A decade after ‘Charlie Hebdo’ killings, we are still failing blasphemers,
- Australia blocks social media for teens while UK mulls blasphemy ban,
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