What do Steven Pinker, David Frum, Margaret Atwood, and Noam Chomsky have in common? They all fear a culture of shame and silence is threatening free speech.

Next month, Harper’s Magazine will publish “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” in its October issue. It already made waves online this summer. Over 150 prominent authors from across the political spectrum warned that “the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.” A few days later, Bari Weiss, a New York Times opinion editor and writer, resigned via a public letter criticizing the “illiberal environment” that one colleague called the “new McCarthyism” at the paper.