HATE: Why We Should Resist it with Free Speech, Not Censorship by Nadine Strossen

Abstract

[...]being subjected to denigrating speech may even foster resilience.6 Strossen concedes that workplaces may regulate speech to ensure that minority groups do not have to endure a “hostile work environment”7 and public (but not private) schools may regulate speech, including the Confederate flag and white supremacist slogans, that causes a substantial disruption to the educational process.8 True threats and incitement to violence are, of course, already illegal in most all criminal jurisdictions worldwide. According to Strossen, we should be very cautious in handing governments overbroad powers to suppress political speech on the basis of vaguely worded hate speech laws, as these are often used against activists in the very minority communities that they are designed to protect. In Virginia v. Black, the Supreme Court reviewed a case in which a Ku Klux Klan leader had been convicted under a Virginia statute for burning a cross on the property of an African-American family.14 The Court permitted a state to ban cross-burning with intent to intimidate, but invalidated that part of the statute that specified that cross-burning was prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate. [...]fourteen states have passed laws requiring their law enforcement agencies to engage in accurate hate crimes reporting, and a number of human rights commissions in US cities independently collect hate crimes data, and these positive developments might be extended further.17 Nadine Strossen has written a doughty defense of free speech that should be read by anyone interested in how to respond to the current challenges of xenophobia, racism, religious chauvinism and extreme nationalist sentiment.