Free Speech v. Hate Speech

Every morning I read the online newspaper from my grad school Alma mater and this morning I saw they are having a lecture at the Rainbow center that I would have liked to attend. The lecture is by Kelly Garrett on “Free Speech and Hate Groups: Where do we draw the line?” she is he Director of LGBTQ Center at Brown University.

There is a blurry line between hate speech and free speech; an article in the Huffington Post lists a couple of factors that define hate speech.

The second purpose of hate speech is to intimidate the targeted minority, leading them to question whether their dignity and social status is secure. In many cases, such intimidation is successful.

I think that is the main factor that defines hate speech is its targets a minority in order to intimidate the group. Not just an individual but the entire minority.

Hate speech is the opposite of free speech, it is meant to shut up the minority, to deny them of a voice. It is meant to cause psychological harm and to create fear. So where and how do we draw the line?

In a society that values open discussion  we allow people to have greater latitude in their speech; the American Bar Association says this about hate speech,

Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits. Should hate speech be discouraged? The answer is easy—of course! However, developing such policies runs the risk of limiting an individual’s ability to exercise free speech. When a conflict arises about which is more important—protecting community interests or safeguarding the rights of the individual—a balance must be found that protects the civil rights of all without limiting the civil liberties of the speaker.

In this country there is no right to speak fighting words—those words without social value, directed to a specific individual, that would provoke a reasonable member of the group about whom the words are spoken. For example, a person cannot utter a racial or ethnic epithet to another if those words are likely to cause the listener to react violently. However, under the First Amendment, individuals do have a right to speech that the listener disagrees with and to speech that is offensive and hateful.

Think about it. It’s always easier to defend someone’s right to say something with which you agree. But in a free society, you also have a duty to defend speech to which you may strongly object.

It is a very difficult line to draw; the Supreme Court has oscillated over where to draw it and I think like Supreme Court Justice Stewart's comment on pornography “I know it when I see it”, hate speech is “I know it when I hear it.”