Protect “Hate Speech” – Fight Hate

It doesn't matter how noble you think the goal is.

A good friend of mine recently asked me whether “hate speech,” was protected by the First Amendment. When I explained that it was, he was a little bewildered. He was even more bewildered by my thought that it should be so protected.

In my elaboration, I invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said:

We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe…

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought; not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate.

Holmes is both an eloquent and accessible spokesman for free speech, however he was hardly the originator of this philosophy. Holmes’ intellectual predecessor was John Stuart Mill who summed up the inherent good of unfettered free expression in his timeless essay, On Liberty:

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clear perception and livelier impression of the truth, produced by its collision with errors.

In the Kennebec Journal, Zachary Heiden, legal director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, is the latest to channel J.S. Mill (in fact, he quotes the passage above) as he explains why we must protect hate speech, even while we simultaneously fight racism.

Heiden reports that a surge of hate speech followed in the wake of the Obama election. Nevertheless, Heiden cuts would-be censors off at the pass and explains. Heiden explains that he supports the right of Nazis and the Klan to speak not only in spite of his commitment to equality, but because of his commitment to it. Even hate speech “advances the cause of civil rights.”

The First Amendment tells us… that the government cannot and will not protect us from evil thoughts or malicious speech.

Instead, we are obligated as citizens to criticize racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and any other ideology we wish to discredit. Only by meeting disagreeable speech head-on with more speech can we hope to undermine the power of hatred.

This is easy enough for contentious-yet-civil speech, but the pressure comes — as it has in recent weeks — when the speech is unpleasant, distasteful or hateful.

Freedom of expression helped bring us to a day when a black man could be elected president of the United States. The 1963 March on Washington remains the iconic event of the civil rights movement. The Selma-to-Montgomery marches in 1965 drew national attention to police violence and motivated Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. Marches, rallies, protests and speeches — all core First Amendment activities — helped bring us closer to the world we want.

In contrast, government censorship has consistently undermined freedom. (source)

However, Heiden doesn’t let us off easily. Heiden doesn’t say that hate speech should go unchecked. While would-be censors would lazily ask the government to step in and curtail racist, sexist, or homophobic speech, Heiden calls on those who oppose hate speech to practice advanced citizenship — to add our contribution to the marketplace of ideas.

That means every individual who was disturbed by the racism directed at Obama is obligated to speak up about it: attend rallies, write letters to the editor, hang signs in your own place of business expressing hope for full racial equality.

It is not the government’s job to combat disagreeable speech, it is ours. It is yours. Take it seriously. (source)