An article titled “What Is Hate Speech?,” by Alan Dershowitz, discusses the idea that anything said by anyone could be seen as hate speech. The article is almost twenty-three years old and its question still remains unanswered. Recently, hate speech has become an issue on college campuses across the nation. This is because they feel the need to protect their students from hateful speech while at the same time uphold their First Amendment rights. This causes universities to be stuck in a limbo between protecting their students’ rights and protecting them from their rights. If a university decides to do nothing about hate speech, they get complaints from the students. However, when universities decide to act on the hate speech happening on their
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The American Civil Liberties Union believes that First Amendment rights are “indivisible” and that it “protects [all] speech no matter how offensive its content.” One writer from The Washington Post believes that there is no difference between free speech and hate speech, and states that there is no “‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment” (Volokh). Volokh states that people are “free to condemn Islam” just like they are free to condemn “Jews… whites… capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans.” He acknowledges the fact that there are some exceptions to the First Amendment but declares that hate speech applies to none of them (Volokh). In other words, Volokh is declaring that “threatening to kill someone because” of their race is not illegal because it is hate speech, but “because it’s illegal to make true threats.” Others argue with hate codes because they tend to be outrageously broad at times, making it almost impossible to say something that would not fit under the hate speech code. One article titled “Speech Code of the Month: Clemson University” addresses a recent broad hate speech code that has been established at Clemson University (Beltz). The code addresses sexual harassment and defines it as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature” (Beltz). According to Beltz, the code also declares that “harassment need not be ‘objectively’ offensive,” essentially, that means “that a person’s subjective feeling about what constitutes harassment is sufficient to meet the standard.” In other words, a male telling a female that he needs to go to the bathroom could “constitute as harassment” if the female believes that the statement had some sort of “nonverbal… sexual nature” (Beltz). It is true that some people can be very hurt by hate speech,
The American Civil Liberties Union believes that First Amendment rights are “indivisible” and that it “protects [all] speech no matter how offensive its content.” One writer from The Washington Post believes that there is no difference between free speech and hate speech, and states that there is no “‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment” (Volokh). Volokh states that people are “free to condemn Islam” just like they are free to condemn “Jews… whites… capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans.” He acknowledges the fact that there are some exceptions to the First Amendment but declares that hate speech applies to none of them (Volokh). In other words, Volokh is declaring that “threatening to kill someone because” of their race is not illegal because it is hate speech, but “because it’s illegal to make true threats.” Others argue with hate codes because they tend to be outrageously broad at times, making it almost impossible to say something that would not fit under the hate speech code. One article titled “Speech Code of the Month: Clemson University” addresses a recent broad hate speech code that has been established at Clemson University (Beltz). The code addresses sexual harassment and defines it as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature” (Beltz). According to Beltz, the code also declares that “harassment need not be ‘objectively’ offensive,” essentially, that means “that a person’s subjective feeling about what constitutes harassment is sufficient to meet the standard.” In other words, a male telling a female that he needs to go to the bathroom could “constitute as harassment” if the female believes that the statement had some sort of “nonverbal… sexual nature” (Beltz). It is true that some people can be very hurt by hate speech,