Should Hate Speech be Protected?

Hate speech: it can exclude, stigmatize, and potentially threaten our progress toward equality. So why is hate speech protected under the First Amendment, and should it actually be protected?

Hate speech: it can exclude, stigmatize, and potentially threaten our progress toward equality. So why is hate speech protected under the First Amendment, and should it actually be protected? 

In this interview from the NYTimes, Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the foremost legal scholars on the First Amendment, argues that the First Amendment protects hate speech for good reason. Social progress has always depended on the protection of free speech, and because how hate speech is defined is both malleable and circumstance-dependent, institutions cannot ban free speech without setting terms that could later backfire or stagnate progress. To be sure, the First Amendment’s protection of speech, no matter how hateful (for the exception of extortion, true threats, and fighting words), is its most important feature—giving rise to a free speech-hate speech trade off that Americans must accept in order to reap its full benefits.

But what do you think? Should there at least be some limitations to hate speech, such as that which misinforms (similar to false advertising)? Or is “deceptive hate speech” again too malleable and circumstance-dependent of a parameter? Read the full article here: