Having no specific legal definition, “hate speech” is a vague term. It is generally understood to mean speech that expresses hateful or bigoted views about certain groups that historically have been subject to discrimination. Concerned by the impact of hate speech on vulnerable populations, social justice advocates see sense in restricting this type of speech.
However, these types of laws often fall hardest on the very people they are intended to protect. Nadine Strossen explores this idea in her new book, Hate Speech: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship. (Hereafter all page citations are to this book).
Strossen draws attention to the fact that prohibitions of “hate speech” are characterized by unavoidable vagueness and overbreadth. A law is “unduly vague” (and unconstitutional) when people “of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.” “Hate speech” laws are inherently subjective and ambiguous in their language, with the use of words like “insulting,” “abusive,” and “outrageous.” Specific to laws about speech, vagueness “inevitably deters people from engaging in constitutionally protected speech” (69).
One person’s “hate speech” is another’s anti-“hate speech.” Strossen cites many examples in which certain religious views are assailed as “hate speech” against LGBT individuals, while critiques of those religious views are attacked as anti-religious “hate speech.”
This issue is also prevalent on campus, exemplified by a situation at Harvard University in which a group of students hung a confederate flag from their dorm room. In response, other students hung swastikas from their windows.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/hate-speech-laws-undermine-free-speech-equality
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