Hate Speech: Hate it enough to regulate it?

Hate speech in regards to a university setting—a very salient topic potentially affecting all of us. According to the First Amendment, hate speech is protected speech, however, much controversy has arose in regards to if it should be protected in universities. Universities offer a unique environment, both in diversity and freedom. For many, the University experience is the students’ first time living away from parents. Most students are now legal adults, and very much protected by the first amendment, so why should Universities consider codes against hate speech?

First, let us examine a case. In Doe v. University of Michigan, the University decided to enforce certain codes against hate speech. Their policy prohibited “any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, [or] creed…and creates an intimidating, hostile, or demeaning environment for educational pursuits, employment, or participation in University sponsored extra-curricular activities” (Doe v. Michigan). One student challenged these codes, arguing that they might prohibit discussion necessary in his major of psychology. The Supreme Court decision in this case was that the University’s speech codes were too vague, too broad, and deemed them unconstitutional: “it is fundamental that statutes regulating First Amendment activities must be narrowly drawn to address only the specific evil at hand.”

I agree with the Supreme Court. University Speech Codes are too vague, and in the large setting of a University, are too difficult to regulate. I believe that every person has a right to say what he or she wants because speech is one of the hardest things to control. According to Milton Heumann, author of Hate Speech on Campus: Cases, Case Studies, and commentaries, “hate speech, despite its potentially harmful qualities, is assuredly speech” (17). If it cannot be controlled completely, it should not be controlled at all—it would be unfair for one person to be punished for saying something hurtful while another receives no penalty. Here lies the rub: how do you determine when to punish someone? What if the person the statement is directed toward did not hear it? How do you obtain proof if it was fleeting and solely verbal and not recorded? It is too difficult to make all cases in this law fair, because there is no way to outline a specific, exhaustive listing of what is ok to say and what is not. One won’t know if what he says is protected or not until after he says it!

I do believe in self-control; that we should have the opportunity to speak harmful words, but should choose not to. Samuel Walker discusses this in his book, Hate Speech: the History of an American Controversy, when talking about his proposed new movement: ‘communitarianism’, “the rights revolution has gone too far in emphasizing individual rights and that more attention should be given to individual responsibilities and the needs for a society as a whole. [This movement] endorses freedom of speech, but calls for individual self-restraint: even thought you have the right to call someone a name, you should not exercise that right” (142). We need to learn when to use our right to free speech.

Likewise, everything a student learns while at a college does not come from the classroom; interactions with others will perhaps have the most influence. Silencing interactions, friendly or otherwise, is taking away from a huge forum for decision making among students. It could produce a chilling effect throughout the campus body, silencing students for fear of getting into trouble. While campus speech codes might be a nice idea on the surface, for promoting equality and helping to ensure nobody’s feelings get hurt, the world outside of the university is not sheltered by these ideals. If not introduced to the world as it is when still young and learning, how will young people ever learn tolerance? College students should be learning to tolerate each other; to tolerate diversity. Rather than having students be silent about ideals, even if wrong or evil, they should be allowed to express them to learned how to change those ideas. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “the principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate." I agree that hate speech is a horrible act, but as you cannot control thoughts, people are going to have malicious cognitions. Not everyone is going to like everyone else. Like I said before, I think instead of trying to lawfully control speech, we ought to focus more on individually controlling speech, by helping people form tolerance, the solution to this form of speech is more speech.

On the other side of the story, hate speech does cause discrimination, and possibly even more feelings of hate. On campus, it can make people insecure, and deter learning. Thomas David Jones, author of Human Rights: Group Defamation, Freedom of Expression and the Law of the Nations, says, “racially defamatory speech…should not be classified as constitutionally protected speech in the US. The value of such speech is so slight that it does not merit the respect of the First Amendment, and it is clearly not protected at international law. It is nothing more than the rotten fruit in the marketplace of ideas, it must therefore be expurgated before it spoils the healthy fruit or is purchased by some naive customer” (5). I think this is an ingenious quote (I am a fan of well used metaphors/similes in writing). His argument is that hate speech is speech, but it should be the law’s job to get rid of it, so that it does not taint other speech, or even available as an idea for thought, and it can be used by people who do not know how much it really hurts others.

Likewise, a study at Princeton revealed “persistent stereotyping and bias is both a sever impediment to [the] academic success [of minority students], and as well as a deterrent to healthy, unforced, unstructured association with members of other races on campus” (Marcus 93). Hate speech on campus creates a further separation of minorities, when in this day we are trying to be tolerant of others. A student at William Patterson College said, “I felt that I was nothing, that I didn’t deserve to be getting a college education…no one has the right to make you feel inferior” (Marcus 91). Everything one does ultimately affects someone else. Everyone has the right to feel that they belong, especially in a university setting, where everyone went though the same admissions process.

Though my side has its flaws, I still stand by the view that hate speech is too complex and broad to regulate in a university setting. There are not necessarily nationwide laws to regulate hate speech in the ‘real world.’ Both liberalists and neoliberals wish for a free exchange and marketplace of ideas, entertaining practically all speech to enable that. By silencing hate speech, a huge sector of speech is being removed from this marketplace. On the other hand, hurtful speech does not deserve a place in the marketplace of ideas, because virtually no good can come from it. To regulate or not to regulate, that is the question.

Works Cited:

Heumann, Milton, et al. editors. Hate Speech on Campus: Cases, Case Studies, and commentaries. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1997.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, et al. “Freedom of speech.” No date given. Available: Online: 9 March 2009 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech.

Jones, Thomas David. Human Rights: Group Defamation, Freedom of Expression and the Law of the Nations. The Hague, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 1998.

John Doe v. University of Michigan. No. 89-71683. Supreme Court. 22 Sept. 1989. Available: Online: 9 March 2009 http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/doe.html

Marcus, Laurence R. Fighting Words. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1996.

Walker, Samuel. Hate Speech: the History of an American Controversy. University of Nebraska Press, 1994.