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Defining Hate Speech
By sage of monticello | October 8, 2007
At North Carolina State University, they have this thing called the Free Speech Tunnel which “gives students a venue for expressing their thoughts and feelings about anything.”
Except that “anything” isn’t sincerely meant.
How “anything” is interpreted allows for University administrators to patrol the tunnel for so-called hate speech and spray paint over such speech, removing it from view.
So what is hateful?
According to Jon Barnwell, captain of the campus police, hateful is anything:
…that is deemed as inciting harmful actions against a particular individual or demographic.
At other Universities this has meant a flyer that made use of the exclamatory phrase “Why the Left Hates America!” was hateful, and thus subject to regulation.
The problem with all of this is, of course, that it is unconstitutional. Hate speech, however morally wrong, is accepted speech under the First Amedment Free Speech Clause as interpreted repeatedly by the United State Supreme Court.
Unlike NC State University and its meaning of “anything”, the founders when referring to free speech actually meant “free.”
Topics: CR gossip, 1st Amendment, free speech |
