Free Speech : The Right To Hate Speech

Throughout history, the United States Constitution has been put to the test over the issue of free speech. The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Even though free speech is one of the core American values proudly embedded in each citizen, some poopAmericans find themselves torn between whether or not to limit the freedom of speech on behalf of hate speech. Most law-abiding citizens disagree with hate speech, but must realize even speech that promotes hate, racism, and even crime

Des Moines is an important case for free speech in the United States. It affirms that students don’t lose their rights when they go to school. However, it also affirmed that schools can limit speech that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others” (Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969). However, the Court has ruled that there are times that the school can limit speech. In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled in Bethel v. Fraser that students can be disciplined for using vulgar and offensive language in school (Gooden, Eckes, Mead, McNeal, & Torres, 2013, p. 25). This case differed from Tinker v. Des Moines because that case was about political speech or expression. Another example of where school can limit the First Amendment is school sponsored newspapers. This was affirmed by the Court in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988). That decision stated that schools can reasonably limit the content of school-sponsored newspapers (Gooden, Eckes, Mead, McNeal, & Torres, 2013, p.

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier was a lost fight for the First Amendment rights in schools. When a couple of school journalists’ articles were blocked by the principal of Hazelwood East High School, the students decided that they needed to take their case to the courts. One of the articles was a story about

Everyone in America should be guaranteed the freedom of speech granted by The Constitution. In 1988, the court ruled in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier that schools \could limit freedom of speech in school if they had “educational concerns” (Jacobs). The problem is that “educational concerns” is too vague and school districts are able to use this as a loophole to get away with removing articles that do not need to be removed. Often, the concern is based on perception and image more than anything else. Angela Riley’s article “20 years later: Teachers reflect on Supreme Court’s Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier ruling” quotes Frank LoMonte, executive director of

Should a school be able to censor their students? This question has reached the supreme court multiple times, such as in this case, or in Tinker vs. Des Moines. While restricting a freedom may be annoying, it can be necessary, but when is it dictatorship, and when is it necessary? That is what is questioned in this court case. The U.S. Supreme Court had a difficult decision in the court case of Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier, and they were right in their ruling, because even though censorship is often overused, in the classroom, it is often needed, and though the fear of a dictatorship in any place is often scary, it is needed in a classroom full of rowdy minors, even in my experience many of my classmates have inappropriate outbursts.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” Indeed, free speech is a large block upon which this nation was first constructed, and remains a hard staple of America today; and in few places is that freedom more often utilized than on a college campus. However, there are limitations to our constitutional liberties on campus and they, most frequently, manifest themselves in the form of free speech zones, hate speech and poor university policy. Most school codes are designed to protect students, protect educators and to promote a stable, non-disruptive and non-threatening learning environment. However, students’ verbal freedom

In her article “Progressive Ideas Have Killed Free Speech on Campus” Wendy Kaminer, an American lawyer and writer, was branded a racist while having a friendly debate during a panel for Smith College. Kaminer made a reasonable case by providing many examples from a different variety of colleges who have experienced a free speech debate. She also stated: “How did a verbal defense of free speech become tantamount to a hate crime and offensive words become the equivalent of physical assaults?” I couldn’t agree with Kaminer more. People need to toughen up and not take things so literally.  Offensive words are not equivalent to physical assaults.

Kuhlmeier (1988) Holding: Administrators may edit the content of school newspapers. The principal of Hazelwood East High School edited two articles in the school paper The Spectrum that he deemed inappropriate. The student authors argued that this violated their First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Supreme Court disagreed, stating that administrators can edit materials that reflect school values. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established (by policy or practice) as forums for student expression. The case concerned the censorship of two articles in The Spectrum, the student newspaper of Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis County, Missouri, 1983. When the school principal removed an article concerning divorce and another concerning teen pregnancy, the student journalists sued, claiming that their First Amendment rights had been violated. A lower court sided with the school, but its decision was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which sided with the students.(wiki) In a 5–3 decision, the Supreme Court overturned the circuit court's decision, determining that school administrators could exercise prior restraint of school-sponsored

First Amendment protections are the most essential rights ensured to Americans; however, they are not absolute. The United States (U.S.) Supreme Court has never taken the stance that these protections are assured in all conditions. School speech is one such area, since the decision of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Court has been willing to constrain the fairly extensive Tinker holding requiring a school to demonstrate that a student’s speech is a material and substantial disruption in order to curtail student’s First Amendment rights. The Court, in each instance since the Tinker case, has restricted Tinker as opposed to applying it as drafted. In Bethel School District v. Fraser, the Court created an exception

In light of the recent events in Charlottesville, where a white supremacist rally turned violent, the argument on whether or not hate speech should be banned has become increasingly more relevant. Those supporting the ban argue that this kind of speech eventually creates a society that doesn’t accept the affected minorities as equals, and can shame them into silence. On the other side, people argue this would infringe upon free speech rights. In Glenn Greenwald’s article, “In Europe, Hate Speech Laws are Being used to Silence Left Wing Beliefs,” he addresses how this ban might affect left-wing activism, and the fallacies in the arguments supporting the ban. Greenwald mainly relies on logos to back up his thesis; that a hate speech ban would not work in America. The problem he faces with this as his argument is that it makes the assumption that these same issues would arise in America. Other than a brief mention of his time as a lawyer to back up one talking point, there is very little ethos. While his tone throughout the article feels very neutral and informative, he makes poor use of logos and ethos, leading to an ineffective argument.

In this case, students presented two inappropriate articles in the school’s newspaper. Principal Reynolds removed the articles and the newspaper was published without them. This led Cathy Kuhlmeier and two former students to fight against it through the courts. Once again, the Supreme court ruled in favor of the Hazelwood School District stating, "Educators did not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the content of student speech so long as their actions were 'reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns'" (oyez.org). Alike Morse v Frederick, Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier had a tighter policy in regard to the situations presented in the cases. As opposed to the pervasive restrictions in the new policy from

Just a couple of months ago white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville to protest the tearing down of the statue of Robert E Lee. The racism and hate they spread through their march is unquestionably disgusting and serves no purpose in our society today. This event has led to social media sites such as Twitter to crack down even harder in a plight they started over a year ago to silence hateful speech. While there are some occasional dissenters, the general population agrees with the opinion that this speech is awful in every sense. With that being said, censoring their right to free speech is a bit too rash. We can all agree that free speech is one of the most important rights we have, and with President Trump throwing around the term “fake news” at major news organizations, it is more important than ever to protect that freedom. The article “The case for restricting hate speech” by Laura Beth Nielsen of the Los Angeles Times gives an argument for why hate speech should be censored. While she provides valid points, with the absence of factual statistics, none of them are strong enough to support her thesis that hate speech should be banned. I believe that in almost every instance, hate speech should remain protected just as much as our right to free speech.

The court case Bethel School District No.403 v. Fraser occurred in 1986, about a decade after the Thomas court case. In this case, a high-school student was giving a speech to promote his friend to the school’s election board. In this speech, he used explicit language and vulgar graphics to promote his friend as a candidate. The school swiftly responded by suspending the student and removing him from the list of candidates for graduation speakers. Like all the other cases that came before, the student decided to sue the school district for violating his first amendment rights of free speech. The court ultimately decided to side with the school district stating that they were not violating the student’s first amendment rights. Although there is not sufficient information regarding scholarly debate in this case, it did establish a very important precedent that would be referred to in the future. It was the idea that vulgar and lewd speech made directly on campus may be prohibited by schools because it goes against the traditional values of public education (Fijolek). After this ruling, the rules regarding free speech blurred even further, as it unknowingly complicated the concept of “on-campus speech” when the internet and social media arose a decade later.

In order to resolve the issues of hate speech, one should address the necessary balance between personal liberties and public safety. However, some restrictions must be placed on hate speech, including the expression of hateful ideas. It is imperative that hate speech is limited in some cases, such as those where it could pose a serious threat to the surrounding environment. The only way hate speech can be controlled is with strict guidelines and probable hate speech situations left up to a case-by-case basis.

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion regarding free speech on college campuses. Our first amendment gives us the right of Free Speech but many groups retain the ability to censor it within their own organisation, such as in the workplace and in both public and private lower education. I believe that the ability should be extended to colleges and universities (both public and private). Students should have the right to be at school while feeling physically safe. An example of this right being violated because of someone else’s “free speech” was last spring at American University in which bananas were strung up on nooses around campus with AKA (a historically-black sorority) labeled on them the day after AU’s first black female student