1st & 14th Amendments & Hate Speech

[Paul Finkelman]

all this might be true but it hard to imagine how McCarthy's political
attacks on people constitute hate speech, however repulsive he was.

Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
pfink at albanylaw.edu
>>> "Steven Jamar" <stevenjamar at gmail.com> 03/04/07 7:18 PM >>>
Not all of us are such absolutists.  Hate speech has much in kind with
violent threats, threats to security, and other exceptions and
limitations to the first amendment.

Nor is it all or nothing.  Nor is it a case of impossible line
drawing.  Hard lines are drawn all the time.

Look what McCarthy did.  What Bush/Cheney/Rummie have done to those
who oppose them.  Those are much bigger threats to speech than
constrained limits on hate speech.

Hate speech does huge social harm.

Steve



-- 
Prof. Steven Jamar
Howard University School of Law
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