What kind of hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment?
I think that hate speech that is clearly focused on an individual and is a threat or intimidation is not protected. E.g. burning a cross on someone’s lawn to intimidate him or her. At work, Title VII protects people against a hostile environment — so signs or buttons at work that say “women out”, “blacks out”, etc. would not be protected. Here generally at least public schools could ban offensive racial, religious, and similar epithets — at school. Q [Tim]: In 2003, the Council of Europe (with 46 member countries) criminalized hate speech on the Internet. Do you think, given the events that occurred in Europe during World War II, where hate speech actually incited the violence of the Nazis, that the Europeans are right to create stricter laws against hate speech? A: My experience is in the US and I am not sure that what I think our tradition should be necessarily translates to other nations. I do think speech has consequences. Still, as I understand it, the Weimar Republic had laws t
