Hate Speech Is Not Free

The Case Against First Amendment Protection

Inbunden, Engelska, 2024

AvW. Wat Hopkins

1 259 kr

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Hate speech has been a societal problem for many years and has seen a resurgence recently alongside political divisiveness and technologies that ease and accelerate the spread of messages. Methods to protect individuals and groups from hate speech have eluded lawmakers as the call for restrictions or bans on such speech are confronted by claims of First Amendment protection. Problematic speech, the argument goes, should be confronted by more speech rather than by restriction. Debate over the extent of First Amendment protection is based on two bodies of law—the practical, precedent determined by the Supreme Court, and the theoretical framework of First Amendment jurisprudence. In Hate Speech is Not Free: The Case Against Constitutional Protection, W. Wat Hopkins argues that the prevailing thought that hate is protected by both case law and theory is incorrect. Within the Supreme Court’s established hierarchy of speech protection, hate speech falls to the lowest level, deserving no protection as it does not advance ideas containing social value. Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s cases addressing protected and unprotected speech set forth a clear rationale for excommunicating hate speech from First Amendment protection.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2024-02-07
Mått159 x 237 x 18 mm
Vikt426 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor154
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781538165614

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Wat Hopkins is an emeritus professor of communication at Virginia Tech where he taught communication law and cyberspace law. He has written widely on issues related to freedom of expression and is former editor of the journal Communication Law and Policy. He has received the Distinguished Service Award from the Law and Policy Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the AEJMC Dorothy Bowles Award for Public Service.

The strength of Hopkins’s slim new book lies not so much in what one might learn about hate speech—although that is ostensibly the book’s subject—but in the Supreme Court’s muddled First Amendment jurisprudence. Hopkins's most interesting and important contribution is his explication of the Meiklejohn-Brennan (and maybe Kalven) collaboration to find the central meaning of the First Amendment for protecting the communication of ideas important to self-governance. Hopkins asserts that the First Amendment does not protect hate speech, however defined, because it contains no such ideas. Hopkins contrasts this theory of the First Amendment with the better-known "marketplace of ideas" concept, in which all speech is presumptively protected, absent a compelling reason to the contrary, and allowed to compete for acceptance. It is that theory, albeit inconsistently applied, that permits hate speech to thrive. Noting that the Supreme Court has never faced a hate speech case that it could not resolve by avoiding the issue—whether hate speech should be expelled from the First Amendment umbrella—Hopkins concludes on a hopeful note that a new court with a new issue might someday do just that. Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.