Beyond the Campus?
(Ann Speaking)

 
 
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I made the argument that the university has a special educational goal and that hate speech can be restricted because it interferes with that goal. I still think that is a sound argument, although I accept some of the criticisms that have been made in response. It may be better to argue that ANY speech, not only hate speech, can be restricted without violating First Amendment rights if it interferes with the educational goals of the university.

But this new twist bothers me. The argument I made can't be applied to society as a whole because we can't clearly identify the goal of society as we can with a university. Furthermore, a hate speech law for the nation as a whole would be content based. The Supreme Court has usually struck down content based laws, and I think they would do so in this case.

The bottom line is that I believe that a code like the one we have at the university is constitutional but I do not think that a law restricting hate speech would be constitutional.

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