Reflections on Charlottesville: Revisiting Hate Speech and the First Amendment
Eric Freedman, Jonathan D. Lightfoot, Barbara Stark, Ellen Yaroshefsky · bepress Legal Repository · 2017
Recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, raise the fundamental question of the extent to which longstanding First Amendment protection for hate speech should be revisited. Worldwide, there is a surge in racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and many of those close to political power are engaged in such expressions. The U.S. has robust protection for such speech, but some European countries do not. To what extent should the U.S. revisit its approach to hate speech? This panel will explore this question as well as whether there are suitable alternatives that are better in this evolving political and technological landscape. Co-sponsored by the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), the Latino/a American Law Students Association (LALSA), the Muslim Law Students Association, OUTLaw, and the South Asian Law Student Association (SALSA).