Toleration Without Hate Speech: The Keegstra Decision, American Free Speech Exceptionalism and Locke's Letter

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel V. LaSelva
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Special Committee ◽  
Canadian Charter ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
The Us ◽  
Famous Argument ◽  
Contemporary Context

AbstractThis paper re-examines the issue of hate propaganda under the Canadian Charter of Rights and the US Bill of Rights. It also reconsiders the significance of Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration. What the paper attempts to show is that one strand of Locke's famous argument supports First Amendment exceptionalism and Justice Holmes's dissenting opinions in Abrams and Schwimmer, but another strand buttresses the Keegstra and Butler decisions and the Report of the Special Committee on Hate Propaganda in Canada. In the contemporary context of the debate over free speech and its limits, Lockean toleration has communitarian as well as libertarian dimensions, and the control of hate propaganda in Canada's multicultural and multinational polity becomes more clearly an important part of the liberal tradition.

scholarly journals Ethical Principles on the Freedom of Speech and Expression in the Developed and Developing Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Alim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is an essential part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, obstructing the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering peoples assembling rights in a peaceful manner or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental remedy of grievances. The guarantees of this Bill of Rights were subject to the limitation imposed by the free speech and press provisions of the First Amendment to the US Constitution as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court and other courts. The United States and India are the largest democratic country and almost have similar free speech provisions in their Constitutions. This Article is intended to present the free speech provisions of the American and Indian Constitution as a basic fundamental right of human being. It is also to be examined that what is the role of Supreme Court in interpreting the freedom of speech and expression provisions. The study also tries to incorporate the comparison between the looms of both countries as far as freedom of speech is disturbed.

Freedom of Speech

2018 ◽  
pp. 305-354
Author(s):  
Sandra Fredman
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
The Right

This chapter assesses the theories justifying freedom of speech (Section II). Section III considers how free speech is protected by human rights instruments. The absence of an express limitation clause in the US First Amendment contrasts with other jurisdictions, which permit justifiable limitations. Sections IV–VII consider how courts have dealt with the most burning issues confronted in all of these jurisdictions: whether freedom of speech protects subversive speech, pornography, and hate speech. Where the limits of liberal tolerance lie remains a challenge for courts. While the harm principle provides a starting point, much depends on how speech is seen to cause harm. Section VIII asks whether the right-bearer includes not just the speaker, but also the recipient of speech and assesses the role of freedom of information. The chapter concludes that freedom of speech should go further than curbing State power to censor speech, creating conditions of genuine equality.

Where to limit the freedom of speech? Analysis in the context of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the fighting words doctrine

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256
Author(s):  
Karolina Palka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Socialist Party Of America ◽  
The Right

This article is about the limits of the right to free speech. The first section provides a brief introduction to this topic, primarily in the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The second section describes the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which was fundamental to the topic of this paper because the United States Supreme Court created the so-called "fighting words" doctrine based on it. In the next two sections, two court cases are presented that perfectly demonstrate the limits of the right to free speech in the United States: Snyder v. Phelps and Village of Skokie v. National Socialist Party of America. The fifth part shows the right to freedom of speech in the context of Polish civil, criminal, and constitutional law, as well as acts of international law binding on Poland. The last part is a short summary.

The First Amendment During the Trump Era and Beyond

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-232
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Ball
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
The Real ◽  
Repeated Use

This chapter explores the ways in which some progressives, in the years leading up to Trump’s election, had grown skeptical of expansive First Amendment protections, viewing them as impediments to the pursuit of equality objectives. Although some of that skepticism is understandable, the chapter details the multiple ways in which free speech and free press protections helped curtail some of Trump’s autocratic policies and practices. In doing so, the chapter argues that progressives, going forward, should not allow what it calls “First Amendment skepticism” to grow to the point that it undermines the amendment’s ability to shield democratic processes, dissenters, and vulnerable groups from future autocratic government officials in the Trump mold. The chapter ends with an exploration of future hate speech regulations. While it would be understandable for progressives, after Trump’s repeated use of hate speech, to call for greater regulations of such speech, the chapter urges progressives to be cautious in this area because of the real possibility that the regulations will be used by future government officials in the Trump mold to target and discriminate against both progressive viewpoints and racial and religious minorities.

The Sound of Constitutional Silences: Interpretive Holism and Free Speech under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghav Kohli
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Indian Constitution ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication ◽  
Speech Clause

Abstract Unlike the US First Amendment, Article 19 of the Indian Constitution expressly enumerates eight grounds on which free speech may be restricted. Despite being a fundamental issue of constitutional interpretation, the question of whether Article 19 provides for an exhaustive list of restrictions has largely been neglected in academic literature and Indian jurisprudence. The latest site of contestations on the scope of the free speech clause has been the case of Kaushal Kishor, where the Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments on whether speech can be restricted by invoking fundamental rights beyond Article 19. This Article seeks to develop a principled answer by excavating the meaning of constitutional silences on the relationships between fundamental rights under the Indian Constitution. It argues that a strict textualist approach leads to a distinct form of rights absolutism that is both doctrinally incoherent and inconsistent with Indian jurisprudence. Examining the shift in the Supreme Court’s interpretive outlook from strict textualism to interpretive holism, it finds that the Court’s rich fundamental rights jurisprudence allows importing restrictions on speech from beyond Article 19. Such an approach also provides a meaningful framework for resolving intra-right, inter-right, and right-interest conflicts in the constitutional adjudication of free speech issues.

Expressive Conduct and Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution: A Purposivist Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Raghav Kohli
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indian Constitution ◽  
The Us ◽  
Indian Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Scrutiny ◽  
Speech Clause

Abstract Unlike the First Amendment of the United States, the quest to develop a grand theory to explain the scope and purpose of the free speech clause of the Indian Constitution has rarely been attempted. In this void, the significant constitutional question of when expressive conduct should trigger free speech protection has not received adequate academic and judicial scrutiny in India despite its global resonance. This article examines the evolution of the current doctrine by the Indian Supreme Court on the issue of expressive conduct and finds that the Court's ad-hoc approach fails to provide a meaningful resolution framework. Analysing the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court on its First Amendment, it discusses two potential approaches available to the Indian Supreme Court: one based on the speaker's conduct, and the other, based on state purposes. It argues that focusing on state purposes not only provides a principled answer to this conundrum but is also consistent with Indian free speech jurisprudence. Contrary to contemporary scholarship, it demonstrates that the law on Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution, as moulded by the Indian Supreme Court over decades, has implicitly treated the examination of state purpose as its predominant inquiry. This article concludes with some ideas on the limitations and prospects of adopting such an approach.

Trump, Twitter, and the First Amendment

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-213
Author(s):  
Jemimah Roberts
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
Recent Case ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
The Us ◽  
Twitter Account ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
First Time

This article considers the constitutional implications of US President Donald Trump’s use of Twitter. This issue arose in the recent case of Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University v Trump, where a US federal court considered for the first time whether Trump’s actions in blocking users from his personal Twitter account violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution. In exploring the US court’s treatment of this question, the article will consider the challenges that arise in applying established free speech doctrine to newly emerging technologies, concluding with some reflections from an Australian perspective.

scholarly journals Antisemitism in the Urban Dictionary and the Responsibilities of Online Publishers

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3.1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Daniel Allington
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Right ◽  
Internet Companies

This article focuses on antisemitic and racist content in the Urban Dictionary: a global top-1000 website built upon user-generated content. It argues that the Urban Dictionary’s founding principles have directly facilitated the site’s exploitation as a platform for the dissemination of antisemitic hate speech and white supremacist ideology. These principles can be seen as typifying the free speech absolutism that became dominant within the US tech industry during the 1990s. However, the right to free expression cannot reasonably be taken to exempt internet companies from responsibility for content whose publication they facilitate. The article concludes by arguing that websites such as the Urban Dictionary are essentially publishers, and that the solution to the problem of their indulgence of big-ots may be for those who do not wish to be associated with bigotry to refrain from doing business with institutions that publish content that they consider abhorrent. Keywords: alt-right, antizionism, brand contamination, definitions, dictionaries, free speech, Urban Dictionary, user-generated content, Web 2.0

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