I found that I had conflicting opinions once reading “On
Racist Speech” and “Protecting Freedom of Expression on Campus”. These two articles
were connected in that they both deal with harm, offense, freedom of expression,
and censorship. In “On Racist Speech” by Charles Lawrence, I found a good quote
that really stood out to me. Lawrence writes “Racial insults are particularly undeserving
of First Amendment protection because the perpetrator’s intention is not to
discover truth or initiate dialogue but to injure the victim” (Lawrence 66). If
the counter-argument to protecting this speech is about the “freedom of
expression” and “market place of ideas” that this American democracy was built
on, I do not see why speech that injures a victim (usually minority groups) should
be protected. Speech under the “fighting words” doctrine that tends to inflict injury
is not protected. Racist speech causes offense and harm that is mental and
should not be protected just how physical harm and offense due to fighting
speech isn’t protected.
Switching over to “Protecting Freedom of Expression on
Campus”, Derek Bok brings up an interesting idea about censorship and its
impact on communication. Bok writes “One reason why the power of censorship is
so dangerous is that it is extremely difficult to decide when a particular
communication is offensive enough to warrant prohibition or to weigh the degree
of offensiveness against the potential value of the communication” (Bok 70). A
question arises from this and that is- If we begin to prohibit a type of
communication, won’t it just lead to prohibiting another thing and what about
the potential? Another issue raised by Bok is how we decide when something is “offensive”
and what will the boundaries be to that. This ties into Lawrence’s claim on
racist speech. How will we know when something is offensive and when it is not?
My final opinion on this free speech debate is that there is a lot of grey area
if we were to censor certain types of speech. Another thing to note is “To
disapprove of a particular form of communication […] is not enough to justify prohibiting
it” (Bok 70). Also a huge grey area for this subject is the difference between “offense”
and “harm”. We see this in how the police protect people when they are harmed, but
people aren't protected if they are offended. Should speech be prohibited just
because it offends people, I would say no but how do you distinguish if someone
has been mentally harmed or offended by a certain type of speech. Mental harm
is not as clear cut as physical harm. My opinion after rereading each article is
that I’m tossed between these two sides.
Censorship is a big deal and you have to be willing to look at all the
sides of the arguments and the potential effects it could have.
Great post, Andrew. I can tell you truly believe what you wrote here in this blog post. I agree with many of your claims, but disagree with some as well. First off, I agree that racist, discriminating speech is wrong on many levels; however, I believe it should remain protected because the First Amendment gives all Americans the right to freely express themselves in any manner they desire. Another reason I disagree with not protecting racist speech is that the process of making it unconstitutional would be a long, rigorous one. Reprimanding everyone who proclaims a racial slur would be impossible, and what one thinks is racist might not be deemed racist to the person who spoke it. I agree completely with your second paragraph. The banning of one type of communication would inevitably lead to the banning of others, thus nullifying the First Amendment. It is much too difficult to draw a line of what is "too offensive."
ReplyDeleteOverall this blog post was great and brought up a lot of key points. Great job.