NCJ Number
140018
Journal
Minnesota Law Review Volume: 75 Issue: 3 Dated: (February 1991) Pages: 933- 944
Date Published
1991
Length
12 pages
Annotation
University regulations of hate speech represent efforts to coerce virtue rather than manners and are both illegitimate and unlikely to succeed, viewed either from the traditional approach of human rights or from the more innovative republican view enunciated by John Locke and others.
Abstract
These regulations were enacted to address speech that is offensive and degrading to women, minorities, and others. However, nearly all of the recent university regulations are broad and content-based, thus clearly violating the first amendment. In addition, they ignore the distinction between virtue and manners and are usually designed to coerce particular values rather than merely to create a civil environment. Although teaching virtue is arguably one of the purposes of elementary and secondary education, it is not a legitimate goal at the university level. In addition, using coercive methods to inculcate virtue in young adults is bound to fail. Therefore, hate speech regulations are explainable only as the use of raw political power to enforce orthodoxy. Footnotes