Unit 3 Individual Project

Name Lecturer Course Date There are two schools of thoughts on American value systems in regards to the issue of hate speech and hate groups. The issue of whether hate speech ought to be given First Amendment protection thus emanates from the need to strike a balance between these two competing narratives. One narrative sustains that America is one nation that esteems freedom of expression and most importantly, that America tolerates viewpoints that are unpopular even when (and especially when) these viewpoints are downrightly hateful to in the eyes of the majority. The narrative on the other extreme is one that believes in equity and tolerance more so for differing sensibilities (Thomas, 174). The second narrative here equally values free speech, that value however, is accompanied by great responsibility to gender and racial equity. In recent times the outsider jurisprudence has indeed favored the latter narrative, contending that there is a need for legal remedies and legislation that will address "words that wound" and in particular the homophobic and racist speech. The jurisprudence of American hate speech relies upon the assumption that speech is just an extension of a thought and not the extension of an action (Gould, 224). The hate speech that can be prosecuted is that which is directed at people of minority races, call them Diversity people, however, it must also be associated with a common criminal act like assault or vandalism. In that regard therefore, people who are not from a minority race ought to exercise care and caution with what they utter in the presence of the Diversity people, because such utterances may incite or invite violent reactions by any of the parties involved, a confrontation that can be construed as a basis for instituting federal hate crime charges. The rationale of criminalizing hate speech is to relax public criticism of Diversi...