Should hate speech be restricted?
Outside of the Newseum, a museum in Washington D.C. devoted to the U.S. media, will be a 92-foot slab with the text of the First Amendment. Despite roughly one ton of marble for each word of the memorial, the panelists of “Defending Speech We Hate” have never been more frightened for the stability of free speech.
“John Locke once said, ‘government should protect the rights of its people.’ This idea is so simple, so pure and so not followed today,” said panelist Margaret Engel. “We are still missing the point that just because we allow hate speech doesn’t mean we endorse it.”
Engel, a former Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter and now curator for the Newseum, was joined on the panel held in the UMC West Ballroom by Chip Berlet, a political analyst and former Washington correspondent for High Times magazine, and Nan Aron, a lawyer and founder of the Alliance for Justice, an association for public advocacy groups. Anthony Hamilton, a poet and musician, was also to be on the panel, but did not attend.
Each panelist was given 10 minutes to present their views on free speech and if they believe in restricting that freedom. Berlet began the discussion and found himself at odds with Engel; he was the only panelist who believed in restricting some forms of expression.
“Our reading habits, viewing habits, thoughts and beliefs are none of the government’s business,” Berlet said. “But where do we allow the government to make speech a criminal act? I draw the line at threats of violence and calls to eradicate races of people.”
Engel described herself as a “free speech absolutist,” contending that though she disagreed with many forms of speech such as “shock jocks,” she could find no viable reason for the government to restrict expression.
“I wish we could be a little more Amish and adopt shunning as a popular method for punishment of hate speech, for it seems to me to be dramatically un-American for the government to censor expression in any way,” Engel said.
Aron, going against Engel, agreed with Berlet that the court system had done a good job at defending the First Amendment, but focused harsh criticisms on the Bush administration for its “quiet effort to stifle questions they don’t want answered.” All three panelists expressed concern over what Berlet described as the “erosion of dissent as patriotic.”
“The watershed moment for me was Hurricane Katrina,” Aron said. “That disaster lay bare that this administration is not there to protect the American people, the people of Louisiana or that city. This administration has ideological concerns that, to them, supersede their duties to the public.”
Contact Campus Press staff writer Cassie Hewlings at cassie.hewlings@thecampuspress.com
