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Example research essay topic: Defined To Include Freedom Of Speech - 2,566 words

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Resolved: That colleges and universities have a moral obligation to prohibit the public expression of hate speech on their campuses. Alexander, Larry. BANNING HATE SPEECH AND THE STICKS AND STONES DEFENSE. Constitutional Commentary. Spring, 1996 In addressing this issue, I, like most of the scholars, shall take "hate speech" to mean epithets conventionally understood to be insulting references to characteristics such as race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion, and sexual preference.

First, it is insulting, and insults are psychologically wounding and cause emotional distress. Second, it creates unequal opportunity in the school and workplace environments. Third, it silences those who are its targets, depriving them of their freedom of speech. Fourth, it offends by flouting social norms regarding proper verbal behavior.

And, fifth, its expression is a speech act that shows disrespect for or even subordinates its targets. Look, labeling something as subjective is not the same as saying it does not exist or is not important. There are documented studies, I assume, where the psychological effects of hate speech are shown. That may be subjective in so far as it will not effect everyone in the same way, but if you were to go around hitting people, it would hurt them each a little differently (the strong guys wouldnt be hurt, the old ladies might die).

People are not always able to think perfectly rationally - I know hes just an idiot if he calls me some bad name which I'm not, but I still feel upset and I think an interesting angle to this is, how much different is hate crime from ordinary insults? If i call someone a "stupid ignorant jerk" is that really categorically different than calling someone a racial slur? I think the intent behind the speech is worth examining. For the "stupid ignorant jerk" i might just have been upset at them or clash with their personality. It is an individually directed attack (which I suppose is better? ).

But hate speech is taken from false stereotypical ideas about groups of people and intended to harm, oppress, or in some way damage the targets simply because of their birth. Allright, thats all I will ramble about for now... Challenging is different from banning. Banning merely allows opinions to smolder and gain force over time. Banning also serves those who are in power.

It so happens that today university administrations are typically liberal. The books or opinions that are banned are called "hate speech. "Hate speech" is defined as speaking derogatorily against minorities. The danger, however, is that universities may not always be dominated by this type of thinking. Perhaps speaking badly of capitalists will in the future be called "hate speech. " Speaking in behalf of Marx will not only earn disdain, it may call for punishment. Since opinions about revolution, class warfare, and the incorrigible vices of capitalists have become banned opinions. The danger is not in what people say, or how they say it.

The problem is the culture it helps to create. It becomes part of our socialization. For example, my mom has never seen a commercial or read a magazine article that said "You should be afraid of all black people", yet, if she's walking down the street and a black person is coming in the other direction, her gut reaction is going to be to reach for her purse and hold on to it just a little tighter. There's no logical reason for this, but she does it anyway. The danger with hate messages are the subliminal ones. It's the stereotypes that we learn and internalize without even realizing that we " re doing it.

Then again, for some, there is still danger in the explicit hate speech as well. Take for instance, the attacks in Central Park... several of the attackers were video taped chanting lyrics to songs such as "Like, woah", "The Thong Song" and "Gangsta B." Try telling one of the over 50 women who were assaulted that day that hate speech doesn't hurt anyone. It's just talk, NO one with any intelligence is advocating that the fact that somone is offended is the justifying condition for the limitation of hate speech Furthermore, there's no independent impact to the arguement: the affirmative is using pretty bright line standards of harm (working on the narrow assumption that oppression is a BAD THING) and the kind of subjective standards you decry are already employed in virtually every sexual harassment and discrimination case, all of which measure subjective mental states by "reasonable man" standards. Furthermore, it's! become an almost incredibly stupid dogma among debaters that the marketplace of ideas is simply beyond reproach, requiring no kinds of outside conditions in order to be sustained.

Try actually READING On Liberty. Mill says himself that the greatest danger to the free expression of ideas isn't censorship, but the way cultural conditions prevent us from listening to certain segments of our population. By defining "censorship" in the hopelessly narrow manner of direct suppression, we provide a linguistic mask for the very real patterns of exclusion that effectively remove minorities from our deliberation (i smell some discursive impacts, rights talk and critical race theory not being the least among them). I'm going to quickly tire of negatives devoting almost no critical thought to thier side of the debate, because they can simply regurgitate existing liberal doctrine. Since the posting of the new resolution there have been various definitions of the term hate speech. There seem to be two arguments emerging: 1) The stock arguments that hate speech is hard to define. , and 2) The argumentation of lets define hate speech absurdly and critique the Like most LD debaters, I hate definitional debates.

Therefore, I think that we should look to contextual definitions. Mari Matsuda, in Words that Wound, defines racist speech through three criteria: 1) the message itself suggests racial inferiority; 2) it is directed against a historically oppressed group; 3) the message is hateful, degrading, and persecutory in nature. Andrew Altman, in Campus Speech Codes, also defines hate speech as meeting three conditions: first, the speaker must intend to harm another individual based on specific characteristics (e. g. , race, gender, sexual orientation); second, the speech must be directly addressed to the individual; and finally, the speech must convey hate or contempt for the individual at whom Id also like to note here that the resolution is limited to the public expression of hate speech, which means that overly broad definitions of The two of you are both right the a "slippery slope" argument is a fallacy and all that. And so with the understanding that I'm not in disagreement, let me add that I think a modification to slippery slope arguments often makes them plenty reasonable.

The fallacy of the argument is that because X happens, Z must also happen (often assuming no middle ground- Y- or not recognizing a "step ladder" of varying levels and extremes upon which to build a rational understanding of whatever the topic may be). That said, in arguments regarding hate speech, censorship, and the hypothetical effect these concepts may have on protection of free speech, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to show how one decision establishes a certain president, and that combined with human error and social imperfection, one president may happen to lead to the undesirable outcome of Z, or at least a state of affairs that closely resembles Z. In other words, I think there can logically be some truth to a similar line of argumentation, so long as it goes beyond pointing out shallow correlations or assuming some ungodly series of events will just happen to occur. Sometimes taking a little does result in taking a lot, and so on.

Proving a link or showing a high probability of a link is the catch, but such is debate. I found a great book on this... its' called "campus Hate speech on trial" by It provides arguments on both sides, and substantial evidence 4 both I will admit that the issue of whether accessing such hate speech via the web constitutes "public expression" is arguable, but your argument here is that even "posting" hate speech doesn't involve public expression. Is this true even if the poster is sending this hate speech to a listserv or website intending it to be seen by many others?

The reason you would maybe even want to bring up the fact that you can use the internet as a type of public expression is to make the aff's job harder. If you can prove that the internet can be used as a type of hate speech then that means the aff would have to defend prohibiting hate speech even on the internet on college campuses and that's just more trouble than it's world. It's a little petty but hey whatever wins. Regardless of where servers are located (and it really doesn't matter), Greg was right about why internet speech isn't topical: it's avoidable. if you don't like messages, don't visit the web site. hate speech on campus isn't avoidable to those around; they " re forced to hear the hate group's messages and are affected by the speech without their consent.

that's why hate I think that if "public expression" is defined to include the internet, good arguments are made to support this contention, and the judge is convinced that this is the case, then this demonstrates good debating skills and there is nothing unfair about it. However, if I was Aff, and I did not want the internet included, then I would use arguments that this is not how "public expression" is understood in this context, or at least by most people. You could even point out that it would be unfair to include the internet in this debate (not that this is true). Who knows, this may be compelling enough for the judge to throw out the internet as I think that if "public expression" is defined to include the internet, No it isn't because on the internet you have a choice if you want to view it or not. Whereas in public expression you have no choice in your listening. No it isn't because on the internet you have a choice if you want to view it or not.

Whereas in public expression you have no choice in your listening. What if I e-mailed a hate message from one computer (on campus) to another computer (on campus)? Would the person receiving the e-mail have a choice in the matter? Didn't I already respond to a post like this? ? Ok. You say "cyberspace isn't on campus. " Where is it then?

It is nowhere and everywhere at the same time. There is NO definitive location for cyberspace. It exists anywhere that a modem port is available and the software is accessable. Colleges have this, therefore, cyberspace IS on campus. Please understand that there isn't just a cyberspace headquarters where the Cyberspace is located.

If I could sue someone every time I walked down the street and heard something I didn't want to hear, I'd be a rich gal. I suppose I just use common sense in those situations. On the affirmative, you want to make a stronger argument. Instead of delineating between seeing something and hearing it, and justifying or de justifying something based on this flimsy and somewhat arbitrary distinction, try arguing that hate speech isn't just speech and has stronger repercussions.

Make the distinction between regular speech and hate speech instead. 1) The people who log onto the website choose to view the site. And when choice is involved it becomes private speech. We " re talking about in a university which has the ability to control ideas to fit its ends. A university can't control other non-university server websites whether it wants to or not. cyberspace, because cyberspace is just that, cyberspace and we ought to restrict speech when the speaker's intention is to harm. Extend assault and battery laws to speech.

If a speaker utters hateful speech with the intent to harm another, restrict him. Note here that I would draw the line based on the speaker's intent, not whether the listener finds offense. Freedom of speech doesn't prohibit offensiveness, simply intended harm. The obvious objection is that it's difficult to discern a speaker's intent. True. But, again, we face these problems in other areas of the law where intent must be measured, and we ought to be able to do it in the context of speech.

The answer is not censorship, it is good to hear opposing views hateful or not because this opens the market place of ideas which sparks debate and ultimately truth (in this case the end to hate speech by ignorant views being righted). However, we are not arguing whether or not hate speech should be there, but the morality of it on college campuses. When your example throws the hate speech pamphlet to the floor this make it a choice not to READ it, thus making the pamphlet private speech which is not topical. Reading, via the internet, pamphlet, or books, provides a choice. Thus these are all types of private speech and are not topical.

However, you cannot choose not to hear someone on their soap box in the quad, and this is what we should b arguing not whether the internet is public speech on campus. possibly contribute to the marketplace cuz there is no expression of true "ideas", only personal, biased opinions of the individual. what great revelation could hate speech possibly provide that could not be brought about in any Keep in mind that ALL ideas contribute to the MPI. No matter what the idea is or what it isn't, it ALWAYS contributes. If the idea is a biased bit of purely negative hate speech, this does help the MPI. How?

It teaches those involved in the MPI (society) that this hate speech is either a good or a bad thing. This is the aspect of hate speech that contributes. Just because it is a socially-shunned idea does not mean it doesn't contribute to the MPI, now see, the idea i have with neg is to propose a counter moral obligation, some kind of obligation that the university has to allow You are on the right track here. I do not believe it is the task of a university to enforce conformity, which is what PC speech codes are could you not say that universities have a moral obligation to prepare students for the real world? in every level of education, one of the professed goals of the institution is to prep the student for the next level of education. well in a university, the next level can often be interpreted as going out into the speakers intent: defined as such, hate speech would be vague and difficult to determine because it would be easy for the speaker to say that their intent was one thing when it was actually another.

however, i like this because it could keep you away from having to deal with different people's sensitivity levels. one person may be offended by a remark while another who could be in the targeted group as well would laugh at the joke. by looking at intent there is only one person who you have to consider, the speaker. listeners reaction: the listener is th...


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