Just In: The Harm in Hate Speech

Jeremy Waldron is the author of one the C|M|Law Library’s newest titles, The Harm in Hate Speech.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines hate speech as “speech that carries no meaning other than the expression of hatred for some group, such as a particular race, esp. in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence.”

A native of New Zealand, Waldron is a liberal in the American sense of the word.  He rejects the view that hate speech should be protected by the First Amendment.

Before you discard Waldron as a flake or kook, consider that the Dean of Harvard Law School, Martha Minow, praises Waldron as “one of the two or three greatest legal philosophers of our time.”  Waldron, a professor of law and philosophy at the New York University School of Law and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford University, also holds an adjunct professorship at Victoria University.  He has a B.A. (1974) and an LL.B. (1978) from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and a D.Phil. (1986) from Oxford University, where he studied under legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin and political theorist Alan Ryan. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998.

Also consider that retired United Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens describes Waldron’s book as “eminently readable and peppered with anecdote and (useful) examples.”

So consider checking it out.