Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

About the author: Richard Delgado is a professor at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder. Jean Stefancic is a senior research associate at the University of Colorado Law School. They are the co-authors of several books, including Must We Defend Nazis": Hate Speech, Pornography, and the New First Amendment, from which this excerpt was taken.

Colleges have many valid reasons to institute speech codes (regulations that ban hate speech). Contrary to the arguments of neoconservatives, these codes are not a waste of time and resources, are not rejected by largely white communities, do not prevent discussions of racism, do not encourage minorities to behave like victims, are not classist, and do not institutionalize censorship. Rather, speech codes have been proven effective in several Western democracies and can help increase dialogue about...