Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

About the author: Richard Delgado is the Charles Inglis Thomson Professor of Law at the University of Colorado. Jean Stefancic is a research associate and a documents librarian at the University of Colorado School of Law. Delgado and Stefancic are the authors of Must We Defend Nazis"

Hate speech is speech that degrades or offends a person or group. It harms entire groups and communities, not just individuals. Many defenders of the First Amendment claim that enduring hate speech, from slurs to racist rhetoric, is the unsettling compromise that must be made in order to protect all forms of speech. However, masking hate speech as a constitutional right only permits the systematic denigration of marginalized people. It allows those in power to continually subjugate women, minorities, and other subordinate groups. Hate...