FREEDOM OF SPEECH, HATE SPEECH, AND CAMPUS HATE SPEECH

Course Objectives:

• Introduce students to key concepts related to freedom of speech, hate speech and campus speech.
• Introduce students to key court cases related to freedom of speech, hate speech and campus speech.
• To provide students a general knowledge about freedom of speech, hate speech and campus speech.
• To encourage students to think/ be able to discuss freedom of speech, hate speech and campus speech from different perspectives.

Course Content:

This course will examine the topic of freedom of speech, hate speech and campus speech from the philosophical perspective. The discussion will focus on the role of the protection of freedom of speech in a democratic society, and how such societies should deal with hate speech. Among the questions we will examine are: What is hate speech? Can we make a meaningful distinction between harmful and offensive speech? Does hate speech legislation undermines democratic legitimacy? Should laws protecting speech only protect content or should insulting speech also be protected as well? What do we mean when we say that freedom of speech should be absolute? Should laws protecting freedom of speech also protect campus hate speech? Among the authors we will discuss are: John Stuart Mill, Anthony Lewis, Jeremy Waldron and Ronald Dworkin. In addition to reading the works of a these philosophers, we will also discuss a number of court cases involving freedom of speech.