Brandenburg v. Ohio: Hate Speech Is Free Speech | 5-Minute Videos | PragerU — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01Freedom of speech is indispensable to
2. 0:04every other freedom. In fact, it's the
3. 0:06very essence of democracy. It promotes
4. 0:09rational deliberation, holds public
5. 0:11officials accountable, and fosters a
6. 0:13marketplace of ideas where diverse
7. 0:15viewpoints can be debated and tested,
8. 0:18the very engine of progress. If citizens
9. 0:21cannot freely speak their minds, they
10. 0:23aren't free. As the great 19th century
11. 0:26abolitionist Frederick Douglas noted, no
12. 0:28right was deemed by the founding fathers
13. 0:31more sacred than the right of speech. It
14. 0:34was in their eyes the great moral
15. 0:36renovator of society and government. The
16. 0:39relevant clause of the first amendment
17. 0:41of the constitution reads, "Congress
18. 0:43shall make no law abridging the freedom
19. 0:45of speech." But just how free should
20. 0:48this speech be? We all recognize that
21. 0:50there must be limits. In the 1919 case
22. 0:54shank v. United States, Justice Oliver
23. 0:57Wendell Holmes famously declared that
24. 0:59you can't falsely shout fire in a
25. 1:01crowded theater. That could induce panic
26. 1:03resulting in injury or death. What about
27. 1:06speech that incites people to commit
28. 1:08violence? Does that cross the line? And
29. 1:10what about what we now call hate speech?
30. 1:13Is that protected? These aren't easy
31. 1:15questions. The Supreme Court has
32. 1:18wrestled with them for decades. The 1969
33. 1:21case of Brandenburgg v. Ohio is a prime
34. 1:24example. Few decisions have done more to
35. 1:26define the boundaries between speech
36. 1:28that is protected by the First Amendment
37. 1:31and speech that is not protected than
38. 1:33this one. Clarence Brandenburgg was the
39. 1:36leader of an Ohio chapter of the Ku Klux
40. 1:38Clan, a white supremacist group
41. 1:40violently opposed to civil rights. The
42. 1:43clan has had a long and ugly past
43. 1:46stretching back to the end of the Civil
44. 1:47War. Their white hoods and burning
45. 1:50crosses epitomized racism and terror. In
46. 1:53the summer of 1964, Brandenburgg invited
47. 1:56a Cincinnati reporter to film a clan
48. 1:58rally. The televised film captured
49. 2:01guntoing hooded figures burning across.
50. 2:05In a statement filled with racial
51. 2:07epithets, Brandenburgg said, "We're not
52. 2:10a revengeant organization, but if our
53. 2:12president, our Congress, our Supreme
54. 2:14Court continues to suppress the white
55. 2:17Caucasian race, it's possible that there
56. 2:20might have to be some revengeance
57. 2:22taken." Brandenburgg was obviously not a
58. 2:25road scholar. There are no such words as
59. 2:27revengeant or revengeance, but his
60. 2:30message was unmistakable. He further
61. 2:32announced a forthcoming clan march
62. 2:34throughout the South to begin on July
63. 2:364th, America's Independence Day. On the
64. 2:39basis of these remarks, Brandenburgg was
65. 2:41convicted under an Ohio law which made
66. 2:44it illegal to advocate with others the
67. 2:47duty, necessity, or propriety of crime,
68. 2:50sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods
69. 2:52of terrorism as a means of accomplishing
70. 2:55political reform. Laws like this were
71. 2:58passed across the country in the early
72. 3:0020th century to ensure public safety
73. 3:02against anarchist and communist threats.
74. 3:05In the wake of the Russian Revolution of
75. 3:071917, these threats seemed very real.
76. 3:10Such laws, however, were vague and
77. 3:12overly broad. They failed to draw a
78. 3:15clear line between protected speech and
79. 3:17punishable speech. For example, in the
80. 3:20case of the Ohio law, what did it mean
81. 3:23to advocate for violent political
82. 3:25reform?
83. 3:26Brandenburgg appealed to the Supreme
84. 3:28Court on June 9th, 1969.
85. 3:32The court ruled in his favor. It cited
86. 3:35the precedent of not v. United States
87. 3:371961, which stated that mere abstract
88. 3:41teaching is not the same as preparing a
89. 3:43group for violent action. The court said
90. 3:46the Ohio statute failed to distinguish
91. 3:49between arguing for a potentially
92. 3:51violent idea and what the court called
93. 3:54incitement to imminent lawless action.
94. 3:57Under the first amendment, speech that
95. 3:59fell into the first category was
96. 4:01constitutionally speaking acceptable.
97. 4:03Speech that fell into the second
98. 4:05category was not because it led directly
99. 4:08to violence. That is imminent lawless
100. 4:11action. In other words, speech can only
101. 4:14be restricted when it leads to some
102. 4:16tangible, concrete, immediate harm.
103. 4:19Because the clan leader used the
104. 4:21conditional tense, some revengeance
105. 4:23might have to be taken, his speech fell
106. 4:26short of the court's new imminent
107. 4:28lawless action standard. While
108. 4:30Brandenburgg's hateful speech rightly
109. 4:32deserves condemnation, the court
110. 4:34believed that censoring that speech
111. 4:36would have been a greater threat to free
112. 4:38society. It is a characteristic of
113. 4:41authoritarian regimes to stifle disscent
114. 4:44to maintain their power. The first
115. 4:46amendment ensures that government
116. 4:48remains contentneutral.
117. 4:50It cannot favor or disfavor one idea,
118. 4:54viewpoint or message over another.
119. 4:57Tolerating offensive speech, even
120. 4:59so-called hate speech, is the mark of a
121. 5:02free society. The only exception is
122. 5:04speech that leads directly to violence.
123. 5:07Free speech comes with costs. People can
124. 5:10be offended by it, even deeply so. But
125. 5:13in Brandenburgg, the court recognized
126. 5:15that those costs were outweighed by its
127. 5:18benefits. The antidote to hateful speech
128. 5:21is more speech. That's how we preserve
129. 5:23this most indispensable of freedoms. I'm
130. 5:27Joseph Forneri, professor of political
131. 5:29science at the Rochester Institute of
132. 5:31Technology and director of the Center
133. 5:33for Statesmanship, Law, and Liberty for
134. 5:35Prager University.
135. 5:37Thank you for watching this video. To
136. 5:39keep PragerU videos free, please
137. 5:41consider making a taxdeductible
138. 5:43donation.