On Racist Speech

On Racist Speech

In his article On Racist Speech, Charles R. Lawrence III also tries to convey his point that racist speech need to be regulated, especially on college campuses. He gives many reasons why, but the three most prominent are Brown vs. the Board of Education, the fighting words exception principle, and the idea of racist speech at “home”. The infamous case of Brown vs. BOE is not always thought of as a speech case. When he says we can regulate racist speech on collage campus without violating the 1st Amendment. This contention seems to be his thesis statement, because it is the strong because the recent surge of racist incidents on college and university campuses and in response to some universities attempts to regulate harassing speech. The policy on campus is making by faculty. In this article “On Racist Speech” Charles R. Lawrence III is giving speech to the audience that he strongly believes on 1st Amendment protector very conserved about racism. As a person who had to deal with a lot of things dealing with racist speech, I can agree with most of the things Charles R. Lawrence III talks about in “On Racist Speech”. Lawrence talks about the First Amendment.

The First Amendment has led Americans to believe in a hallowed sense of freedom that does not exist; freedom of speech. Freedom of speech in this country has never been absolute. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, solicit bribes, make terrorist threats, slander another, intentionally inflict emotional distress or be obscene in public. He feels that there should be some sort of regulation of speech, especially on college campuses. He argues his belief through examples from Brown vs. Board of Education, the fighting words exception principle, and the idea that a college campus is considered home to its students. He is talking to audience as been part of them he is putting every audience in this situation to think from his point of view. As well in his speech he says I am trouble that we have not listened to real victims, that we have shown so little understanding of their injury, and that we have abandoned those whose race, gender, or sexual preference continues to make them second-class citizens. It seems to him a very sad irony that the first instinct of civil libertarians has been to challenge even the smallest, most narrowly framed efforts by universities to provide black and other minority students with protection the constitution guarantees them.

The landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education is not a case that we normally think of as a case about speech. The fact is that fifty years later, many of the social,