This letter to the editor is in response to Shana Bethea's letter "SAE students' hate speech indefensible" published on March 23.
Although it may well seem to be approaching the summit of ungraciousness — particularly having been described as "brilliant and eccentric" (few would disagree with the latter) — I must enter a demurrer to some of the ideas ascribed to me in a letter in Monday's issue of The Daily Gamecock. The subject was "hate speech."
Although the letter's author, Shana Bethea, forcefully laid out the arguments in favor of restricting such speech — arguments that might find favor in foreign jurisdictions — I am much less sanguine about American courts upholding limitations on such speech in the face of a First Amendment challenge. A number of Supreme Court decisions, including Brandenburg v. Ohio, R.A.V. v. St. Paul and, most recently, Snyder v. Phelps, suggest that the Court continues to be willing to protect "hate speech" up to the point it incites imminent, lawless behavior likely to occur — like inciting the angry mob to riot.
No matter how distasteful the speech by the folks on the SAE bus in Oklahoma, one must entertain doubt that a court would find that this speech meets this definition.
The issue of whether the University of Oklahoma may legally discipline the students in some manner (perhaps short of expulsion) under its policies on discriminatory speech by faculty and students remains a subject for continuing discussion.