Recently, an administrator in the Salt Lake City school district took umbrage from the following statement included in a school publication: “There are two genders and a lot of mental illnesses.” He referred to this statement as hate speech, and seems to want to punish whoever included it. One could, though, also classify his retort as hate speech directed toward the writer of the statement. Hate speech is a flawed concept and is really in the eye of the speaker.
The term “hate speech” appears to be used by many individuals in reference to any opinion with which they strongly disagree. Fortunately in our country, freedom of speech is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is time to continue to allow anybody the right to say what they want, hoping, of course, that they will do so civilly and in an effort also to show kindness.
Society is harmed by terms like hate speech. Such name-calling is so often done by those who lack good evidence for their positions. I suggest we remove such egregious epithets from our discourse and return to real civility and kindness.
Phillip C. Smith, Orem