Defending The Indefensible: Why Hate Speech Must Be Tolerated

In what appears to be a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada this week past upheld a ruling by a lower court that two Calgary brothers were wrongfully punished by the University of Calgary who had the audacity to criticize one of their professors on Facebook (http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/09/universities-beholden-to-canadass-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms-appeal-court-rules/). In essence, the Court held that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms reigned supreme, even on sacred university campuses.

The fact that the ruling had to be made, much less that it may represent a landmark, is in itself an indictment of how political correctness and censorship has plagued our society; if freedoms of speech expression were truly “free” anywhere in Canada, the institutions that should uphold those freedoms most fervently should be those of education, especially supposedly “higher” ones. While the case will likely have far-reaching ramifications for universities and private institutions as a whole—though one may rightfully wonder how any institution that is the beneficiary of an enormous amount of public money may be considered “private”—the rulings lead to a broader question that rarely gets addressed in Canada anymore: exactly how “free” should speech be? And more specifically, should inflammatory and potentially reprehensible, hate-motivated speech be allowed in public (or private) forums?

 As someone who endorses personal liberty, I would stand initially for the freedom of expression on sheer principle alone: a society cannot be considered “free” if thoughts are repressed and censored regardless of how distasteful I or even an overwhelming majority of people may find them. Further to this is one practical application and standard is that if I argue that another’s speech is inflammatory and hateful, who determines at what point does mine also become that way? Setting these two arguments aside, there is even a more practical application that needs to be made in allowing for freedoms of expression, and ironically, it appears best in the institution that tried to restrict it: education.

As the recent ruling from the Court shows, issues pertaining to free speech still represent hot button topics in Canada. However, perhaps no ruling in Canadian legal history was more seminal than R. v. Keegstra, the well-published trial pitting the Government of Canada against high school teacher James Keegstra, who taught his students that the Jews invented the Holocaust to illicit sympathy, often using racial slurs to underscore his points. While it is true that in certain circumstances—i.e. not while teaching, and in private—Keegstra may have been found innocent of the charges in 1990 (he almost was; the Court convicted him by a 4-3 margin), with the advent of the Human Rights Commissions and the cottage industry they now represent, it’s doubtful that he would have been afforded nearly as close a verdict today.

Setting aside the ridiculous nature of Keegstra’s claims,the case that ironically set a standard for limiting free speech should have instead served as an example of why speech must be free not restricted, and further, why speech should be less restricted today than it was 20-plus years ago. Moreover, it illustrates why institutions of learning which tried to limit a far less oppressive expression of speech—students complaining about the competency of a professor—need to be the place where even the most harmful forms of expression must be defended with the greatest zeal.

The logic is simple: while it is undoubtedly true that ideologies that represent hate are spread through the various mediums of public (and private) forums, that very fact brings up two other truths: namely, censorship has never worked, and indeed, like all forms of prohibition tends to produce the opposite effect for which it was intended; and secondly, the painfully obvious fact that the only way to combat intolerance is not by covering it up and pretending that it doesn’t exist, but rather by exposing it’s sheer audacity and ignorance, and in order to do so, the full ignorance must be exposed by letting those who choose to propagate hate speak freely.

But what of the most disturbing aspects of expression? By not limiting expressions of hatred or violence to particular people groups, aren’t we silently condoning them? Surely, if any form of censorship is called for, it is on those groups, is it not?

Rather, the opposite is true; the more potentially harmful the speech may be, the more it needs to be exposed for what it is, and again, the only way to this thoroughly is through discourse. Freedom in its truest form comes only with the caveat that one does no harm to others. While it may be argued that the discussion of harming promotes the eventual harm, it also points out the truth that those arguments can only be defeated through unobstructed communication. That expressions of hatred often denigrate to despicable levels is unquestionable; running away from them or attempting to bury them outside of minds’ reach can make them no less vile. 

Back to the schools: institutions of education are meant to do just that, namely, educate people, particularly the young who will shape a rapidly changing future. If we are truly serious about improving society, we must be committed to giving future generations the tools needed to overcome hatred, and therefore promote peaceful co-existence.

Uncomfortable as the truth may be, in pretending that destructive ideologies don’t exist, we successfully create an even greater atmosphere of ignorance than that of the vicious ideologues. That truth alone should make censorship the most intolerable act possible.