Public Hostility

Many modern constitutional democracies, including Canada, have prohibited what is colloquially known as hate speech—the expression of views about minority groups for the purpose of vilifying or fostering disrespect for them. They have been able to do so because modern bills of rights, while protecting expression, tend to contain “limitation clauses.” Thus, the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld prohibitions on hate speech (or, more technically, group libel) as “reasonable limits” on free speech. Other constitutional democracies have similar laws, upheld for broadly similar reasons.

But not all. The United States Constitution has no limitation clause and, there, the suggestion that any expression could be prohibited on the basis of its content meets with skepticism if not hostility. Jeremy Waldron’s new book, The Harm in Hate Speech, represents an attempt to answer that skepticism and hostility by arguing that prohibitions of group libel are at least...