Revitalizing Group Defamation as a Remedy for Hate Speech on Campus
![handle is hein.journals/orglr71 and id is 865 raw text is: RHONDA G. HARTMAN*
Revitalizing Group Defamation as a
Remedy for Hate Speech on Campus
- ROUP defamatory hate speech, or expression devoid of First
GAmendment values, serving only to denigrate and injure
members of minority and religious groups, on university campuses,
gives rise to an intractable clash of academic ideals: the ideal of full
freedom of discourse versus the ideal of civility, dignity, and equal-
ity.' This conflict has generated considerable controversy over
whether hate speech should be regulated2 and, if so, what form that
* Law Clerk to the Honorable Alan N. Bloch, United States District Court for the
Western District of Pennsylvania; adjunct professor, Honors College, University of
Pittsburgh, and Graduate School of Public Policy and International Affairs, University
of Pittsburgh. J.D., Cambridge University, England, University of Pittsburgh, 1987.
With supreme gratitude and regard, the author acknowledges Jules Lobel and Ken
Gormley, whose comments contributed immeasurably to the preparation of this Article.
The author further expresses her appreciation to Jules Lobel, not only for his friendship
and support but, most especially, for his enduring commitment, as scholar, litigator and
teacher of constitutional law, to the advancement of human rights and individual digni-
ties. The author also gratefully acknowledges the honor students in her First Amend-
ment Perspectives class at the University of Pittsburgh Honors College for discussions
of the Free Speech Clause that have illuminated and shaped the ideas expressed in this
Article.
I Literature has already sprung up on the subject, to which the contributions of
Professors Charles Lawrence, Tom Grey, and Mari Matsuda are most notable. See,
e.g., Thomas C. Grey, Responding to Abusive Speech on Campus: A Model Statute,
RECONSTRUCTION, Winter 1990, at 50 [hereinafter A Model Statute]; Charles R. Law-
rence III, If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus, 1990 DUKE
L.J. 431 [hereinafter Regulating Racist Speech]; Mari J. Matsuda, Public Response to
Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story, 87 MICH. L. REV. 2320 (1989) [hereinaf-
ter Considering the Victim's Story].
2 See Gerald Gunther, Good Speech Bad Speech: Should Universities Restrict Expres-
sion that Is Racist or Otherwise Denigrating, 24 STAN. LAW. 4 (Spring 1990) (arguing
against regulation of hate speech on campus); Ellen S. Lange, Racist Speech on Campus:
A Title VII Solution to a First Amendment Problem, 64 S. CAL. L. REV. 105 (1990)
(urging that campus restrictions on racist speech are tenable and constitutionally ac-
ceptable when analogized to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964); Regulating
Racist Speech, supra note 1 (arguing for regulation of hate speech on campus); see also
David Rosenberg, Note, Racist Speech, The First Amendment, and Public Universities:
Taking a Stand on Neutrality, 76 CORNELL L. REV. 549 (1991) [hereinafter Taking a
Stand] (contending that banning hate speech on university campuses violates the first
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Revitalizing Group Defamation as a Remedy for Hate Speech on Campus
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