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3 Nev. L.J. F. 1 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/nvljform3 and id is 1 raw text is: 









  Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?: Censorship of Hate
                Speech May Well Increase Violence

                             Gordon Danning*

         From Charlottesville to college campuses, people with odious views
have been very much in the news over the past year. Responses to those people
and the groups to which they belong have ranged from efforts to keep them
from speaking in person,1 to deleting their presence on the internet,2 to efforts
to have them terminated from their jobs3 or evicted from their apartments,4 and
even to physical assault by members of such groups as Antifa. Such efforts at
censoring, ostracizing, and stigmatizing hate group members are generally jus-
tified by claims that such individuals are dangerous.6
         It is true that some scholars have found an association between the ex-
istence of far-right hate groups and the occurrence of far-right ideological vio-
lence;7 however, it is also true others have failed to find an association between
hate groups and hate crimes,8 and that the majority of hate crimes are commit-
ted not by ideologically-motivated individuals, but rather by groups of bored


* Gordon Danning, J.D., is the History Research Fellow at the Foundation for Individual
Rights in Education.
1 Vince Cestone, VIDEO: Right-Wing Group No to Marxism in America Denied Permit
for Berkeley Rally, KRON4 (Aug. 25, 2017, 4:49 PM), http://kron4.com/2017/08/24/right-
wing-group-no-to-marxism-in-america-denied-permit-for-berkeley-rally/.
2 Matthew Rozsa, Twitter is Starting to Purge Its Alt-Right Users, SALON (Dec. 18, 2017,
12:00   PM),   https://www.salon.com/2017/12/18/twitter-is-starting-to-purge-its-alt-right-
users/.
' Naomi LaChance, More Nazis are Getting Identified and Fired After Charlottesville,
HUFFINGTON POST (Aug. 17, 2017, 1:21 PM), https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/more-
nazis-are-getting-identified-and-fired-after-charlottesville us 599477dbe4b0eef7ad2c0318.
4 Julia Marsh, Landlord Trying to Evict TenantJor Hanging Conjederate Flags in Windows,
N.Y. POST (Aug. 21, 2017, 11:31 AM), https://nypost.com/2017/08/21/landlord-trying-to-
evict -tenant-for-flying-confederate-flags -in-windows/.
' Katie Bo Williams, Antija Activists Say Violence is Necessary, THE HL (Sept. 14, 2017,
6:30 AM), http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/350524-antifa-activists-say-violence-
is-necessary.
6 Terror from    the  Right, SOUTHERN   POVERTY    L. CTR. (Nov. 1, 2015),
https://www.splcenter.org/20151101/terror-right.
7 Amy Adamczyk et al., The Relationship Between Hate Groups and Far-Right Ideological
Violence,    30    J.    CONTEMP.     CRIM.    JUST.    310,    310     (2014),
http: //joumals.sagepub.com/ doi/abs/ 10. 1177 /1043986214536659.
' Matt E. Ryan & Peter T. Leeson, Hate Groups and Hate Crime, 31 INT'L REV. L. &EcoN.
256, 262 (2011), http:// www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818811000597.

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