A COLLISION OF PRINCIPLES - FREE EXPRESSION, RACIAL EQUALITY AND THE PROHIBITION OF RACIST SPEECH

Freedom of expression is celebrated as one of the glories of the Ameri can political system. But does all speech deserve immunity? In particu lar, should speech designed to vilify or degrade on the basis of race be protected? Opinions on racist speech are complicated because they m ust accommodate two fundamental democratic principles that operate at cross purposes: freedom of expression, which implies support for racis t speech, and racial equality, which implies the opposite. Using data from the 1990 General Social Survey, we examine how Americans resolve this conflict. Our major Ending is that the principle of free expressi on dominates the principle of racial equality. What contemporary legal scholars regard as a hard case entailing a collision of democratic pr inciples, ordinary Americans seem to interpret as a straightforward ap plication of just a single principle. This result mirrors and perhaps reflects a nearly century-long and mostly lop-sided debate favouring f ree speech among American elites.