This research paper reviews and analyzes the constitutionality and other public policy aspects of efforts by governmental authorities and universities to deal with hate crimes and hate speech directed at ethnic, racial and other minority groups in the United States. Laws, ordinances and university codes enacted to counter hate crimes and hate speech involve fundamental questions of public order, free speech and equal protection under the law. In almost every instance in which the constitutionality of such measures have been tested in the courts, they have been found to be in violation of the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Only very narrowly drafted laws and codes stand much chance of surviving constitutional challenges to their validity. Such measures are evidence of a trend toward the imposition of prevailing views of political correctness, which tend to undermine the foundations of democracy itself and do not serve to ease the racial and ethnic tensions in American society, which must be solved by other means.
During the 1980s and 1990s, a rising number of incidents involving hate crimes and hate speech occurred, especially on college and university campuses. Davis defines hate crimes "as crimes that manifest prejudice based on certain group characteristics" (386). Walker says that hate speech includes "any form of expression deemed offensive to any racial, religious, ethnic or national group" (8). Hate crimes took many forms, including the killing in 1989 of a white federal judge and a black civil rights lawyer by pipe bombs sent through the mail, the bombing of black churches in the South and elsewhere, cross-burnings, and various forms of vandalism and assault, including crimes committed against whites during the Los Angeles riots following the initial conviction of a black, Rodney King, by a white jury in Simi Valley, California, who was later adjudged to have been the victim of race-motivated police brutality. <...