Hate Crimes Legislature Infringes Upon Freedom

Measures Aimed at Hate Crimes Have Several Implications for Personal Liberty

By Robert Swope

Let’s start with the obvious: the Georgetown sophomore who deliberately tipped the menorah over while uttering religious slursin December was wrong. University President Leo O’Donovan, S.J., was correct in promptly issuing a public statement condemning the vandalism and stating that such actions were indefensible, intolerable and inconsistent with the principles of a Catholic university like Georgetown.

After the vandalism occurred, the subject of enacting a specific “hate crime” penalty in the Student Code of Conduct was raised by some as a way to remedy the destruction done to the menorah and serve as a safeguard to prevent future incidents. This would increase the punishment for offenses in which the underlying intent is to vandalize something or intimidate and harm someone based upon his or religion, race or sexual orientation. Students engaged in identical acts would receive a lesser penalty, so long as it were not shown that the crime was motivated by these factors.

Whenever a hate crime occurs, what follows in the ensuing days is an emotional appeal to provide extra punishments for them. Such provisions are contrary to the principles of equality and tolerance that govern our republic and infringe upon the rights of individuals to think freely and express their opinions in speech.

Under the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal.” If all people are of equal worth, then the person who harms one individual deserves the same penalty as the person who harms another individual in a similar way. Doesn’t a student who has his or her arm broken in an assault deserve the same amount of justice as the student who has their arm broken in another assault, regardless of their identity group?

The argument that more redress is needed because terror or intimidation is spread through the identity group of the victim of a hate crime is absurd. Unprotected classes are affected by crime too. When students are assaulted or robbed, members of the local college community will inevitably become intimidated and fear for their safety when they leave campus. When children start disappearing, it follows that they and their parents will be terrorized. Crime affects everyone, everywhere. It breaks down the common trust among individuals and spreads fear and terror whenever it occurs, regardless of the status of the victim.

Hard questions arise on how to decide whether an act constitutes a hate crime. Oftentimes it comes down to a one-word epithet. Whether the word said is reflective of intent or uttered in a moment of stress cannot always be determined. Even without proof that a hate crime has occurred, special hate crime laws put pressure on administrators not to bring hate crime charges based on evidence or what can be proven in court, but on whichever group can yell the loudest. The most likely reason is so that the group affected can use the hate crime to call for special treatment and handouts in the future. While this is not true in all cases, the lasting effect is the further balkanization of students along racial and ethnic lines and the destruction of the ideal of a unified society that judges people equally as individual human beings and not in regard to their identity group. Such laws breed inter-group hatred, conflict and even more crime.

Hate crime legislation violates the First Amendment: it punishes people for their thoughts and speech when criminal law should be punishing them for their actions. If the student who vandalized the menorah had not said anything that could be considered discriminatory, yet it was later found out that he had books or belonged to political organizations that were anti-Semitic, he would be punished more for these things instead of the wrongful act of vandalizing the menorah. He would be criminally punished for the content of his ideas. However ignorant and disgusting an idea is, men and women have a right to be wrong and hold immoral positions so long as they don’t illegally act on them. If people are to have their own speech tolerated they must tolerate the speech of others no matter how deplorable they find it to be.

If Georgetown is to promote a community of tolerance and equality, then it will do so for all people, regardless of their background. Furthermore, if it is to promote the principles of freedom that govern our republic, it will stand firm and allow for all types of speech to be held, though as a Catholic university, it should neither condone nor fund it (directly or indirectly) and should promulgate its opposition to intolerance and hate wherever it exists. In a time when diversity is so publicly trumpeted, it would be hypocritical for its champions to not tolerate views different from their own. The goal should be to try to change the minds of such individuals, rather than penalize them because of it.

Sed Contra appears every other Friday in The Hoya.