Altmuslimah’s Asma Uddin participated in the Hate Speech and Religion panel at Cardozo Law School’s Hate Speech Symposium.
The Content and Context of “Hate Speech”: Rethinking Regulation and Remedies
The contemporary debate over regulating “hate speech” is stalled; free-speech absolutists, who would protect speech in all circumstances, and free-speech skeptics, who would accept all “reasonable” regula tion of “hate speech,” have reached a deadlock. This conference seeks to reinvigorate and advance that debate by exploring a middle ground that is contextual and historically specific. It is the closing event of the Spring 2010 weekly colloquium based on the book of the same title (Michael Herz & Peter Molnar eds., Cambridge University Press forthcoming).
While details vary, in most of the world “reasonable” regulation of “hate speech” is accepted as both im portant and supportive of democratic values. However, American courts have reasoned that it is more ef fective and consistent with democratic values to respond to “hate speech” with counter-speech rather than with suppression, holding the latter unconstitutional, an approach that has been quite firmly followed by post-Holocaust, post-communist Hungary since the early 1990s.
Speech that expresses and promotes hatred of particular social groups poses one of the most difficult chal lenges regarding restrictions of speech from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. Not surpris ingly, responses to this challenge have not been uniform. This conference proceeds on the assumption that this variation is an invitation rather than an obstacle to understand ing and solving underlying problems. It brings together leading scholars, advocates, and practitioners to cast new light on an old issue.
This conference is co-sponsored by the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at Central European University.
May 13, 2010 Conference Schedule
8:30 am Arrival, Registration, and Coffee
9:00 am Introduction
Michael Herz, Cardozo School of Law
Peter Molnar, CMCS, Central European University
9:15 am Opening Remarks
Matthew Diller, Cardozo School of Law
9:30 am Defining “Hate Speech” and the Argument
about Legitimacy
Floyd Abrams, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
Andrew Arato, The New School for Social Research
Jamal Greene, Columbia Law School
David Rudenstine, Cardozo School of Law
Moderator: Peter Molnar, CMCS, Central European University
11:00 am Break
11:15 am The Significance of Content and Context in
Harm and Danger Related Arguments for
Regulating “Hate Speech”
Sandra Coliver, Open Society Justice Initiative
Peter Molnar, CMCS, Central European University
Frederick Schauer, University of Virginia School of Law
Moderator: Alexander Reinert, Cardozo School of Law
12:45 pm Lunch and Keynote Address
Robert Post, Yale Law School
2:00 pm Incitement to Genocide
Susan Benesch, World Policy Institute
Toby Mendel, Center for Law and Democracy
Dinah PoKempner, Human Rights Watch
Monroe Price, Cardozo School of Law, Center for Global Communications Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Moderator: Michael Herz, Cardozo School of Law
3:30 pm Break
3:45 pm “Hate Speech,” Discrimination, and Segregation
Richard Cohen, Southern Poverty Law Center
Arthur Jacobson, Cardozo School of Law
Greg Lukianoff, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Theodore Shaw, Columbia Law School
Moderator: Michelle Adams, Cardozo School of Law
5:15 pm Break
5:30 pm “Hate Speech” and Religion
Willem F. Korthals Altes, District Court of Amsterdam
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University, PEN American Center
Tarlach McGonagle, Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam
Asma T. Uddin, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Moderator: Richard Winfield, International Senior Lawyers Project, Freedom House
7:00 pm Reception
