The “fighting words doctrine” was established in the US in 1942.[0].
> [The Supreme Court] held that "insulting or 'fighting words', those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] … have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
At least some things classified as hate speech, like racial slurs, seem to me to fall clearly under the category of fighting words. Is the fighting words doctrine fully unsound? Unsound only when applied to social media? Is hate speech just another name for it, or is it an expansion of it?
EDIT: My original link does not include the narrowing of the doctrine. [1] is a better source:
> the Supreme Court redefined the scope of the fighting words doctrine to mean words that are "a direct personal insult or an invitation to exchange fisticuffs."
> [The Supreme Court] held that "insulting or 'fighting words', those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] … have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."
At least some things classified as hate speech, like racial slurs, seem to me to fall clearly under the category of fighting words. Is the fighting words doctrine fully unsound? Unsound only when applied to social media? Is hate speech just another name for it, or is it an expansion of it?
EDIT: My original link does not include the narrowing of the doctrine. [1] is a better source:
> the Supreme Court redefined the scope of the fighting words doctrine to mean words that are "a direct personal insult or an invitation to exchange fisticuffs."
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words