bigotry is constitutional?

Gary Ashwill gna at duke.edu
Sat Nov 3 11:45:17 PST 2001


on 11/3/01 8:48 AM, Justin Schwartz at jkschw at hotmail.com wrote:
>The thing about Brandenburg is that the
> test limits a ban on incitement to illegal activity to cases where the
> illegal activity is immanent. Burning crosses is protected. "Get that guy
> over there!" is not. I think it's a good rule. jks
>

But KKKers don't generally burn crosses in their own yards, to "express" their bigotry. It's usually done on someone else's property and intended (and understood) expressly as a threat. Doesn't that put it in a somewhat different category than just speech? Not incitement, exactly (though it could be that), but sort of like scrawling "I'm going to kill you" on someone's door. Burning crosses, considered abstractly, might be protected speech; but doesn't context matter?

Gary Ashwill



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list