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A Northwestern University professors op-ed in the Los Angeles Times is disturbing - not only in its conclusions, but also its assumptions. Sociologist Laura Beth Nielsen calls for restrictions on hate speech, because she contends that speech is violence.

We are currently seeing the results of confusing speech and political violence. Its not pretty.

As a sociologist and legal scholar, I struggle to explain the boundaries of free speech to undergraduates. Despite the 1st Amendment - I tell my students - local, state, and federal laws limit all kinds of speech, Nielsen writes. We regulate advertising, obscenity, slander, libel, and inciting lawless action to name just a few. My students nod along until we get to racist and sexist speech. Some cant grasp why, if we restrict so many forms of speech, we dont also restrict hate speech.

Shes only partially right there; government doesnt regulate libel, for example, but victims can win compensation from perpetrators in a civil action. Incitement to violence is certainly restricted, but advertisings relationship with the First Amendment is more complicated.

But the real problem with Nielsens piece is her assumptions.

In fact, empirical data suggest that frequent verbal harassment can lead to various negative consequences, she writes. Racist hate speech has been linked to cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and requires complex coping strategies These negative physical and mental health outcomes - which embody the historical roots of race and gender oppression - mean that hate speech is not just speech. Hate speech is doing something.

Certainly, harassment is bad. And in many cases, its already illegal. There are remedies in place. But the fundamental truth here is that words are not actions.

The U.S. Supreme Court has time and again reaffirmed the freedom of speech - and ruled that hate speech is covered.

For the purposes of the First Amendment, there is no difference between free speech and hate speech. Ideas and opinions that progressive students and professors find offensive or hateful are just as protected by the Bill of Rights as anti-Trump slogans chanted at a campus protest, writes John Daniel Danielson for The Federalist.

The reason is simple. Once Congress can start banning hate speech, then unpopular political opinions will become illegal.

As Danielson points out, By hate speech, they mean ideas and opinions that run afoul of progressive pieties. Do you believe abortion is the taking of human life? Thats hate speech Concerned about illegal immigration? Believe in the right to bear arms? Support President Donald Trump? All hate speech.

And of course that could be turned against the left. Their ideas and values easily could be labeled hate speech. Think of black lives matter.

Were in the midst of a great confusion in our society. Political violence - from punching Nazis to attacking protestors to shooting conservative members of Congress - seems to be on the rise.

We must get back to the belief that ideas are to be countered with better ideas, not with violence. Words have consequences, but we cant ban them just because we dont like them.

More:
Editorial: First Amendment affirms that words aren't violence - Tyler Morning Telegraph