Politically Correct

LIBERALS ARGUE THAT being politically correct is respecting the human dignity and personhood of other individuals and groups. Conservatives tend to use the term “political correctness” as a derogatory description of what they see as an attempt to ban anti-liberal speech. They insist that political correctness is an attempt by liberal professors to indoctrinate students with liberal thinking. The political correctness movement began on the campuses of colleges and universities among liberal academicians who were concerned about the effects of abusive speech on the ability of certain groups to receive an education. In response to that concern, many campuses defined abusive language as “hate speech” and instituted speech codes that banned such speech on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, ethnic/national origin, and sexual orientation. Conservatives claimed that such codes violated their First Amendment rights and claimed the right to censor whatever they found offensive such as material deemed sexually suggestive or critical of the United States, Christianity, or capitalism.

[Page 345]Despite conservative claims of absolute freedom to use abusive speech, Americans have never been granted that right. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (315 U.S. 568, 1942), the Supreme Court identified several forms of speech that are never protected by the First Amendment: obscenity, slander, libel, seditious speech, and “fighting words.” Fighting words, in the opinion of the court, were “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Liberals maintain that all hate speech is classified as fighting words and is, therefore, illegal because it may lead to hate crimes. In 1990, Congress passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act that requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to keep records of all hate crimes in the United States. In 2003 alone, the FBI investigated 7,462 alleged hate crime incidents, involving 8,832 separate offenses.

Most Western democracies have passed restrictions on abusive speech. As early as 1965, the United Kingdom passed the Race Relations Act, which punished threatening, abusive, or insulting language. Canada's comprehensive Hate Law was held as constitutional in February 1996. The Netherlands has criminalized public expression that is insulting on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation. Sweden and Australia prohibit public expressions of contempt on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, or religious faith. International groups have also condemned abusive speech.