Laws, ordinances, codes, and other types of regulations that seek to ban hate speech have not fared well in courts throughout Americaat least in the last forty or so yearseven as they have proliferated greatly during that time. Proliferated they have, especially on college campuses. But they have been struck down by the courts in every case during the period of their proliferation.

In this discussion prompt response, I want you to begin by considering the Supreme Court cases ofBeauharnais v. IllinoisandR.A.V. v. St. Paul. First, tell me specifically what types of speech the law in question sought to prohibit in each case. Second, tell me if, in your opinion, a principled legal distinction exists between the two laws in question that would justify the fact that one law was upheld and the other struck down by the Supreme Court. If you think there is a principled legal distinction, tell me what it is; if you do not think there is a principled legal distinction, tell me which case the Supreme Court got wrong and why. Finally, I want you to consider a real-life controversy surrounding hate speech. This controversy involves people speaking on college campuses.

In 2015, Milo Yiannopoulos, is a British speaker and writer who identifies as "ex-gay" and encourages conversion therapy, who has been deemed by some to be a "notorious online troll," embarked on a multi-year speaking tour across the United States and Great Britain titled, "The Dangerous Faggot Tour." Throughout 2016 and 2017, NYU and a host of other schools un-invited Milo Yiannopoulos from giving a speech on campus because of his views on sexual orientation, racial issues, religion, gender, and immigration. For example, Mr. Yiannopoulos has said that child sex abuse is "really not that big a deal. You can't let it ruin your life," and that bankruptcy is a worse thing to happen in a person's life. He has encouraged his supporters to shoot journalists and bomb publication outlets. He has claimed that all of Islam is responsible for the mistreatment of women and homosexuals. He has said that the birth control pill makes women fat, hysterical, and sexually promiscuous. He declared homosexuality to be a sin during the same month he married his husband. He claims his birthday is "World Patriarchy Day" and started a Privilege Grant for white men (whose funds he later apologized for mismanaging) to receive scholarship to supposedly balance out the scholarships women and people of color receive.

The school's revocation of its speaker invite is one of hundreds of examples of a speaker being cancelled on college and university campuses due to their viewpoints or criminal behavior or "other misconduct" (as classified by FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education)). NYU and other schools cited security issues as the reason for cancelling Mr. Yiannopoulos's speaking engagement.

Mr. Yiannopoulos rose to fame during the "Gamergate" controversy (which advanced sexist ideas within video game culture, targeting women with threats of rape or death or by revealing their private personal information) while writing for Breitbart News. A leading alt-right advocate, Mr. Yiannopoulos solicited ideas for his stories from neo-Nazis and alt-right advocates. Consequently, he holds controversial positions on many (possibly all) issues.

Mr. Yiannopoulos's speaking events have been known to be a setting for violence. Outside one of Mr. Yiannopoulos's speeches, a protester was critically injured when two of the alt-right speaker's fans assaulted him. In protest of Yiannopoulos speaking on the Berkeley campus, more than 1500 protesters caused $100,000 in damage and six people were injured. His inflammatory rhetoric has led to Mr. Yiannopoulos being banned from Twitter for life due to his harassment of comedian Leslie Jones (of SNL fame) and in 2019 he was banned from Facebook and Instagram for being a "dangerous" voice.

A professor at NYU wants to invite Mr. Yiannopoulos to campus to speak about politics and Halloween in the fall, to challenge the censorship of the university. If you were the university's general counsel, would you let Mr. Yiannopoulos speak on campus? Why or why not?