If you denigrate someone's race with a common slur, is that freedom of speech, or a crime?
A 14-year-old white youth who used a racial slur to taunt a 17-year-old African American girl was convicted of "disorderly conduct" in a North Dakota district juvenile court, but now the North Dakota Supreme Court is considering whether the boy's Constitutional First Amendment rights to free speech were violated.
The incident took place last February in Valley City, North Dakota. The girl was leaving a dance at a teen center when the 14-year-boy called her a "stupid (slur word)."
The assistant Barnes County attorney, Lee Grossman, argued that the boy's intent was to harass the girl, and thus the charge of disorderly conduct. A judge agreed. Under North Dakota law, it is a crime to use abusive language "With intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person."
The same 17-year-old-girl had been harassed with racial slurs by other youths on the same evening at the same dance. A 14-year-old girl confronted her in a bathroom, calling her a (racial slur) and also told her that she did not "own this town" and that she was "not wanted in this town."
Yet another incident occurred later in the evening at a pizza shop, where the 14-year-old white girl called the African American girl "worthless" and asked her why "she was in town."
A judge found both the 14-year-old boy and the 14-year-old girl guilty of disorderly conduct, for which they received sentences of probation, an order to perform community service, and an order to attend a racial sensitivity class.
An attorney for the boy is claiming his client's right to free speech is being violated. But Southeast District Judge John Paulson said the both the boy and the girl who committed the taunting would have been guilty of disorderly conduct if they had used a racial slur, or not.
It is up to the North Dakota Supreme Court to decide if a crime was committed, or if this was a violation of the right to free speech.
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Comments
The headline is posed as an either-or question.
Speech can be "hateful" and free at the same time.
Let me repeat this for anyone who wasn't paying attention in History class:
"Congress shall make NO law..."
Hold them to it. Whites get slurred a million ways a million times a day throughout the mass media. We're just not screaming babies about it. Grow up, world.
Any police who knowingly arrest this boy for this offense must be charged with kidnapping.
Even if they believe that there is actually some law against stating ones opinion in offensive ways without threatenning harm, that is no excuse for the police. Don't become a cop if you don't understand the constitution.
What hateful and free at the same time? Really! We have a law in New Zealand against discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and other factors. We are a democratic country without a constitution. Nobody can hide behind a constitution here.
Did the white kids hurl the racial insults at the 17-year-old black girl just out of the blue, or in response to something the girl did? It would be quite inhumane to just insult someone like that with the only "provocation" being that she IS black. This would be most unusual and out-of-character for most people, though it is possible we may have discovered a couple of the increasingly rare hard-core bigots.
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