Editorial: Hate speech bans will be the end of free speech

The Detroit News, The Detroit News on Sep 23, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Hate and beauty have this much in common: Often, they’re in the eye of the beholder.

That’s what makes criminalizing hate so fraught, particularly regarding hate speech. One person’s mean and damaging remark is another person’s exercise of the natural right to free expression. Republicans were on board with that when they rose to defend the rights of a Colorado bakery shop owner who refused to decorate a cake for a gay wedding.

But when a worker at an Office Depot in Portage, Michigan, wouldn’t print a poster to support a rally in honor of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, it was Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi declaring “businesses cannot discriminate” and threatening to prosecute the company.

Bondi followed with the promise of a broader crackdown on speech.

“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech,” she told podcaster Katie Miller. “.... We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

As always, the challenge is how to tell one type of speech from the other. Bondi offered no definition. But her boss took a stab at it. President Donald Trump, when asked by a reporter about Bondi’s threats, opined that perhaps members of the media would qualify for prosecution because of the hateful way they cover his administration.

“We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate,” Trump told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “You have a lot of hate in your heart.”

Trump’s comment makes the case against criminalizing speech. Hate speech laws would inevitably be used by politicians to silence their opponents and stifle criticism of their policies. Other members of the administration and Congress were also at battle with the First Amendment last week. Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller promised to turn loose the departments of Justice and Homeland Security on “left-wing lunatics.”

Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina penned a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon urging her to defund school districts and universities that fail to fire teachers and professors who celebrated Kirk’s assassination.

An employer, private or public, has the right to take action against an employee whose words or actions damage the public’s trust in those institutions. But to charge them with a crime requires setting a bright line between celebrating Kirk’s death and merely expressing opposition to his views. Who will draw that line?

The irony of what the Trump administration and its supporters are proposing is too glaring to miss. To honor a man who was killed because of the opinions he expressed, they want to prevent others from publicly expressing their views.

Just look at Europe, where hate speech laws have been used to silence criticism of immigration policies and other issues. Those laws drive dissent underground, allowing it to grow into something more sinister.

Protecting speech for all requires great tolerance for the vulgar, rude, offensive, angry, mean and, yes, even hateful. The First Amendment is worth the trade-off.