Should there be an exception to the First Amendment for hateful speech?

Rebecca Ann Sedwick, a 12-year old Florida girl had been bullied for more than a year facing ruthless mean comments, physical acts of violence against her, and taunts in person and over social media posts by a few girls that attended her school.

On September 9, 2013, she finally took her own life after constant posts by a certain girl in particular saying things like “she should drink bleach and die.” As if this was not enough, after Rebecca killed herself, the girl posted the most disturbing comment:

“Yes, ik [I know].  I bullied Rebecca and she killed herself. But IDGAF [I don’t give a f***].”

Polk County Sheriff Grady arrested the girl that posted the comment and another girl who had allegedly taken part in the bullying; charging them with felony aggravated stalking.

This raises a few unanswered questions. For one, the reasons behind the arrests are not clear. Were the girls arrested and charged for their physical acts of bullying, or for the social media posts? Or was it for her post after Rebecca’s death in which she showed no remorse? If it was for the post-death post, would that mean that her First Amendment Rights were violated?

This unfortunate incident brings up the question if hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. The author of this article, Amy Feldman, makes some good points. She mentions that a terroristic threat, or speech in which a person threatens to commit a crime that would reasonably result in death, terror, serious injury, or serious physical property damage, is not protected by the First Amendment.

She also says that a type of speech involving a repeated course of communication either in person, by mail, telephone, social media, or other forms of electronic communication that is designed to put a person in reasonable fear for his or her safety or is designed to cause severe emotional distress is also not protected by the First Amendment.

However, hate speech, or speech that is hateful is protected by the First Amendment.  So the argument that Feldman makes is it was, indeed, her constitutional right to say that she did not care that Rebecca killed herself because of her. If the arrest was based on that particular post rather than on the history of the alleged stalking up to the date of the suicide, it would violate the poster’s First Amendment right to free speech.

In this case, I would have to say that I believe that it should depend on the situation. Hate crime should not be protected by the First Amendment in cases like this, because the girl that posted the hate speech basically posted hate speech before leading up to Rebecca’s death, and it was this hate speech in particular that was the very cause of her death. By continually taunting Rebecca and telling her to kill herself, she is openly and mentally coercing her to do it without physically having to do it herself. By posting the IDGAF comment after Rebecca’s death, the girl was basically confirming this. She might as well be saying, “About time she died, all my hard work finally paid off.” Therefore, I believe that the girl that posted the hate speech should be guilty for the pre-death hate speech, the physical harm done to Rebecca, as well as the post-death hate speech.

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