Date of Award

2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.)

First Advisor

Professor Don Herzog

Second Advisor

Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon

Third Advisor

Professor Christopher McCrudden

Abstract

The term “hate speech” has been stretched in legal and public debates to cover speech ranging from insults to Holocaust denial. This definitional stretching has consequences beyond mere conceptual confusion: it risks obscuring the profound harm that hate speech does, and it facilitates the term’s misuse.

In this dissertation, I aim to precisely define hate speech and its harm, both in an ordinary (colloquial or non-legal) sense and in a legal sense. To do so, I examine real-world examples of speech widely understood to express hate, including texts from the context of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, and conduct a comparative analysis of a set of existing hate speech laws at the supranational level —in the UN, the EU, and the Inter-American system.

Based on this analysis, I define hate speech, in an ordinary sense, by reference to its content, namely, as speech that intensely vilifies its targets. I then argue that criminal law should focus on that subset of hate speech which incites violence or other proscribed conduct, while a complementary civil law should address hate speech that harms its targets’ social status.

These definitions differ from existing ones in that they aim to be precise about the requirements that speech must meet to qualify as hate speech. This framework provides a basis for resisting the definitional stretching of "hate speech." It also offers an anchor for further discussions, such as debates over the effectiveness and necessity of hate speech laws.

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