Last weekend I was at a party with some friends and amid our casual drinks and conversation, the topic moved into political territory. This made sense, as we all keep up on current events and political goings-on. Our discussion began with someone joking about Richard Spencer getting punched in the face.

For reference: Two weeks ago (Friday, Jan 20) Alt-Right founder Richard Spencer was hit by a passing protester in Washington, DC. He was mid-interview when the masked stranger punched him, or “assaulted” him, as Spencer would later tell his followers on Twitter. Spencer is a known White Supremacist and alleged neo-Nazi—he claims otherwise—who has stated his beliefs in ethnic-cleansing, or the eradication of all non-white races.

Knowing what we do about Spencer, my friends and I quickly moved from a light tone to a more serious one. It’s nearly impossible to joke about someone with radical ideals that threaten more than half of America’s lives, and we felt this. In our conversation, between somber sips of beer, we pondered the state of the nation. Some talked about how justified the attack on Spencer was, others claimed that violence was not the answer to hate. But to my surprise, one party-goer said that he thought to silence speech, even hate speech, was a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment: the freedom of speech and of press.

I argued that hate speech was used to incite violence and this act of inciting anything was illegal. Another friend tagged onto my rebuttal, saying that if you allowed all forms of free speech, you could allow someone to yell “Fire!” in a crowded public space, which is illegal under the same grounds for inciting fear. Our opponent responded, “If you agree that all speech should be free, you can’t pick and choose what can be said and what should be censored.”

At the time, because I’m terrible with conflict, I ended the topic with “Agree to disagree,” which is a ridiculous way to duck out of a debate, but I was terrified that he had a fair point. Is hate speech a form of free speech? I’ve been mulling this question over since that time and I’ve been researching it as well.

What I’ve learned is that hate speech has historically been questioned in combination with the First Amendment. When censored, the speakers would declare that their American rights had been revoked. In fact, several Supreme Court cases determined whether instances of hate speech were Constitutional or not.

As it turns out, hate speech actually is protected under the First Amendment, and Eugene Volokh—a professor at UCLA Law School specializing in free speech—puts this information bluntly in his Washington Post blog: “But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans.” His post discusses the nature of the First Amendment and explains that there is no exception for hate speech, as much as many Americans may want to believe there is. Every Supreme Court case regarding a hate speech perpetrator ruled based on the specifics of that case, rather than on the use of hate speech itself.

What this means, Volokh tells us, is that, “U.S. law has just never had occasion to define “hate speech” — any more than it has had occasion to define rudeness, evil ideas, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that people might condemn but that does not constitute a legally relevant category.” So of course, hate speech doesn’t have “any fixed legal meaning under U.S. [sic] law.” He closes by stating that the Constitution is constantly being reinterpreted; it is, after all, a document written over 200 years ago. In the same way, we need to debate Amendments and challenge the ways in which our country uses them within the justice system. Volokh feels that debating the issue is more necessary than changing the First Amendment, as fixing something so malleable would be a direct violation of the right this Amendment protects.

While I understand the principle of his belief, I definitely don't agree with him. Hate speech has also been historically linked with violence, and the best example of that would be the Holocaust. While some may argue that the Holocaust was spurred on by an evil dictator, Hitler used persuasive hate speech as a way to distort Germans’ views of Jewish, Romani, and other people of diverse backgrounds. Hate speech invokes the rhetorical device pathos, which uses emotion (anger and fear, in typical hate speech cases) to persuade listeners in believing the speaker’s words as truth. Hitler used hate speech to blame the Jewish and Romani people for the horrible state of poverty that Germany was in following World War I. Violence sprouted from this hate and rooted itself in the minds of many Germans who genuinely believed Hitler’s words.

In this same way, we see violence taking root in the hearts of Islamophobes, racists, xenophobes, and people who fear other cultures because of difference. The violence starts with hate speech, and there is a clear link between hate speech and hate crimes. Several reports in recent years have cited high rates of hate crimes following publicized hate speech. Unfortunately, my alma materknows all about this link, as do other schools that brought alt-right member Milo Yiannopoulos to speak. Hate speech, in addition to its persuasive nature, exemplifies the “okay-ness” of oppressive beliefs such as racism and homophobia and cultivates an environment in which these beliefs can be expressed, regardless of their detriment to minorities. This environment is dangerous because it is a veritable breeding ground for violence. If the oppressed parties are viewed so derogatorily, it’s easy to reason that they should be punished or harmed. Hate speech makes it acceptable to hurt people on the basis of their difference, whether it’s with words or crimes.

Though I believe that free speech should be protected, I echo the sentiments of my fellow concerned Americans: Hate speech is not the same as free speech. Hate speech is harmful, violent, oppressive, and should not be protected under the First Amendment. When we condone hate speech, we condone violence against minorities and we are complicit in that violence when we refuse to silence hate. It is time for the Constitution to reflect this fact.