"At the end of August, as students and faculty geared up for fall semester, there were six incidents on or around UVA Grounds in which African-American students were the targets of written and verbal racial slurs. An outraged University community quickly began to dissect the causes of the 'hate speech,' giving rise to the legal question, What constitutes a 'hate crime' or 'hate speech,' anyway?

In a country that lists free expression first among its constitutional rights, is it legitimate to sanction people who exercise the right our own Mr. Madison advanced for the nation?

The University community banded together in response to the half-dozen reported incidents with ribbon tyings and e-mails of outrage. Counter-intuitively, students living on the Lawn posted signs announcing, 'We will not tolerate intolerance.' The Alumni Association offered a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of anyone connected to 'racial acts of vandalism, threats or other criminal misconduct.' Beta Bridge was painted black and white: One side said, 'Reject hatred,' the other, 'Stand together.' University President John Casteen even issued a taped video message on the importance of diversity.

The Virginia Code does not define 'hate speech;' however, direct threats in close proximity that are likely to 'provoke a breach of the peace,' as Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman says, are considered illegal. Thus, racial slurs yelled from a car window (as happened at UVA) are hard to prosecute not only because the perpetrators are unknown, but because, technically, the law is often on the side of those assholes.

UVA recognizes this.

'It’s a fine line between a threat and, ‘We don’t like what they say, but it’s free speech,’' says Carol Wood, assistant vice president for university relations. 'We’re telling students that they need to combat that [hateful] speech with their own speech.'

If someone wants to punish 'hate speech,' the law offers other options that pose no threat to the First Amendment, says Chapman, pointing to statutes on trespassing, vandalism and stalking as potential 'ways to use the criminal law to get at the person who is communicating racially derogatory statements.' For example, if someone is on private property when they say the slur, then it could be considered trespassing. If an individual is a target on more than one occasion, then a stalking charge might be legit.

UVA’s 12 Standards of Conduct (a guide to prohibited behavior) do not specifically address hate speech. While there’s been talk, says Wood, of adding a 13th standard to address 'hate speech' per se, many believe that the existing standards can be invoked to that end already.

Professor Michael J. Smith, who teaches political and social thought and who sits on President Casteen’s commission on diversity, offers a more hopeful analysis of recent events: He thinks the rise in reported racial incidents points to a greater awareness within the University community.

'The community is not accepting [racism] anymore,' he says. 'They’re making an effort to stigmatize this behavior.' (Nell Boeschenstein, C-Ville Weekly, September 6, 2005)