U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said she will crack down on “hate speech” and “target” people who engage in it following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings that broadly protect speech.
Why It Matters
Kirk, 31, co-founder and executive director of Turning Point USA—a prominent conservative campus organization—was fatally shot September 10 during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Leaders and prominent figures across the political spectrum immediately condemned the violence. Vice President JD Vance escorted Kirk’s casket on Air Force Two while President Donald Trump ordered the lowering of flags, gestures that emphasize Kirk’s prominence. Many members of the Trump administration are attending Kirk’s memorial in Arizona on Sunday.
The shooting comes amid a broader climate of political violence across the United States. In June, Minnesota Democratic state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot dead in their home in a targeted political act.
Bondi said earlier this week on an episode of The Katie Miller Podcast, “there’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.” Bondi’s comments have faced criticism by a number of prominent MAGA voices, as well as legal experts who have pointed that there is no differentiation between hate speech in First Amendment rights.
What To Know
The First Amendment’s free-speech protections have faced scrutiny in the United States, including on college campuses, in reviews of social media accounts for green-card applicants, and now in connection to Kirk’s death.
The Supreme Court, however, has repeatedly ruled that the government can’t punish hate speech under the First Amendment, noting there is no general “hate speech” exception. Below are just a few examples of many such instances:
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, said in the 2017 majority ruling in Matal v. Tam that “The Government has an interest in preventing speech expressing ideas that offend. And, as we have explained, that idea strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.'”
In Snyder v. Phelps, a 2011 case about members of the Westboro Baptist Church protesting at a funeral, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion: “On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course–to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate. That choice requires that we shield Westboro from tort liability for its picketing in this case.”
In 1969’s Brandenburg v. Ohio, the High Court struck down an Ohio law that banned advocacy of terrorism and was used to charge a Ku Klux Klan leader. The court said that in order for speech to qualify as inciting violence, it must be likely to result in actions and found that Klan leader Clarence Brandenburg did not directly incite immediate violence. He was quoted using several racial and religious slurs.
What People Are Saying
Bondi said on X: “You cannot call for someone’s murder. You cannot swat a Member of Congress. You cannot dox a conservative family and think it will be brushed off as ‘free speech.’ These acts are punishable crimes, and every single threat will be met with the full force of the law.”
Vance said on The Charlie Kirk Show: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. And hell, call their employer.”
Heidi Kitrosser, Northwestern University law professor, told The Guardian: “There is no unprotected category of speech in the constitution or in the case law called ‘hate speech.’ By being so vague and by talking about speech that doesn’t fit into any legal category, [Bondi] is basically opening the door for taking action against anyone who engages in speech that the president or the Department of Justice or Stephen Miller doesn’t like.”
What Happens Next
Bondi has said she will “absolutely target” people who used “hate speech” following Kirk’s assassination.
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