Tolerance of Controversial Political and Social Expression in the United States

• In Event: Free Speech, Censorship, & Self-Censorship

Abstract

Over the past half-century in the United States, widespread gains in education and the diffusion of liberal values have promoted significant increases in public support for the free speech rights of unpopular political groups. However, arguments for censoring “hate speech” have provided a counter-point to these trends, making political tolerance of racist opinions increasingly difficult to sustain, especially among highly educated and politically engaged citizens who traditionally have been the strongest opponents of censorship. Accordingly, tolerance for racist speech has stagnated in the American public as a whole even as tolerance for other unpopular speech continues to rise.
Using representative national and state survey data, we assess the public’s tolerance of new and traditional conflicts over the boundaries of free speech. First, we compare tolerance for controversial expressions concerning race, gender, sex, and religion to tolerance of traditional free speech issues involving unpopular or extreme political ideas and groups. Second, we measure changes in tolerance over time by comparing public opinion toward a set of identical tolerance items asked in the 1970s and today. Third, we analyze whether current free speech controversies over hate speech have altered the relationship between tolerance and political ideology, education, age, and other explanatory factors. Finally, we test experimentally for evidence of a slippery slope from intolerance of controversial attitudes and opinions about race, gender, and religion to intolerance of political expression on other subjects.

Our results show that free speech, at least as it applies to racism and other forms of group prejudice and derogatory expressions, has become a “contested norm” that has created new lines of social and political division in the American public. The public has become significantly less tolerant of offensive speech that is directed at racial minorities, women, and religious groups. This has changed the explanatory power of political ideology, education, and other correlates of tolerance. Further, we find support for the idea that the inclination to censor offensive ideas and expressions can spread from racial and gender subjects to other topics.

Keywords: political tolerance, civil liberties, free speech, hate speech, ideology

Authors

• Dennis Chong, University of Southern California

• Jack Citrin, University of California, Berkeley

• Morris E Levy, University of Southern California