Nielsen License to Harass

Law, Hierarchy, and Offensive Public Speech
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-2629-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 248 Seiten, EPUB

Reihe: The Cultural Lives of Law

Offensive street speech--racist and sexist remarks that can make its targets feel both psychologically and physically threatened--is surprisingly common in our society. Many argue that this speech is so detestable that it should be banned under law. But is this an area covered by the First Amendment right to free speech? Or should it be banned?


In this elegantly written book, Laura Beth Nielsen pursues the answers by probing the legal consciousness of ordinary citizens. Using a combination of field observations and in-depth, semistructured interviews, she surveys one hundred men and women, some of whom are routine targets of offensive speech, about how such speech affects their lives. Drawing on these interviews as well as an interdisciplinary body of scholarship, Nielsen argues that racist and sexist speech creates, reproduces, and reinforces existing systems of hierarchy in public places. The law works to normalize and justify offensive public interactions, she concludes, offering, in essence, a "license to harass."


Nielsen relates the results of her interviews to statistical surveys that measure the impact of offensive speech on the public. Rather than arguing whether law is the appropriate remedy for offensive speech, she allows that the benefits to democracy, to community, and to society of allowing such speech may very well outweigh the burdens imposed. Nonetheless, these burdens, and the stories of the people who bear them, should not remain invisible and outside the debate.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nielsen, Laura Beth

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Rechtswissenschaften Arbeitsrecht Antidiskriminierung (AGG), Gleichbehandlung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Tables ix

Acknowledgments xi

CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1

CHAPTER TWO Law and Power in Sidewalk Encounters: Conflicting Perspectives on Offensive Public Speech 17

CHAPTER THREE Experiencing Offensive Public Speech: The Detailed Calculus for Being in Public 39

CHAPTER FOUR Offensive Public Speech as a Personal Problem, Social Problem, and Subject for Legal Intervention 68

CHAPTER FIVE Ordinary Citizens' Views of the Legal Regulation of Street Speech 98

CHAPTER SIX Power in Public: Reactions, Responses, and Resistance to Offensive Public Speech 133

CHAPTER SEVEN License to Harass 167

APPENDIX A Research Design 181

APPENDIX B Questionnaire 198

Notes 207

Cases Cited 211

References 213

Index 219

Über Autor(innen)

Laura Beth Nielsen is currently Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation and will be Assistant Professor of Sociology and Law at Northwestern University beginning in the fall of 2006. She is the editor, with Robert L. Nelson, of Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities.