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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

Look up the true threats doctrine. There won't be any specific case law on the phrase you mentioned. Here's one summary of the doctrine:

> The U.S. Supreme Court defined true threats in Virginia v. Black (2003) as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” According to the Supreme Court, true threats include when a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. [1]

https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/wha...

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I don't agree that applies in this case- in terms of Westboro, they very clearly advocate actual direct violence. In the case of the protesters at Harvard their intent is much less clear - I suspect even the people calling for intifada aren't attempts to elicit immediate violence.

I broke my cardinal rule- never get involved in an internet discussion of free speech. Also, and this is purely opinion- I think the Supreme Court made an error in their ruling.

It does apply. Westboro has already argued the “true threat” position and won.

https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-hurtful-speech-westboro...

Clearly, the justices and I have a difference of opinion about what a direct threat looks like (in the case of Westboro).

Yes but, as someone else pointed out, Harvard is a private school that takes federal funding. The Supreme Court’s decision wouldn’t affect them either way.

> I don't agree that applies in this case

You don't think the doctrine applies, or you don't think it is satisfied?

I think the bigger issue here is that Harvard does not guarantee First Amendment levels of free speech protection. They caution students about all sorts of protected speech, so what the First Amendment does or doesn't protect isn't really relevant.

> in terms of Westboro, they very clearly advocate actual direct violence.

They did? When I learned about them in law school, we only covered their unsavory protesting at military funerals, which did not involve advocating violence. What did they do that advocated direct violence?

Sorry, I was working on the assumption that "Death to gays" was considered a direct call to violence, but it does not seem to be.

(All of this was a misunderstanding caused by me misparsing a statement above suggesting Westboro was protesting at Harvard)

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