Freedom of racist speech: Ego and expressive threats.

Abstract

Do claims of "free speech" provide cover for prejudice? We investigate whether this defense of racist or hate speech serves as a justification for prejudice. In a series of 8 studies (N = 1,624), we found that explicit racial prejudice is a reliable predictor of the "free speech defense" of racist expression. Participants endorsed free speech values for singing racists songs or posting racist comments on social media; people high in prejudice endorsed free speech more than people low in prejudice (meta-analytic r = .43). This endorsement was not principled-high levels of prejudice did not predict endorsement of free speech values when identical speech was directed at coworkers or the police. Participants low in explicit racial prejudice actively avoided endorsing free speech values in racialized conditions compared to nonracial conditions, but participants high in racial prejudice increased their endorsement of free speech values in racialized conditions. Three experiments failed to find evidence that defense of racist speech by the highly prejudiced was based in self-relevant or self-protective motives. Two experiments found evidence that the free speech argument protected participants' own freedom to express their attitudes; the defense of other's racist speech seems motivated more by threats to autonomy than threats to self-regard. These studies serve as an elaboration of the Justification-Suppression Model (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003) of prejudice expression. The justification of racist speech by endorsing fundamental political values can serve to buffer racial and hate speech from normative disapproval. (PsycINFO Database Record

Enhancing the salience of free speech rights increases differential perceived free speech protections for criminal acts against Black versus White targets

“…We predicted a two‐way interaction between race of target (Black or White) and anti‐Black prejudice, replicating past work examining individual differences in anti‐Black prejudice (Roussos & Dovidio, ). Consistent with White and Crandall's () reasoning that that individuals higher in anti‐Black prejudice are more motivated to justify instances of bias against Blacks as protected by free speech principles, we predicted that (as in Roussos & Dovidio, ) higher anti‐Black prejudice would predict more perceived free speech protections in the Black target condition but not in the White target condition. Importantly, beyond the previous research, we further hypothesized that the experimental manipulation designed to enhance the salience of freedom of speech protections would moderate the effects of anti‐Black prejudice and target race.…”

“…In conclusion, the present study builds upon and extends past work on U.S. participants' usage of the right to free speech to justify criminal acts (Roussos & Dovidio, ; White & Crandall, ). It is likely that in a non‐U.S.…”

“…The previous work on freedom of speech justifications of race motivated crimes has exclusively focused on how individual differences in anti‐Black prejudice predict responses to acts targeting a Black or White (Roussos & Dovidio, ) or non‐Black (White & Crandall, ) target. The present research examined how manipulating a situational intended to affect the salience of freedom of speech protections can affect the process that may ultimately shape support for hate crime charges for a harmful act that targets a Black victim.…”

“…Extending the justification‐suppression model to the responses of observers, White and Crandall () proposed that invoking cultural values, such as applying the principle of freedom of speech in the United States, is one way to justify others' prejudiced acts (see also Beinart, ; Ferguson, ; Johnson, ). The right to freedom of speech is codified in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states, “Congress shall make no law…abridging freedom of speech.” In contrast to laws in most Western nations (Catlin, ; Pollozhani, ), U.S. free speech statutes protect hate speech, which is defined by the United Nations () as “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence” (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 20).…”

Toleration and prejudice‐reduction: Two ways of improving intergroup relations

“…In a large-scale study using representative samples of 21 European countries, it was found that when people perceive realistic and symbolic threats to the ingroup, they find it acceptable and justified to express opposition to immigration (Pereira et al, 2010). Similarly, in a series of eight studies, White and Crandall (2017) demonstrated that prejudiced people use the principle of free speech to justify someone else's anti-Black behavior. Together, these different lines of research indicate that a motive for justification makes people look for (ideological) beliefs that legitimize their group-based antipathy and its expression in negative outgroup behavior.…”