Jeremy Waldron's Holmes Lectures on hate-speech laws

Professor Jeremy Waldron delivered the three-part Holmes Lecture series, the most prestigious talks at Harvard Law School, on October 5 through 7, 2009. They are available online:




"Dignity and Defamation - The Visibility of Hate"

First lecture: “Why Call Hate Speech Group Libel?”
[Paper] [Video]

Second lecture: “What Does a Well-Ordered Society Look Like?”
[Paper] [Video]

Third lecture: “Libel and Legitimacy”
[Paper] [Video]

Jeremy Waldron argued for the regulation of hate speech to reinforce society’s collective commitment to uphold one another’s personal dignity. In making his case, Waldron compared existing hate speech laws from advanced democracies around the world and concluded that they can be an effective way to deal with the “visible defamations of social groups". In the third lecture, Waldron addressed several important counter arguments to his view of hate speech regulation, including Ronald Dworkin's arguments in his foreword to "Extreme Speech and Democracy" (Oxford University Press, 2009), edited by James Weinstein and Ivan Hare.

Jeremy Waldron is University Professor at New York University School of Law.