Opinion
Review & Outlook
Pam Bondi Needs a Free Speech Tutorial
The Attorney General seems to think ‘hate speech’ is illegal. Charlie Kirk knew better.
By The Editorial Board
Sept. 16, 2025 5:36 pm ET
Is a basic understanding of the First Amendment too much to expect from the nation’s Attorney General? Progressives have spent years trying to create and define a category called “hate speech.” This misunderstanding of the First Amendment seems to have infiltrated the D.C. water supply because AG Pam Bondi repeated it Monday in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Discussing Kirk’s work on college campuses, Ms. Bondi mentioned the “disgusting” antisemitism on display at many universities, and so far so good. But wait. “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” the country’s top law enforcer told a podcast. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
Kirk would want a word. “My position is that even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in our country. The most disgusting speech should absolutely be protected,” he once told a crowd. “The ACLU used to hold this viewpoint. The American Civil Liberties Union, they sued so that legitimate Nazis could march through downtown Skokie.”
Why? “As soon as you use the word ‘hate,’ that is a very subjective term,” Kirk said, in a video posted by his group in 2020. “Then all of a sudden it is in the eyes, or it is in the implementation, of whomever has the power.”
He was right, as governments around the world are proving almost daily. Armed British police recently arrested Graham Linehan, a TV sitcom writer, and reportedly questioned him about his posts on the internet, including one that read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” He says it was a joke, and it’s stupid, but criminal?
Mark Rowley, London’s police commissioner, said there was “reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed,” since British law “dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence.”
Yet he went on to criticize the government for giving police “no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they’re reported,” adding: “I don’t believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position.”
In an appearance this year at the Oxford Union, Kirk told British listeners: “Free speech is a birthright that you gave us, and you guys decided not to codify it, and now it’s—poof—it’s basically gone.” In other words, thank goodness for the First Amendment.
Free speech isn’t absolute in the U.S., but the exceptions are narrow, and “hate speech” isn’t one of them. The Supreme Court held in a famous 1969 case, Brandenburg v. Ohio, that the government can punish speech as incitement only if it’s directed toward, and likely to produce, “imminent lawless action.” General expressions of hate on the internet are despicable, but they aren’t cause for prosecution.
Ms. Bondi tried Tuesday morning to clean up her mess, writing on social media: “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.” But then she incoherently mixed in everything from “violent rhetoric,” to doxxing, to calling a SWAT team to the home of a Member of Congress. The AG also didn’t recant her statement on Monday that the Justice Department might “prosecute” Office Depot or its ex-employee who refused to print a Kirk vigil poster.
Ms. Bondi hasn’t had a distinguished tenure as AG, as she too often seems to follow the latest social-media, cable-TV mood swing. But she is a law enforcer, not a social-media anger management coach, and she’s sworn to uphold the Constitution.
Maybe Ms. Bondi should quit appearing on podcasts about Charlie Kirk until she listens to some Charlie Kirk podcasts.
wsj.com |
