"Speech acts" and the First Amendment /

In a brief yet well-reasoned analysis, the author provides useful insights on the "speech acts" concept--a concept that supports restrictions on certain communicative behaviors that carry harmful symbolism or invoke hurtful conduct. Haiman critiques the speech act concept by providing his interpretation of various Supreme Court and lower court decisions on situation-altering utterances, fighting words, hate speech, hate crimes, sexist speech, information theft, and victimless communicative actions. The author successfully reveals the faulty legal reasoning associated with attempts to regulate certain kinds of symbolic and pure speech. While the author concludes that hate speech codes and legal remedies for sexist speech are likely to be counterproductive, he reluctantly supports carefully drafted hate crime legislation. More important than his review of the legal scholarship is his analysis of the unintended consequences of blurring the line between speech and conduct and the idea that democracies, unlike theocracies and totalitarian governments, will carefully draw lines between what is considered immoral and what is illegal so that freedom will not be impinged on and some degree of self restraint and judgment will still be retained by the citizenry. General; undergraduate; faculty. R. A. Strickland; Appalachian State University