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How to Respond When Students Use Hate Speech

Some activities for creating a healthy classroom culture.

“Sticks and stones will break my bones / But words will really hurt me.”

I was playing with my 3-year-old granddaughter and called her a silly goose. She freaked out—crying, yelling, and telling me she hated me. It took a long time to cool her down and explain that being a silly goose was not a bad thing. This anecdote raises important questions about the nature of hate speech. Who decides what is hate speech, the speaker or the recipient? What’s the difference between teasing, sarcasm, insulting, and hate speech?

These questions show us why hate speech is so difficult to stop. Hate speech is hard to define, and it’s easy to be confused about the motives of the speaker. But there’s a cultural piece that adds to the challenges. If we’re going to get to the heart of hate speech in America today, we must remember that significant elements of our cultural history were built on inequity—from the founding of the country and displacement of indigenous populations to the Civil War and slavery. This inequity has bred a history of demonization of the “other.” Hate speech is just one manifestation of this dynamic.

It’s important for us to understand the depth of these challenges; hate speech won’t just go away if we don’t examine the underlying causes. I’ve spent many years in the classroom working on these issues with students. Below are some activities I’ve used to reduce or eliminate hate speech in my classroom.

5 Reasons Students Use Hate Speech

Let’s start by examining why students use hate speech. Here are a few of the more common ones:

• To express bigotry and racism
• To express their own internal anger and unresolved pain
• To feel superior
• To feel powerful when they feel powerless in other areas of their lives
• To show off for friends

With these reasons in mind, there are specific activities we can use to engage students in deeper reflection and eliminate hate speech in the classroom. These are the steps I recommend for teachers, refining them for students’ age and grade level.

Ideas for Curbing Hate Speech

1. Establish a classroom value that all cultures are to be respected. With the students’ help, make a list of behavioral rules that promote this value. Examples include “Do not use language that hurts another student’s feelings” and “No one’s culture can be verbally attacked.” Once the list of rules is complete, develop with your students a protocol for how these rules will be enforced.

2. Build class empathy. Having ensured that your class is a safe space, ask your students if any of them have been victims of hate speech. If they’re willing, let these students share with the rest of the class how it felt to hear hateful language. Have a class discussion for students to share how they felt hearing these stories from their classmates.

3. Analyze hate speech. In small groups, invite students to get curious and deepen their understanding of where hate speech comes from, what it is and isn’t. You can assign each group to answer questions like:

• Who decides what is hate speech: the speaker or the recipient?
• What is the difference between teasing, sarcasm, insulting, and hate speech?
• Does the intention of the speaker matter?
• Is all hate speech the same? How subjective is hate speech?
• Is stereotyping the same as hating?
• Does a victim of hate speech have the right to use it to fight back?

Have each group lead a discussion about their topic. Once all of these discussions are finished, develop a class definition of hate speech, including how it differs from other kinds of hurtful talk.

A Deeper Dive Into Hate Speech

Looking at the list of five reasons that students use hate speech above, brainstorm with your class what’s good and what’s bad about each of these reasons.

• What’s good about expressing bigotry and racism? What’s bad about it?
• What’s good about expressing anger or pain with hate speech? What’s bad about it?
• Is using hate speech a good or bad way to feel superior?
• Is using hate speech a good or bad way to feel powerful?
• What good about using hate speech to show off for friends? What’s bad about it?

While “good” and “bad” may sound oversimplified, I have used this activity many times in my classroom, and have found that, by examining what’s good about hate speech, you can uncover motivation. This is very powerful because it can help shed light on the source of the feelings that are at the root of the hate. In this activity, you can share the idea that sometimes good reasons lead to bad decisions, and use these discussions to have students develop different ways to express themselves. By speaking of the good and bad in hate speech, you give students the chance to examine their own feelings, notice their impact on others, and evaluate their decisions.

Spreading the Word

Once the class has confronted what hate speech is, seen firsthand why it’s damaging, and taken steps to stop it in their classroom, see if students can find a series of ways to prevent or attack the use of hate speech in their larger community circles. It’s only when we do our work as individuals that our larger social fabric can be safer and stronger for all.

Addressing Race-based Hate Speech and Microaggressive Behavior in Schools

This information is designed to help teachers respond to students who may need support. It is not intended to be used as a diagnostic tool or to replace the use of formal assessments employed by mental health professionals. Additionally, it is important to consider individual differences, the context of the situation, and cultural and linguistic considerations.

Teachers are encouraged to be change agents as opposed to passive bystanders when they encounter race-based hate speech, jokes, and subtle prejudice-oriented references intended to insult and harm students. Ignoring and tolerating such behavior fosters a toxic classroom culture and dynamics that could have a long term negative impact emotionally, academically, and socially. Aside from protecting students who are targets of race-based microaggressions and hate speech, teachers need to work with students who initiate the behavior and help them learn from their inappropriate behavior.

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Race-based Hate Speech Versus Microaggressions

Race-based speech can take the form of verbal or nonverbal communications through spoken or written words, bodily expressions, or facial expressions that are meant to ridicule, hurt, discriminate, single out, or not include someone based on their race. Based on implicit biases, they are usually unconscious perceptions of racial groups.

Race-based speech ranges from subtle microaggressions, which are low-key, vague, and quick interactions, to blatant name calling, bullying, or accusations. Microaggressions and race-based speech are similar in that they both stem from underlying biases and perceptions; but differ in that microaggressions are covert faux pas whereas race-based speech is overt and includes intentional choices of words. They disrupt the flow of educational framework and settings because they trigger feelings of inferiority and dampen learning experiences.

Examples of Race-based Hate Speech and Microaggressions

Note that many of these examples can occur in both the physical classroom and in virtual learning environments (VLEs).

Why it Should Be Addressed

It is important for educators to address race-based (speech) microaggressions to promote and maintain positive school culture and climate for all students. The use of race-based microaggressions alienates students who are targeted by their peers or, in an online format, people posting anonymously. They may experience feelings of sadness, anger, isolation, and/or powerlessness as a result of their racial identity being devalued by their peers. In particular, research studies indicate that for African American/Black students, one’s sense of belonging and connectedness are related to school culture and climate. When African American/Black students feel marginalized by microaggressive language, they are less likely to establish supportive peer relationships and less likely to feel motivated to voice their perspectives during conversations in the classroom. The cumulative effects of microaggressive language may result in African American/Black students being targeted, harassed, and discriminated against. It is crucial for educators to confront and engage students who use microaggressive language to foster equity and inclusion within the classroom and school environment. Students expect that educators will create a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space that facilitates classroom learning and positive peer engagement. Furthermore, research indicates that trust is an essential element within a student-teacher relationship. Educators who ignore microaggressive language inevitably destroy any possible meaningful relationship with African American/Black students.

What Can I Do or Stop Doing as a Teacher?

There are a number of ways educators can address hate speech/behaviors and microaggressions in the school setting.

Engage in self-reflection so you are aware of your own implicit bias and behaviors that may be perceived as harmful.

Don't: Assume you cannot commit a microaggression or engage in racially harmful behaviors.

Understand that an intended message might get misunderstood and perceived by others as a microaggression.

Don't: Dismiss the feelings of the student who is the recipient because the microaggression was unintentional.

Pay attention to classroom dynamics and intervene ASAP.

Don't: Rely on students or colleagues of color to intervene or address the microaggression.

Address the incident when it occurs. This may provide a teachable moment for others involved or observing.

Don't: Wait to address the microaggression.

Communicate that you are a safe ally for students and colleagues of color.

Don't: Guess that people already know you are an ally.

Educate yourself and participate in anti-bias/anti-racist (ABAR) trainings in your area or online.

Don't: Assume that your required district, university, licensing, certification, or state trainings will explicitly cover antibias/anti-racist topics.

Empirical Research

Allen,Q. (2012). “They think minority means lesser than”:  Black middle-class sons and fathers resisting microaggressions in the school. Urban Education, 48(2), pp. 171-197.

Malone, C., (2019). Understanding Implicit Bias and Addressing Microaggressions.  Presentation for Thrive Behavioral Health, September 4, 2019.

The Mental Health Primers are developed by the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education . This resource was updated in October 2021 with support from cooperative agreement NU87PS004366 funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views or endorsement of the CDC or the Department of Health and Human Services.

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6 Strategies for Addressing Hate Speech and Microaggressions in Classrooms

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Excerpted from Equity Now: Justice, Repair, and Belonging in Schools by Tyrone C. Howard. Copyright (c) 2024 by Corwin Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Hate speech is often deliberate and meant to be hurtful, while microaggressions are often more common, subtle everyday slights directed at someone’s identity. Microaggressions can be intentional or unintentional, and often perpetrators are unaware of the injury that they may have caused. Hate speech, on the other hand, is usually intentional and a direct attack on some aspect of a person’s individual or group identity. Both are problematic at schools and happen far too often, especially to minoritized students. Educators can and must play a role to stop hate speech in schools. Here are some steps that can be taken to address racism and hate speech in schools and classrooms:

1. Address the issue (do not ignore it!)

2. Research the topic or the offensive language

When caught off guard with hate language, use it as a teachable moment, for yourself and for your students. But always keep in mind that we cannot teach what we do not know. If we do not know the history of hateful language used to demean different racial/ethnic groups, women, LGBTQ+ members, people of particular religious backgrounds or people who are born in another country, then we need to learn. It is incumbent for teachers to educate themselves and study about topics, issues and language that are divisive or hateful. Then share with students about the way hateful language has led to many people dying in our country and beyond.

3. Increase your own racial literacy

Demographers state that in the year 2042, our nation will be predominantly comprised of non-white people. Our country’s racial, ethnic and linguistic demography is changing rapidly. Thus, teachers need to increase their racial literacy to better understand, connect with and teach today’s learners . Race-based hate crimes remain the number-one type of hate crime in the United States. Hate is learned, and all adults must speak out about it. Approximately 80% of our teaching population is white, and over half of our student population is non-white. All teachers must work to increase their racial literacy. Ignorance and indifference fuel hate. Much of the hate speech in schools today is focused on racial hatred or discrimination. Increase your literacy to inform your students.

4. Examine content in the curriculum

Frequently, school content and curriculum can have language, examples or images that implicitly or explicitly convey hateful messages. Teachers must be diligent in examining anything that could be controversial in textbooks, literature or videos shared in the classroom. Such content should be excluded from what students are being taught, but skilled teachers may choose to have educative discussions about why certain language is used in content and why it should be removed.

5. Generate discussion in your class around hate language

No matter the grade level or subject matter, teachers need to have conversations early and often about the zero tolerance for hate speech in their classrooms and across the school. Introduce concepts and lessons about the history of certain words and how they were used to dehumanize people. I recall a middle school teacher I worked with in Ohio who was masterful in teaching a lesson about the death of Matthew Shepard and how hate, ignorance and violence toward members of the LGBTQ+ community were at the root of his tragic death. The discussion the lesson generated was powerful, insightful and emotional. Students talked about how they did not realize that phrases such as “that’s so gay” contribute to the mistreatment of people and learned not only that they need to stop using such language but also how they can speak up and be upstanders when they hear friends and peers using such language.

6. Bring in guest speakers

One of the more powerful approaches that teachers can take to help students learn about diversity is to hear firsthand from people from different groups who can talk about cultural practices, lived experiences or historical events that are age appropriate and tied to particular subject matter. Ask colleagues or parents/caregivers about who might be ideal speakers to talk to your students.

What you need to know about the new guide on addressing hate speech through education

How can countries worldwide tap into the power of education to counter hate speech online and offline? UNESCO and the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect (UNOSAPG) have jointly developed the first guide for policy-makers and teachers to explore educational responses to this phenomenon and give practical recommendations for strengthening education systems. The guide is part of the implementation of the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech. Here's a glimpse into some of the main ideas of this new tool.

Where do we draw the line between hate speech and free speech?

Hate speech violates the fundamental human rights of the people that are targeted. Opinions may offend, shock or disturb, but they cannot incite violence, hostility and discrimination. In and through education, learners discover how to draw the line between insults and hate speech, as well as understand the consequences and impact of their words and actions on other people. Discouraging the spread of hateful narratives doesn't impede learners' freedom of speech nor the expression of their opinions. On the contrary, education can help uphold this fundamental right by promoting respect, mutual understanding, and a shared sense of humanity.

What’s the role of media and information literacy?

In the "attention economy", hate speech narratives are the ones that often seduce the most, offering an easily achievable sense of community and maximized reach of such messages. Learners need to be empowered to understand the mechanisms underpinning the functioning of media and digital platforms and spot the persuasive tactics commonly used to spread conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation and harmful content. Evidence shows that developing media and information literacy skills makes them less prone to exclusionary and violent extremist ideas. Teachers, in turn, benefit from these discussions to better understand and reflect on learners' experiences from the digital world, where hateful content is virulent as never before .

What are the ways to spot and counter hateful narratives within curricula?

One-sided narratives that fuel hate speech and justify exclusion can be found across different subjects and educational programmes. Discussing these narratives with school students and acknowledging their problematic nature is integral to the solution.

This includes facilitating uncomfortable conversations about social inequality and power dynamics, decoding and debunking stereotypes and prejudice, and addressing the trauma and stigmatization caused by violent pasts. Teaching and learning about these issues and revising and reviewing curricula and educational materials can sensitize learners to contemporary forms of discrimination and increase their understanding of the processes that lead societies to violence.

How can teachers create an alternative sense of belonging?

To complement curricular interventions, a safe, caring, inclusive, and collaborative classroom climate is necessary. Hate can give a sense of purpose and belonging. It is, therefore, crucial to invest in building a sense of community in and out of schools and integrate missing perspectives in the education process.

Programmes that support global citizenship education and promote collaborative, culturally responsive and inclusive practices can help to develop the necessary knowledge and competence to embrace differences and engage respectfully in a diverse society. Social and emotional learning (SEL) provides practical tools and techniques that teachers can help use to foster a sense of belonging amongst learners. By using case studies and real-life scenarios to discuss controversial situations and different points of view, learners are able to manage stress and negative emotions, acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, and resolve conflicts.

What does a comprehensive approach look like?

To effectively counter hate speech online and offline and foster a safe and inclusive environment free from all forms of hatred and discrimination, efforts made by educators in the classroom must be reflected in all aspects of school life, including policies, extracurricular activities, sports, and social and cultural events. Active engagement of teachers, administration, and parents is a critical success determinant.

The private sector has a role to play, too. Internet companies can contribute by devoting time and resources in risk assessment mechanisms as well as independent audits of the automated tools that enable the amplification of hate speech. They should consider involving victims, civil society and/or intergovernmental organisations in these processes and in the evaluation of the application of their terms of services. Investment in educational tools that enable users to recognise and respond to disinformation is also among the measures that could be taken to address hate speech.

What efforts are needed to address and counter hate speech more effectively?

A comprehensive response with a whole-of-society approach is essential, with the following vital areas of action to consider:

• Establishing the need to combat hate speech as a matter of national and global priority at the highest political levels,
• Addressing hate speech in the content of education programmes/curricula and pedagogical approaches at every level of formal, non-formal and informal education, from early childhood through higher education to lifelong learning,
• Putting in place effective anti-discrimination policies and strategies,
• Developing better reporting mechanisms at the local, national and global levels,
• Coordinating improved responses with social media companies,
• Encouraging further research on the nature and spread of hate speech and the effectiveness of the responses and mitigation measures implemented by various stakeholders, including in the education sector.

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CHCCS Protocol for Responding to Racial Slurs and Hate Speech in Schools

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools District is dedicated to inspiring educators, students, and parents/caregivers to challenge bias in themselves, others, and society to create a more affirming and inclusive school community.

Love is the organizing principle at the center of responding to racial slurs and hate speech. Love of self and community ensures a safe learning environment where respect and equity allow all students to thrive. It also empowers the school community to stand against all forms of racism, bias, and bullying and sends a unified message that all students have a place where they belong.

PREVENTING RACIAL SLURS AND HATE SPEECH IN SCHOOLS

Hate speech can harm individuals, communities, and societies. The research focused on the impact of racial, ethnic, ability, religious, gendered, and LGBTQ+ hate speech finds that the targets of hate speech can experience negative emotional, mental, and physical consequences. These can include low self-worth, anxiety, fear for their lives, and even self-harm or suicide.

Hate speech is more than just harsh words. It can be any form of expression intended to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or class of people. It can occur offline or online, or both. It can be communicated using words, symbols, gestures, images, memes, emojis, and video.

Using derogatory words, even if the word itself is not a racial or ethnic slur, can be hateful speech. Examples include using words like “animals” or “invaders” to describe immigrants; comparing people to “trash” or “garbage”; or alluding to specific groups of ethnic minorities as “cockroaches” or “diseases.”

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools uses frameworks developed by the ADL and Learning for Justice to help prevent racial slurs and hate speech in school. More specifically, these frameworks center on the actions listed below.

Supporting student leadership in building a school movement that doesn’t allow space for racial slurs and hate speech

Unifying the school community around shared values and beliefs

Assessing the school culture and climate

Inspiring students and staff to become influential allies in the fight against hate speech

Eliminating racial slurs and hate speech in schools requires all school community members to have a voice and skills in creating an affirming and inclusive school community. Students, educators, and families/caregivers can achieve this goal through the actions listed in the Learning for Justice Speak Up Guide : 

Interrupting: speaking up against every biased remark.

Questioning: asking simple questions in response to hateful remarks to determine why the speaker made the offensive comment and how best to address the situation.

Educating: explaining why a term or phrase is offensive and encouraging the person to choose a different expression.

Echoing: thanking someone if they speak up against hate. One person’s voice is a powerful start.

HOW SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEADERS FOSTER INCLUSIVE SCHOOL COMMUNITIES THAT PREVENT RACIAL SLURS AND HATE SPEECH

I. Set Goals for the Community Code of Character Conduct and Support 

Clearly define rules and expectations for responsible conduct on school property and at school functions for which all adults are committed to promoting, supporting, modeling, and enforcing for every student at all grade levels.

Identify and ensure that all adult school stakeholders implement fair, clear, equitable, and timely consequences.

Identify and implement restorative and accountable interventions that support every student to improve behavior and academic performance by strengthening their self-management and social and emotional competencies.

Increase capacity and accountability of teachers, administrators and student support specialists to promote positive behaviors; prevent inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors; and intervene early and effectively when students are struggling with academic, attendance, behavioral, mental health, or family challenges, particularly students who are experiencing multiple barriers to school success.

Strive to ensure that no student is subject to harassment, bullying, and/or discrimination based on a person’s actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnic group, language, religion, religious practice, socio-economic status, disability, weight, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and expression, or other reasons, by school employees or students on school property, on a school bus, or at a school function. 

II. Provide Ongoing Professional Development for Staff

All staff must have access to professional development opportunities that centers on creating inclusive environments. School leaders should identify learning experiences around the following topics:

Developing Equity-Centered Classrooms  

Emphasizing culturally responsive and developmentally informed practices that affirm students’ multiple identities, cultural experiences, and the range of their developmental needs and interests.

Scanning the School Environment for Common Bias  

Gender biases, Biases related to students’ disabilities and developmental delays, Learning biases, Racial biases, Cultural biases related to ethnicity, religion, class, locale/neighborhood, language, etc. Negativity biases, Aggression / Conflict aversion biases

Acknowledging and Countering Bias in the Classroom 

Building awareness of common biases, increasing our capacity to observe and reflect on what we personally experience to reduce biased behaviors that negatively impact students, and actively counter biases through the use of universal strategies that welcome, value, and support every student.

Providing Learning Experiences and Support to Students

Examining and Reviewing Student Rights and Responsibilities ( Page 10 of the Code of Character Conduct and Support )

Getting Help from Others ( Page 17 of the Code of Character Conduct and Support )

Unpacking District Rules ( Page 22 of the Code of Character Conduct and Support ) 

Among the greatest challenges for any school-wide effort is leading all stakeholders toward a collective understanding. The Equity & Engagement, School Support and Wellness, and School Leadership Divisions look forward to partnering with school communities to lead the work against racial slurs and hate speech in schools – as a positive change in school cultures and climates is a continual process rather than a final destination.

ACTIONS BY SCHOOL AND DISTRICT LEADERS IN RESPONSE TO RACIAL SLURS AND HATE SPEECH IN SCHOOLS

I. Review Board Policy 1710/4020/7230

Board policy lists specific steps for reporting discrimination and harassment and issuing complaints of discrimination and harassment. 

Any person who believes they have been discriminated against or harassed in violation of this policy by any student, employee, or other person under the supervision and control of the school system should inform a school official designated below. Reports can also be made anonymously through the anonymous tip line . 

The principal or assistant principal 

The 504 coordinator or the ADA coordinator 

Any employee who witnesses or who has reliable information or reason to believe that a student or individual has been discriminated against or harassed in violation of this policy must report the offense immediately to the employees listed above. 

If the complaint alleges that the perpetrator is an employee, the school receiving the complaint shall notify the senior human resources official without delay. 

Alleged discrimination or harassment should be reported as soon as possible but no later than 30 days after disclosure or discovery of the facts giving rise to the complaint. 

II. Contact Central Office Support

Each school is assigned a central office-based equity specialist . Schools may contact specialists about fostering inclusive communities or assistance responding to racial slurs and hate speech.

III.  Understand Violations in the Community Code of Character Conduct and Support Related to 

Hate Speech or Acts: This includes the display of symbols on flags, clothing, literature, online, or in other areas that school officials conclude pose a risk to school safety, such as the swastika, the confederate battle flag, and other symbols affiliated with violent protest and violence against minority groups, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, individuals with disabilities, and other protected groups. Any spoken, written, electronic communication, signage, physical gestures, words/ symbols on apparel or other items that carry no meaning in the incident other than the incitement and expression of hatred against a group of persons, particularly an oppressed or marginalized group, defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation . ( Page 32 ) Level 4,5

Hate crime:  An incident that becomes a crime when hate speech or acts involve a threat or act of violence directed at a person because of their real or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, or sexual orientation . ( Page 32 ) Level 5

Understand Administrative Responses to Hate Speech, Bullying, and Bias-Related Incidents ( Pages 14-15 )

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Parent’s and Educator’s Quick-Guide to Hate Speech

Jun 3, 2022

What is hate speech?

Hate speech is more than just harsh words. It can be any form of expression intended to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or class of people. It can occur offline or online or both. It can be communicated using words, symbols, images, memes, emojis, and video. In general, online hate speech targets a person or group because of characteristics tied closely to their identity, like race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or sexual identity

Why is hate speech so dangerous?

Hate speech can harm individuals, communities, and societies. Research has found that targets of hate speech can experience negative emotional, mental, and physical consequences. These can include low self-worth, anxiety, fear for their lives, and even self-harm or suicide. Some types of hate speech are prone to incite violence. This “dangerous speech” follows specific patterns that cross societies, time periods, and type of targeted group. Recently, dangerous speech in online contexts, specifically on social media, has resulted in deaths in places like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Uganda as well as in Buffalo, El Paso, and other American communities.

Is hate speech a form of bullying?

Hate speech and bullying often overlap. Bullying, whether in-person or online, is defined as repeated, unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. Bullying can morph into hate speech when it involves demeaning a person or group based on characteristics such as race, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or body image.

What is the difference between hate speech and critical speech?

Not all negative speech is hate speech. You could, for example, disagree with a religious doctrine or policy without being hateful. You could be opposed to a government whose citizens widely practice a particular religion or are from a dominant ethnic group without being hateful to that group. You could criticize customs practiced by different groups without necessarily demeaning individuals in those groups or threatening their well-being. You can certainly disagree or criticize a public official or any other person without it being hate speech. But it can become hate speech if those criticisms are framed in a way designed to imply that the criticism is based, at least in part, on their identify rather than what they say or how they act.

More on Hate Speech

Legal issues in the U.S. and other countries. For the most part, hate speech is legal in the United States, though it is not legal in many countries. European countries, for example, passed anti-hate speech laws in the wake of World War II, to curb incitement to racial, ethnic, and religious hatred after the Holocaust. But, in the U.S., even under the First Amendment, hate speech is unprotected and not permitted when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or includes specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.

Found on mainstream platforms and fringe sites. The majority of public critique about hate speech falls on mainstream popular platforms, but many young people are moving to newer online spaces, especially gaming-related, live streaming, and image sharing platforms. Hate speech can also be found in chat rooms or message board-style forums, including ones known for so-called “controversial speech” and more mainstream sites where it can slip in during live gaming sessions or chats or forums that are not constantly moderated. Hate speech can be found in videos, cartoons, drawing, even photos. Image and video-based platforms can also contain hateful content. And there are “fringe” sites, often designed to appeal to extremists, which fester and tolerate hate speech.

Tech companies have the right to “censor” hate speech. The First Amendment applies to the government, not to private companies. Social media and other privately owned sites and apps have the right to determine the type of speech they allow on their platform. Just as nudity is legal, it’s generally not allowed on many mainstream platforms. Companies have the right to enforce terms of service or community guidelines that dictate what may or may not be posted on their platforms.

A few things parents & educators can do to combat hate speech:

• Parents and educators can start by taking preventative action, by dealing with situations before they reach the hate speech level. Encourage empathy in children and remind them that, when engaging with others online, there is another person on the other side of the screen. Encourage children to have an open attitude and honest curiosity about other people because some instances of hate speech are based on ignorance or false information.
• Look for terms that might creep into a child’s vocabulary. Sometimes kids (and adults) use derogatory terms without realizing their impact. They may not mean to be hateful but the words they use can still be hurtful and they may be getting into bad habits. Don’t overreact to these situations. Lots of kids use derogatory terms without realizing it. They’re not being hateful but they might need to be reminded that their words impact others.
• Schools can foster a climate of tolerance and inclusion to both prevent and isolate hate speech incidents and create a social norm around acceptance of all students, regardless of who they are. Teachers can help students by posing realistic scenarios that they are likely to experience online and encouraging them to work together to come up with the words and actions they can use to stand up for people who are targeted by hate speech and bullies and to prevent the spread of false information and hate speech.
• Schools can implement digital citizenship programs to encourage students to be upstanders not bystanders.
• Educators and parents can teach by example, being sure their own words don’t contribute to the problem.
• Schools may be able to take action if online hate speech impacts the school or any students or staff even if it the hate speech did not take place on campus or during school hours.

Recent Guides

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Social Media Guides

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Gaming Guides

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Media Literacy Guides

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Parent Guides

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Senior Guides

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TikTok Guides

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Family Tech Guides

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What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Courtney Norris Courtney Norris

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/how-teachers-are-trying-to-stop-the-spread-of-hate

How teachers are trying to stop the spread of hate

As children in the U.S. woke up and went to school Friday morning, the world was grappling with the news of the mass shootings that killed 49 people at two mosques in New Zealand.

“It’s absolutely necessary that we don’t wait until we have horrific situations like this…to pay attention to” the issue of hate, said Abbas Barzegar, director of the Department of Research and Advocacy at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in a news conference.

Citing data showing “a consistent rise” in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic bias incidents and hate crimes around the world, he stressed that even events or talk that seemed “banal” should not be ignored or brush aside.

“Right now it seems to be the case that we only look at fires, but we smell the burning smoke from miles and miles away, and we ignore it,” Barzegar said.

The white supremacist ideology that appears to have fueled Friday’s attack knows no borders, but schools around the U.S. are working to identify and stop it from entering their doors.

More than 10 percent of the 7,175 hate-bias incidents reported by law enforcement in 2017 occurred at schools and universities, a roughly 25 percent increase from 2016. According to the data, hate crimes occur more often at schools than at places of worship, government buildings or commercial offices.

Hate goes to school

Just last week at the elite Washington, D.C., private school Sidwell Friends, an assembly was cut short when students, who were participating in a real-time learning game, created racist usernames. The usernames, of which two contained swastikas, appeared on the large screen during the interactive presentation. The school has educated the children of multiple presidents and vice presidents; former President Barack Obama’s daughter Sasha is currently a senior.

Other schools have experienced similar incidents.

Last year a 10-year-old Muslim student in Massachusetts found death threats in her school cubby. The letters that read, “You’re a terrorist,” and “I will kill you,” prompted a hate crime investigation. But nearly four months later, neither the fifth-grader’s school district nor the Framingham Police Department have identified any suspect.

Short of answers about what happened, school administrators and teachers at Hemenway Elementary School are trying to turn the incident into what superintendent Robert Tremblay called a “teachable moment,” bolstering training and professional development to help both staff and students.

A few weeks ago, when Tremblay attended a superintendents conference, he said he was “taken aback by the many stories of hate incidents,” in the state.

Now Tremblay is working with the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as well as holding ongoing listening sessions with local mosques about what needs to happen for a more inclusive environment.

Hate speech is not a crime itself. In fact, it is legally protected under the First Amendment unless specifically targeting someone.

It can, however, be used as evidence of a hate crime. And, criminality aside, educators are expected to provide a safe and nondiscriminatory learning environment for all students.

“Children are not only aware of biases, but… they too have the potential for developing biases at least as young as age four,” according to a 2014 report from the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University. The report advocates for providing “children with education on diversity to promote justice and tolerance among peers” as a way to reduce bias.

Adding hate prevention to the curriculum

In 2017, the Department of Justice hosted a first-of-its-kind conference in Massachusetts for school administrators, advocates and community members to share ideas about preventing and responding to hate speech.

It’s part of a growing effort to address bias in the classroom.

In 2016, John Muir elementary school in Seattle organized a Black Lives Matter Day to show appreciation for African-American students by giving them high-fives on their way in. But the district was forced to cancel the event after receiving several violent threats.

Instead, “thousands of teachers across Seattle Public Schools wore shirts that said Black Lives Matter,” Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, said at a press conference in January. Since that first year, many other teachers and schools around the country have embraced the idea.

READ MORE: Why I am celebrating ‘Black Lives Matter at School’

Northeast High School history teacher Keziah Ridgeway was one of the Philadelphia teachers who brought “Black Lives Matter at School” to her classroom for an entire week last month.

“There are still kids walking around with the buttons on. It lets their friends know, ‘I’m a safe person, I see you, I support you.’ We need so much more of that,” said Ridgeway, who is black and Muslim.

Two years ago, after white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, for a “Unite the Right” rally, Ridgeway crafted a three-day lesson plan that allowed her students to discuss what happened and then decide whether images from various scenarios she had identified were racist.

“Typically, I don’t like to spend that long on one lesson, but I thought it was really important,” she said.

While Ridgeway had to develop the lesson herself, some organizations are working to provide teachers with established curricula and other guidance.

Teaching Tolerance, founded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, offers daylong workshops to K-12 teachers to create confidence in addressing controversial topics in the classroom like race and learned biases. Facing History offers school districts suggestions for a school-wide speaker series that allows students to hear directly from survivors of hate, including Holocaust survivors.

Western States Center, an Oregon-based group that provides training to city employees grappling with far-right extremism, recently published “Confronting White Nationalism in Schools” as a resource for high school educators. The report identifies modern hate symbols like Pepe the Frog , a cartoon character co-opted by white nationalist groups into a popular social media meme.

That kind of curriculum aims to help students combat racism not only at school but also online. “There are some groups intentionally targeting young people for recruitment and that’s really dangerous for those students,” Lindsay Schubiner of Western States Center said, referencing video games as one platform where hate groups try to reach teenagers. “School administrators need to be aware of the signs so they intervene.”

Nora Flanagan, an English teacher at Northside College Prep High School in Chicago and an educator of 21 years, helped co-author the toolkit. She spent three days typing “could be” scenarios, based on her real-world experiences.

“I found myself saying, ‘Someone ought to put something together. We need a resource.’ There isn’t a set of best practices when a kid shows up with a Nazi symbol on their shirt,” Flanagan said.

The government’s role

Ridgeway said that “it’s important schools become the first line of defense” to set a positive example for students.

She said discriminatory rhetoric has “gotten worse post-Trump,”noting that the president’s response to Charlottesville was to say there were “very fine people” among the white supremacist neo-Nazis.

“[Discrimination] was always there, but people are much more blatant with things,” Ridgeway said.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaks with school children during a listening session at the White House. The Trump administration has been criticized for taking a narrow approach toward addressing racial discrimination in schools. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

A study by the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access called “School and Society in the Age of Trump” surveyed more than 500 high school principals about the ways their school communities were experiencing social incivility and division during the Trump presidency.

The survey, based on the 2017-18 school year, found that more than eight in 10 principals “report that their students have made derogatory remarks about other racial or ethnic groups.” More than 60 percent said students had “made derogatory remarks about immigrants.”

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights evaluates and, when deemed appropriate, investigates complaints of discriminatory harassment in order to help schools better understand their civil rights obligations, and how to remedy the effects of discrimination, according to an Education Department spokesman.

Under Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, the department has made “a steady march toward narrowing the agency’s approach to racial discrimination and civil rights enforcement,” the Washington Post reported last July. In a 2017 memo proposing revisions to Obama-era policy, officials suggested the office should focus on probing individual complaints, rather than systemic problems.

DeVos also recommended cutting $3.8 million in staffing from the civil rights office in 2017. Congress instead increased the office’s funding.

When asked how the department is helping schools tackle issues of harassment, a spokesperson said it is investing in technical assistance centers that can provide school districts with multi-tiered systems of behavioral support for students who display problematic behaviors.

Yet watchdog groups and teachers like Ridgeway make up a growing chorus calling for more government involvement to mediate hate-bias in K-12 education.

Charlottesville City Schools unanimously passed a resolution banning students from wearing clothes associated with racial hatred, specifically citing the violence in Charlottesville. School board members resolved that “clothing that depicts Confederate imagery or the Nazi swastika or contains images and language associated with the Ku Klux Klan and other White Nationalist groups, is prohibited and will not be tolerated in our schools.”

Additionally, the U.S. Conference of Mayors announced in a statement that it is partnering with Anti-Defamation League to “encourage schools to implement anti-bias and anti-hate content in their curricula and/or through extra-curricular activities.”

“As we educate the next generation of Americans we must not forget the importance of arming them with a love of community,” Tremblay said. “We have our work cut out for us.”

Sign up for short education highlights from the PBS NewsHour  here .

Courtney Norris is the deputy senior producer of national affairs for the NewsHour. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @courtneyknorris

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Speech on Campus

The First Amendment to the Constitution protects speech no matter how offensive its content. Restrictions on speech by public colleges and universities amount to government censorship, in violation of the Constitution. Such restrictions deprive students of their right to invite speech they wish to hear, debate speech with which they disagree, and protest speech they find bigoted or offensive. An open society depends on liberal education, and the whole enterprise of liberal education is founded on the principle of free speech.

How much we value the right of free speech is put to its severest test when the speaker is someone we disagree with most. Speech that deeply offends our morality or is hostile to our way of life warrants the same constitutional protection as other speech because the right of free speech is indivisible: When we grant the government the power to suppress controversial ideas, we are all subject to censorship by the state. Since its founding in 1920, the ACLU has fought for the free expression of all ideas, popular or unpopular. Where racist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic speech is concerned, the ACLU believes that more speech — not less — is the answer most consistent with our constitutional values.

But the right to free speech is not just about the law; it’s also a vital part of our civic education. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in 1943 about the role of schools in our society: “That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.” Remarkably, Justice Jackson was referring to grade school students. Inculcating constitutional values — in particular, the value of free expression — should be nothing less than a core mission of any college or university.

To be clear, the First Amendment does not protect behavior on campus that crosses the line into targeted harassment or threats, or that creates a pervasively hostile environment for vulnerable students. But merely offensive or bigoted speech does not rise to that level, and determining when conduct crosses that line is a legal question that requires examination on a case-by-case basis. Restricting such speech may be attractive to college administrators as a quick fix to address campus tensions. But real social change comes from hard work to address the underlying causes of inequality and bigotry, not from purified discourse. The ACLU believes that instead of symbolic gestures to silence ugly viewpoints, colleges and universities have to step up their efforts to recruit diverse faculty, students, and administrators; increase resources for student counseling; and raise awareness about bigotry and its history.

QUESTIONS Q: The First Amendment prevents the government from arresting people for what they say, but who says the Constitution guarantees speakers a platform on campus?

A: The First Amendment does not require the government to provide a platform to anyone, but it does prohibit the government from discriminating against speech on the basis of the speaker’s viewpoint. For example, public colleges and universities have no obligation to fund student publications; however, the Supreme Court has held that if a public university voluntarily provides these funds, it cannot selectively withhold them from particular student publications simply because they advocate a controversial point of view.

Of course, public colleges and universities are free to invite whomever they like to speak at commencement ceremonies or other events, just as students are free to protest speakers they find offensive. College administrators cannot, however, dictate which speakers students may invite to campus on their own initiative. If a college or university usually allows students to use campus resources (such as auditoriums) to entertain guests, the school cannot withdraw those resources simply because students have invited a controversial speaker to campus.

Q: Does the First Amendment protect speech that invites violence against members of the campus community?

A: In Brandenburg v. Ohio , the Supreme Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it intentionally and effectively provokes a crowd to immediately carry out violent and unlawful action. This is a very high bar, and for good reason.

The incitement standard has been used to protect all kinds of political speech, including speech that at least tacitly endorses violence, no matter how righteous or vile the cause. For example, in NAACP v. Clairborne Hardware , the court held that civil rights icon Charles Evans could not be held liable for the statement, “If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re going to break your damn neck.” In Hess v. Indiana , the court held that an anti-war protestor could not be arrested for telling a crowd of protestors, “We’ll take the fucking street later.” And In Brandenburg itself, the court held that a Ku Klux Klan leader could not be jailed for a speech stating “that there might have to be some revengeance [sic] taken” for the “continued suppression of the white, Caucasian race.”

The First Amendment’s robust protections in this context reflect two fundamentally important values. First, political advocacy — rhetoric meant to inspire action against unjust laws or policies — is essential to democracy. Second, people should be held accountable for their own conduct, regardless of what someone else may have said. To protect these values, the First Amendment allows lots of breathing room for the messy, chaotic, ad hominem, passionate, and even bigoted speech that is part and parcel of American politics. It’s the price we pay to keep bullhorns in the hands of political activists.

Q: But isn't it true you can't shout fire in a crowded theater?

People often associate the limits of First Amendment protection with the phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” But that phrase is just (slightly inaccurate) shorthand for the legal concept of “incitement.” (Although, if you think there’s a fire — even if you’re wrong — you’d better yell!) The phrase, an incomplete reference to the concept of incitement, comes from the Supreme Court’s 1919 decision in Schenck v. United States . Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were members of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia, which authorized the publication of more than 15,000 fliers urging people not to submit to the draft for the First World War. The fliers said things like: “Do not submit to intimidation,” and “Assert your rights.” As a result of their advocacy, Schenck and Baer were convicted for violating the Espionage Act, which prohibits interference with military operations or recruitment, insubordination in the military, and support for enemies of the United States during wartime.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. held that Schenck’s and Baer’s convictions did not violate the First Amendment. Observing that the “most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic,” Holmes reasoned by analogy that speech urging people to resist the draft posed a “clear and present danger” to the United States and therefore did not deserve protection under the First Amendment. This is the problem with the line about shouting fire in a crowded theater — it can be used to justify suppressing any disapproved speech, no matter how tenuous the analogy. Justice Holmes later advocated for much more robust free speech protections, and Schenck was ultimately overruled . It is now emphatically clear that the First Amendment protects the right to urge resistance to a military draft, and much else.

Q: But what about campus safety? Doesn’t the First Amendment have an exception for “fighting words” that are likely to provoke violence?

A: The Supreme Court ruled in 1942 that the First Amendment does not protect “fighting words,” but this is an extremely limited exception. It applies only to intimidating speech directed at a specific individual in a face-to-face confrontation that is likely to provoke a violent reaction. For example, if a white student confronts a student of color on campus and starts shouting racial slurs in a one-on-one confrontation, that student may be subject to discipline.

Over the past 50 years, the Supreme Court hasn’t found the “fighting words” doctrine applicable in any of the cases that have come before it, because the circumstances did not meet the narrow criteria outlined above. The “fighting words” doctrine does not apply to speakers addressing a large crowd on campus, no matter how much discomfort, offense, or emotional pain their speech may cause.

In fact, the Supreme Court has made clear that the government cannot prevent speech on the ground that it is likely to provoke a hostile response — this is called the rule against a “ heckler’s veto .” Without this vital protection, government officials could use safety concerns as a smokescreen to justify shutting down speech they don’t like, including speech that challenges the status quo. Instead, the First Amendment requires the government to provide protection to all speakers, no matter how provocative their speech might be. This includes taking reasonable measures to ensure that speakers are able to safely and effectively address their audience, free from violence or censorship. It’s how our society ensures that the free exchange of ideas is uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.

Q: What about nonverbal symbols, like swastikas and burning crosses? Are they constitutionally protected?

A: Symbols of hate are constitutionally protected if they’re worn or displayed before a general audience in a public place — say, in a march or at a rally in a public park. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects symbolic expression, such as swastikas, burning crosses, and peace signs because it’s “closely akin to ‘pure speech.’” The Supreme Court has accordingly upheld the rights of students to wear black armbands in school to protest the Vietnam War, as well as the right to burn the American flag in public as a symbolic expression of disagreement with government policies.

But the First Amendment does not protect the use of nonverbal symbols to directly threaten an individual, such as by hanging a noose over their dorm room or office door. Nor does the First Amendment protect the use of a non-verbal symbol to encroach upon or desecrate private property, such as by burning a cross on someone’s lawn or spray-painting a swastika on the wall of a synagogue or dorm. In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul , for example, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a city ordinance that prohibited cross-burnings based solely on their symbolism. But the Court’s decision makes clear that the government may prosecute cross-burners under criminal trespass and/or anti-harassment laws.

Q: Isn’t there a difference between free speech and dangerous conduct?

A: Yes. Speech does not merit constitutional protection when it targets a particular individual for harm, such as a true threat of physical violence. And schools must take action to remedy behavior that interferes with a particular student’s ability to exercise their right to participate fully in the life of the university, such as targeted harassment.

The ACLU isn’t opposed to regulations that penalize acts of violence, harassment, or threats. To the contrary, we believe that these kinds of conduct can and should be proscribed. Furthermore, we recognize that the mere use of words as one element in an act of violence, harassment, intimidation, or invasion of privacy does not immunize that act from punishment.

Q: Aren’t restrictions on speech an effective and appropriate way to combat white supremacy, misogyny, and discrimination against LGBT people?

A: Historically, restrictions on speech have proven at best ineffective, and at worst counter-productive, in the fight against bigotry. Although drafted with the best intentions, these restrictions are often interpreted and enforced to oppose social change. Why? Because they place the power to decide whether speech is offensive and should be restrained with authority figures — the government or a college administration — rather than with those seeking to question or dismantle existing power structures.

For example, under a speech code in effect at the University of Michigan for 18 months, there were 20 cases in which white students charged Black students with offensive speech. One of the cases resulted in the punishment of a Black student for using the term “white trash” in conversation with a white student. The code was struck down as unconstitutional in 1989.

To take another example, public schools throughout the country have attempted to censor pro-LGBT messages because the government thought they were controversial, inappropriate for minors, or just wrong. Heather Gillman’s school district banned her from wearing a shirt that said “I Support My Gay Cousin.” The principal maintained that her T-shirt and other speech supporting LGBT equality, such as “I Support Marriage Equality,” were divisive and inappropriate for impressionable students. The ACLU sued the school district and won , because the First Amendment prevents the government from making LGBT people and LGBT-related issues disappear.

These examples demonstrate that restrictions on speech don’t really serve the interests of marginalized groups. The First Amendment does.

Q: But don’t restrictions on speech send a strong message against bigotry on campus?

A: Bigoted speech is symptomatic of a huge problem in our country. Our schools, colleges, and universities must prepare students to combat this problem. That means being an advocate: speaking out and convincing others. Confronting, hearing, and countering offensive speech is an important skill, and it should be considered a core requirement at any school worth its salt.

When schools shut down speakers who espouse bigoted views, they deprive their students of the opportunity to confront those views themselves. Such incidents do not shut down a single bad idea, nor do they protect students from the harsh realities of an often unjust world. Silencing a bigot accomplishes nothing except turning them into a martyr for the principle of free expression. The better approach, and the one more consistent with our constitutional tradition, is to respond to ideas we hate with the ideals we cherish.

Q: Why does the ACLU use its resources to defend the free speech rights of white supremacists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, and other bigots?

A: Free speech rights are indivisible. Restricting the speech of one group or individual jeopardizes everyone’s rights because the same laws or regulations used to silence bigots can be used to silence you. Conversely, laws that defend free speech for bigots can be used to defend civil rights workers, anti-war protestors, LGBT activists, and others fighting for justice. For example, in the 1949 case of Terminiello v. City of Chicago , the ACLU successfully defended an ex-Catholic priest who had delivered a racist and anti-Semitic speech. The precedent set in that case became the basis for the ACLU’s defense of civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s and 1970s.

Q: How does the ACLU propose to ensure equal opportunity in education?

A: Universities are obligated to create an environment that fosters tolerance and mutual respect among members of the campus community, an environment in which all students can exercise their right to participate meaningfully in campus life without being subject to discrimination. To advance these values, campus administrators should:

• speak out loudly and clearly against expressions of racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic speech, as well as other instances of discrimination against marginalized individuals or groups;
• react promptly and firmly to counter acts of discriminatory harassment, intimidation, or invasion of privacy;
• create forums and workshops to raise awareness and promote dialogue on issues of race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity;
• intensify their efforts to ensure broad diversity among the student body, throughout the faculty, and within the college administration;
• vigilantly defend the equal rights of all speakers and all ideas to be heard, and promote a climate of robust and uninhibited dialogue and debate open to all views, no matter how controversial.

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U.S. Government Accountability Office

K-12 Education: Students' Experiences with Bullying, Hate Speech, Hate Crimes, and Victimization in Schools

Each year, millions of K-12 students experience hostile behaviors like bullying, hate speech, hate crimes, or assault. In school year 2018-19, about 1.3 million students, ages 12 to 18, were bullied for their race, religion, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation.

The Department of Education resolved complaints of hostile behaviors faster in recent years, but more complaints are being dismissed and fewer are being filed. Some civil rights experts said they lost confidence in Education's ability to address civil rights violations in schools—citing Education's rescission of guidance that clarified civil rights protections.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline—(800) 273-8255—is a federally managed and funded hotline that offers free, confidential support from trained counselors for individuals in crisis.

After experiencing incidents of racism, high school community members made a statement against hate.

What GAO Found

Students experience a range of hostile behaviors at schools nationwide, according to GAO's analysis of nationally generalizable surveys of students and schools. About one in five students aged 12 to 18 were bullied annually in school years 2014-15, 2016-17, and 2018-19. Of students who were bullied in school year 2018-19, about one in four students experienced bullying related to their race, national origin, religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. About one in four of all students aged 12 to 18 saw hate words or symbols written in their schools, such as homophobic slurs and references to lynching. Most hostile behaviors also increased in school year 2017-18, according to our analysis of the school survey. Hate crimes—which most commonly targeted students because of their race and national origin—and physical attacks with a weapon nearly doubled (see figure). Sexual assaults also increased during the same period.

Hostile Behaviors in K-12 Public Schools, School Years 2015-16 to 2017-18

Nearly every school used programs or practices to address hostile behaviors, and schools' adoption of them increased from school year 2015-16 to 2017-18, according to our analysis of the school survey. About 18,000 more schools implemented social emotional learning and about 1,200 more used in-school suspensions. Additionally, 2,000 more schools used school resource officers (SRO)—career officers with the ability to arrest students—in school year 2017-18. SROs' involvement in schools, such as solving problems, also increased.

The Department of Education resolved complaints of hostile behaviors faster in recent years, due in part to more complaints being dismissed and fewer complaints being filed. In the 2019-20 school year, 81 percent of such resolved complaints were dismissed, most commonly because Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) did not receive consent to disclose the complainant's identity to those they filed the complaint against. Complaints of hostile behaviors filed with OCR declined by 9 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in school years 2018-19 and 2019-20. Civil rights experts GAO interviewed said that in recent years they became reluctant to file complaints on students' behalf because they lost confidence in OCR's ability to address civil rights violations in schools. The experts cited, in part, Education's rescission of guidance to schools that clarified civil rights protections, such as those for transgender students. Since 2021, Education has started reviewing or has reinterpreted some of this guidance.

Why GAO Did This Study

Hostile behaviors, including bullying, harassment, hate speech and hate crimes, or other types of victimization like sexual assault and rape, in schools can negatively affect K-12 students' short- and long-term mental health, education, income, and overall well-being. According to Education's guidance, incidents of harassment or hate, when motivated by race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), or disability status can impede access to an equal education. In certain circumstances, these kinds of incidents may violate certain federal civil rights laws, which Education's OCR is tasked with enforcing in K-12 schools.

GAO was asked to review hostile behaviors in K-12 schools. This report examines (1) the prevalence and nature of hostile behaviors in K-12 public schools; (2) the presence of K-12 school programs and practices to address hostile behaviors; and (3) how Education has addressed complaints related to these issues in school years 2010-11 through 2019-20.

GAO conducted descriptive and regression analyses on the most recent available data for two nationally generalizable federal surveys: a survey of 12- to 18-year-old students for school years 2014-15, 2016-17, and 2018-19, and a survey of schools for school years 2015-16 and 2017-18. GAO also analyzed 10 years of civil rights complaints filed with OCR against schools; reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, and documents; and interviewed relevant federal and national education and civil rights organization officials. GAO incorporated technical comments from Education as appropriate.

For more information, contact Jacqueline M. Nowicki at (617) 788-0580 or  [email protected] .

Full Report

Gao contacts.

Jacqueline M. Nowicki Director [email protected] (202) 512-7215

Office of Public Affairs

Sarah Kaczmarek Acting Managing Director [email protected] (202) 512-4800

Hate speech is rising around the world

Hate speech incites violence and intolerance. The devastating effect of hatred is sadly nothing new. However, its scale and impact are now amplified by new communications technologies. Hate speech – including online – has become one of the most common ways of spreading divisive rhetoric on a global scale, threatening peace around the world.

The United Nations has a long history of mobilizing the world against hatred of all kinds to defend human rights and advance the rule of law . The impact of hate speech cuts across numerous UN areas of focus, from protecting human rights and preventing atrocities to sustaining peace, achieving gender equality and supporting children and youth.

Because fighting hatred, discrimination, racism and inequality are among its core principles, the United Nations is working to confront hate speech at every turn. This mission is enshrined in the UN Charter , in international human rights frameworks and in global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals .

INVESTING IN THE POWER OF YOUTH for Countering and Addressing Hate Speech

Date:  Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Time:  11:00 - 1:00pm EDT (New York time)

Place:  ECOSOC Chamber • United Nations, New York

The Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United Nations and the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide marks the 3rd High-Level event for Countering Hate Speech highlighting the importance of investing in the power and voice of youth to counter hate speech

Hate speech is an alarm bell - the louder it rings, the greater the threat of genocide. It precedes and promotes violence.” ANTÓNIO GUTERRES , United Nations Secretary-General

UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech

In response to the alarming trends of growing xenophobia, racism and intolerance, violent misogyny, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred around the world, UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech on 18 June 2019. This first UN-wide initiative designed to tackle hate speech provides a road map on how the Organization can support and complement States' efforts. The strategy emphasizes the need to counter hate holistically, while respecting freedom of opinion and expression, and to collaborate with relevant stakeholders, including civil society organizations, media outlets, tech companies and social media platforms. In 2021, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming 18 June as the International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

How to deal with hate speech

It can sometimes be hard to assess when a comment is meant as hate speech – especially when expressed in the virtual world. It can also feel overwhelming to try to deal with obviously hateful content. However, there are many ways you can take a stand, even if you are not personally the victim of hate speech. And you can make a difference.

You can start by downloading our fact sheets . Use them to educate yourself and others.

Marking an important milestone in the fight against hate speech, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on “promoting inter-religious and intercultural dialogue and tolerance in countering hate speech”. The resolution proclaims 18 June as the International Day for Countering Hate Speech , which will be marked for the first time in 2022.

Can hate speech ignite genocide?

Combating Hate Speech

What is hate speech and why is it a problem.

Hate speech is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that has far-reaching and dangerous consequences for human rights, rule of law in democratic societies. Preventing and combating online hate speech poses specific challenges. The persistence and impact have been documented by the monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe and other international agencies.

Hate Speech not only affects the dignity and human rights of the individual directly targeted , but also of persons belonging to the same minority or group as those directly targeted. Hate speech leads to dangerous divisions in society as a whole, affects the participation and inclusion of all those targeted by it and threatens democracy. The targets of hate speech become increasingly excluded from society, forced out of the public debate and silenced. History shows that hate speech has also been intentionally used to mobilise groups and societies against each other in order to provoke violent escalation, hate crime, war and genocide.

• In recent years, hate speech has increasingly been spread through the internet. Preventing and combating online hate speech poses specific challenges, as it can be disseminated as never before across the world in a matter of seconds.
• The persistence and worrying increase of hate speech, especially online, and its impact on the enjoyment of human rights and democracy in Europe have been documented by the monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), various other intergovernmental organisations, civil society organisations, internet intermediaries, and other bodies.
• In its recent country monitoring and annual reports, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) describes, based on detailed statistics and studies, the persistence and increase of ultra-nationalistic, xenophobic, racist, and LGBTI-phobic hate speech in various member States.
• To avoid such dangerous escalation and rather establish and maintain inclusive societies, it is important that member States take effective and sustainable measures to prevent and combat hate speech.

Council of Europe’s work on hate speech

Recommendation on Combating Hate Speech

Committees working on hate speech

 Contact us

Teens Are Protesting In-Class Presentations

Some students say having to speak in front of the class is an unreasonable burden for those with anxiety and are demanding alternative options.

For many middle - and high-school students, giving an in-class presentation was a rite of passage. Teachers would call up students, one by one, to present their work in front of the class and, though it was often nerve-racking, many people claim it helped turn them into more confident public speakers.

“Coming from somebody with severe anxiety, having somebody force me to do a public presentation was the best idea to happen in my life,” one woman recently tweeted . According to a recent survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, oral communication is one of the most sought-after skills in the workplace, with over 90 percent of hiring managers saying it’s important. Some educators also credit in-class presentations with building essential leadership skills and increasing students’ confidence and understanding of material .

But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options. This week, a tweet posted by a 15-year-old high-school student declaring “Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to” garnered more than 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes. A similar sentiment tweeted in January also racked up thousands of likes and retweets. And teachers are listening.

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| \ (•◡•) / \ / --- | | — leen (@softedhearts) September 8, 2018

Teachers, please stop forcing students to present in front of the class & raise their hand in exchange for a good grade. Anxiety is real. — amberlicious. 💧 (@DAMNBlEBERS) January 30, 2017

Students who support abolishing in-class presentations argue that forcing students with anxiety to present in front of their peers is not only unfair because they are bound to underperform and receive a lower grade, but it can also cause long-term stress and harm.

“Nobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable,” says Ula, a 14-year-old in eighth grade, who, like all students quoted, asked to be referred to only by her first name. “Even though speaking in front of class is supposed to build your confidence and it’s part of your schoolwork, I think if a student is really unsettled and anxious because of it you should probably make it something less stressful. School isn’t something a student should fear.”

“It feels like presentations are often more graded on delivery when some people can’t help not being able to deliver it well, even if the content is the best presentation ever,” says Bennett, a 15-year-old in Massachusetts who strongly agrees with the idea that teachers should offer alternative options for students. “Teachers grade on public speaking which people who have anxiety can’t be great at.”

“I get that teachers are trying to get students out of their comfort zone, but it’s not good for teachers to force them to do that,” says Henry, a 15-year-old also in Massachusetts.

To the thousands of teens who support the effort to do away with in-class presentations (at least enough to like a tweet about it), anxiety is no small issue. Students said they understood why older people might tell them to “suck it up,” but that doing so was unproductive. Some responses to the most recent viral tweet, though, noted that giving a presentation in spite of anxiety might reduce a student’s fear of public speaking.

Just so you know, “Exposure therapy” is commonly used amongst psychologist as a behavior therapy to help treat anxiety disorder. So your point about “ it can’t be cured facing your fears.” Is just false. — Mightykeef (@MightyKeef) September 10, 2018

Being a high schooler in 2018 is more stressful than ever. Academic demands on students are high, kids participate in more extracurricular activities than in the past, and they are saddled with extra hours of homework .

“Kids doing sports don’t get home till 7:00 p.m. I get home at 5:30 p.m. tonight but it’s going to get worse,”  Bennett says. “Kids ... can’t be holed up in their room every night till 1:00 a.m. finishing homework on their third Red Bull.” These stressors and more have led to an unprecedented level of anxiety in their generation. Anxiety is increasing at a faster rate than depression as the leading mental-health issue affecting teenagers, a recent study in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics found. Throwing things like in-class presentations on top of other stressors kids are dealing with, teens say, can be unbearable.

“Teachers think it’s just a fear,” says Jess, a 16-year-old in New Jersey. “We’ll skip school. I’ve skipped school a lot of times if I had to present. Even if a teacher lets me present alone in front of them I still wouldn’t because that’s how nerve-racking it is,” she said.

These students want more options. They say that every student has unique strengths and abilities and that they should be allowed to present their work in ways that speak to those strengths. This might mean presenting alone in front of the teacher, or choosing between several alternatives like producing a piece of art or an essay for private judgment instead of presenting their work orally.

“The resounding theory that education is holding on to right now is the idea of multiple intelligences,” says Travis Grandt, a high-school history teacher in Colorado who says he tries to accommodate students with special needs, including anxiety. “There [are] a lot of ways for kids to present information. It doesn’t have to be through a formal presentation.”

Joe Giordano, a high-school teacher in Baltimore, says that he’s also sympathetic to the movement away from mandatory in-class presentations. As an art teacher, he hosts “crit” sessions where students’ work is critiqued. He always gives the teenagers a choice as to whether or not they want to speak about their own work.

“It kind of irks me when I see a lot of other teachers say, ‘But we have to get them up there.’ These kids are living under more stressful situations than I did as a student. Their anxiety runs pretty high,” he said. “I know we should put them in uncomfortable situations, but if they suffer from anxiety they’re already in an uncomfortable situation. As a teacher I try to show compassion. It’s not about being a drill instructor.”

Kathleen Carver, a high-school history teacher in Texas, says teaching has changed since the days when she grew up. “I think in this day and age there [are] different pressures. We expect different things from our students,” she said. “We’re in a day and age where we have to acknowledge our students’ feelings. I have to listen to them and hear their feedback and respond to that. That’s how I can be a more effective teacher. If I ignored their feelings I don’t think they would like me or my class or walk away learning things.”

Those campaigning against in-class presentations said that it was important to distinguish between students with actual diagnosable anxiety disorders and those who might just want to get out of the assignment. Addie, a 16-year-old in New York, said that schools like hers already make accommodations for students with certain learning issues to get extra time on tests. She thinks similar processes could be put in place for students with public-speaking anxiety. “I think it’s important these accommodations are accessible, but that they’re also given to those who are need it instead of those who just say they don’t want to present,” she said. “There’s a big difference between nervousness and anxiety.”

Students who have been successful in the campaign to end in-class presentations credit social media. Unlike previous generations, high schoolers today are able to have a direct impact on their educational system by having their voices heard en masse online. Teenagers, most of whom are extremely adept at social media, say that platforms like Twitter and Instagram have allowed them to meet more kids at other schools and see how other school districts run things. They can then wage campaigns for changes at their own school, sometimes partnering with teens in other districts to make their voice louder.

Henry said that he’s seen the effects of these types of campaigns firsthand. This year his district shifted the school start time an hour and fifteen minutes later, something he and his fellow students campaigned for aggressively on social media, which he believes played a role in the decision. High-school students across the country have also waged social-media campaigns against discriminatory dress codes, excessive homework, and, most notably, to advocate for gun-control policies on campus. “Teens view social media as a platform to make changes,” Carver says.

Part of why students feel social media is such a powerful mechanism for changing education is because so many teachers are on these platforms. Nicholas Ferroni, a high-school teacher in New Jersey, said that “a lot of teachers use social media as a great way to learn methodologies.”

“Instead of trying to go to a school-board meeting with a bunch of adults in suits—that’s how it was—you can just talk to everyone directly,” said Addie. “We don’t have to do all that stuff formally. We can go online and say what we want to say and people have to listen to us.” “I think social media is a great way to reach educators,” said Bennett.

But when it comes to abolishing in-class presentations, not everyone is convinced.

“We need to stop preaching to get rid of public speaking and we need to start preaching for better mental health support and more accessibility alternatives for students who are unable to complete presentations/classwork/etc due to health reasons,” one man tweeted .

Some educators agree. “My thoughts are that we are in the business of preparing students for college, career, and civic life. Public speaking is a piece of that preparation,” says Ryan Jones, a high-school history teacher in Connecticut. “Now, some kids (many) are deathly afraid to do it, but pushing outside of comfort zones is also a big part of what we do.”

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Study highlights challenges in detecting violent speech aimed at asian communities.

A research group is calling for internet and social media moderators to strengthen their detection and intervention protocols for violent speech. 

Their study of language detection software found that algorithms struggle to differentiate anti-Asian violence-provoking speech from general hate speech. Left unchecked, threats of violence online can go unnoticed and turn into real-world attacks. 

Researchers from Georgia Tech and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) teamed together  in the study . They made their discovery while testing natural language processing (NLP) models trained on data they crowdsourced from Asian communities. 

“The Covid-19 pandemic brought attention to how dangerous violence-provoking speech can be. There was a clear increase in reports of anti-Asian violence and hate crimes,” said  Gaurav Verma , a Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate who led the study. 

“Such speech is often amplified on social platforms, which in turn fuels anti-Asian sentiments and attacks.”

Violence-provoking speech differs from more commonly studied forms of harmful speech, like hate speech. While hate speech denigrates or insults a group, violence-provoking speech implicitly or explicitly encourages violence against targeted communities.

Humans can define and characterize violent speech as a subset of hateful speech. However, computer models struggle to tell the difference due to subtle cues and implications in language.

The researchers tested five different NLP classifiers and analyzed their F1 score, which measures a model's performance. The classifiers reported a 0.89 score for detecting hate speech, while detecting violence-provoking speech was only 0.69. This contrast highlights the notable gap between these tools and their accuracy and reliability. 

The study stresses the importance of developing more refined methods for detecting violence-provoking speech. Internet misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric escalate tensions that lead to real-world violence. 

The Covid-19 pandemic exemplified how public health crises intensify this behavior, helping inspire the study. The group cited that anti-Asian crime across the U.S. increased by 339% in 2021 due to malicious content blaming Asians for the virus. 

The researchers believe their findings show the effectiveness of community-centric approaches to problems dealing with harmful speech. These approaches would enable informed decision-making between policymakers, targeted communities, and developers of online platforms.

Along with stronger models for detecting violence-provoking speech, the group discusses a direct solution: a tiered penalty system on online platforms. Tiered systems align penalties with severity of offenses, acting as both deterrent and intervention to different levels of harmful speech. 

“We believe that we cannot tackle a problem that affects a community without involving people who are directly impacted,” said  Jiawei Zhou , a Ph.D. student who studies human-centered computing at Georgia Tech. 

“By collaborating with experts and community members, we ensure our research builds on front-line efforts to combat violence-provoking speech while remaining rooted in real experiences and needs of the targeted community.”

The researchers trained their tested NLP classifiers on a dataset crowdsourced from a survey of 120 participants who self-identified as Asian community members. In the survey, the participants labeled 1,000 posts from X (formerly Twitter) as containing either violence-provoking speech, hateful speech, or neither.

Since characterizing violence-provoking speech is not universal, the researchers created a specialized codebook for survey participants. The participants studied the codebook before their survey and used an abridged version while labeling. 

To create the codebook, the group used an initial set of anti-Asian keywords to scan posts on X from January 2020 to February 2023. This tactic yielded 420,000 posts containing harmful, anti-Asian language. 

The researchers then filtered the batch through new keywords and phrases. This refined the sample to 4,000 posts that potentially contained violence-provoking content. Keywords and phrases were added to the codebook while the filtered posts were used in the labeling survey.

The team used discussion and pilot testing to validate its codebook. During trial testing, pilots labeled 100 Twitter posts to ensure the sound design of the Asian community survey. The group also sent the codebook to the ADL for review and incorporated the organization’s feedback. 

“One of the major challenges in studying violence-provoking content online is effective data collection and funneling down because most platforms actively moderate and remove overtly hateful and violent material,” said Tech alumnus  Rynaa Grover (M.S. CS 2024).

“To address the complexities of this data, we developed an innovative pipeline that deals with the scale of this data in a community-aware manner.”

Emphasis on community input extended into collaboration within Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. Faculty members  Srijan Kumar and  Munmun De Choudhury oversaw the research that their students spearheaded.

Kumar, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, advises Verma and Grover. His expertise is in artificial intelligence, data mining, and online safety.

De Choudhury is an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing and advises Zhou. Their research connects societal mental health and social media interactions.

The Georgia Tech researchers partnered with the ADL, a leading non-governmental organization that combats real-world hate and extremism. ADL researchers  Binny Mathew and  Jordan Kraemer co-authored the paper.

The group will present its paper at the  62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2024), which takes place in Bangkok, Thailand, Aug. 11-16 

ACL 2024 accepted 40 papers written by Georgia Tech researchers. Of the 12 Georgia Tech faculty who authored papers accepted at the conference, nine are from the College of Computing, including Kumar and De Choudhury.

“It is great to see that the peers and research community recognize the importance of community-centric work that provides grounded insights about the capabilities of leading language models,” Verma said. 

“We hope the platform encourages more work that presents community-centered perspectives on important societal problems.” 

Visit https://sites.gatech.edu/research/acl-2024/ for news and coverage of Georgia Tech research presented at ACL 2024.

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You are here, four tips for confronting hate speech at school.

Children experiencing hate or racial trauma have often told Penn GSE clinical psychologist   Howard Stevenson  that the most hurtful moment isn’t an actual threat, but when they realized the adults who were supposed to protect them had stayed silent. In the current climate, Stevenson says educators must prepare themselves to speak out.

Helping students who feel under threat is one of the hardest things a teacher or administrator can do. Stevenson offers some ideas for creating safer spaces for students and educators alike.

Start with you

Think of the safety movie they show on airplanes before takeoff. In the event of an emergency, put on your oxygen mask before helping others. It might seem selfish, but educators should take the same approach.

With hateful incidents happening across the country,  it’s essential for educators to process their own feelings  before they are asked to make decisions, step into a crisis, or help students process an event. Having a support community of other educators who you can be vulnerable with is key. 

Educators are trained in student discipline and classroom management, but hateful actions create an environment few are prepared for. Instead of taking conscious, rehearsed actions, educators often have split-second reactions, not always with the best results.

It’s important to practice or role-play scenarios that you find the most challenging, especially if you experienced a similar incident during your career and don’t believe you handled it well. This doesn’t have to wait for a professional development session. You can practice with a few teachers you trust. Depending on your location, you might have to go beyond your school or even your community for this support, including seeking an affinity group online.

Ask yourselves some big questions. What am I prepared to say? What am I prepared to do? How do I connect it to the pedagogy? If I am teaching history, for example, how is this connected? How do I make this a moment not just for now?

While you are practicing, think of the scenarios where you need to obtain outside help. An educator can’t shrink away from an immediate threat to a student, but he or she doesn’t have to act alone in restoring a sense of justice and order to a school community. Who else would be a resource, either inside your school or from the greater community? 

After an incident

How do you engage with a student who writes hateful graffiti on a bathroom wall or calls a classmate a slur? Especially if the incident completely changes how you perceive that student’s character?

First, resist the urge to condemn the student. Instead ask what was behind their action? Explain that the swastika or the N-word has been used to create a dynamic where minorities are meant to feel inferior. Then ask the student, what did he or she expect to get out of writing that on the wall in that moment? What were they looking for? We know that developmentally, a key factor in adolescent identity is striving for power in an effort to avoid non-existence. That needs to be addressed.

Understanding a student’s mindset doesn’t mean excusing his or her actions. The school code of conduct will still come into play. There will still be consequences. But this leaves the door open for teaching, and a potential path for the student back into the community. 

Second, explain very strongly that you are going to teach all students how to combat the sense of inferiority the offending student was hoping to create with his or her action. They will not undermine the ability of minorities to stay in this school. They will not silence anyone’s voice. They will not win.

Keep talking  

It’s natural for students (and their parents) to be upset after incidents like these, even if they haven’t actually occurred within their school. This is especially true of minority students who might feel targeted. This can lead to difficult conversations. Sometimes, students directly challenge teachers or administrators. And then educators have a choice – they can shut the conversation down or use it as a moment to engage.

I’ve had educators tell me the scariest moments of their careers were when a student — especially a student of color — expressed anger to them. But what if these educators thought of the moment as a gift? What if a student who has been struggling to come to terms with their anger over a hateful incident lashed out because you might be someone who will listen?

So don’t shut the conversation down. Let the student express their anger. In the end, you’ll still be able to have your say. You’ll still be able to tell the student what you didn’t appreciate, and where you disagree. By not using your power in the beginning, you communicate that you are secure enough to handle others being upset. You let the student know their pain and anger is OK, and that you can safely handle it without rejecting the student or their feelings.

Howard Stevenson is a nationally sought-after expert on resolving racial stress and trauma affecting health at every life stage. His work prepares children and adults to assert themselves during face-to-face microaggressions undermining academic and work productivity. Key to this racial healing work is integrating cultural strengths to reduce in-the-moment threat reactions, increase access to memory, physical mobility, and voice, and prevent long-term health detriment. Dr. Stevenson has served for 32 years as a clinical psychologist in under-resourced rural and urban neighborhoods nationwide. His book, "Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences That Make a Difference," summarizes this work.

An earlier version of this Playbook first ran in 2016; it has been revised in light of escalating violence in the Middle East.

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Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Hate Speech Detection

Researchers are finding innovative ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to address various challenges. One example is using AI for hate speech detection on social media. This could help moderate the large volume of interactions people have, ideally reducing the negative effects on mental health for users. Using explainable artificial intelligence, MDPI authors test whether this is plausible.

What is explainable artificial intelligence?

Most AI tools are black box systems, meaning they provide outputs without giving explanations about how it produces them. This means users are restricted from gaining any understanding of how certain AI tools produce their outputs, sometimes even those who created the tools .

In contrast, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods provide explanations about why it produces certain outputs and how it does them. Advocates for XAI tend to cite two main benefits:

• Transparency: XAI helps users validate whether outputs are produced fairly and accurately. This can help build trust in AI tools.
• Collaboration: XAI can be supported by human reasoning to further tweak algorithms and increase the potential uses for the tools.

In fields like medicine or law, where the outputs have very serious and important consequences, these two benefits are vital.

Social media and mental health

Social media enables us to connect with people anywhere in the world at any time. People share their social lives, post their creative work, and come together for social causes.

However, the negative mental health effects of social media are being increasingly recognised. Effects include the following:

• Depression.
• Decrease in attention span.
• Sleep disturbance.

Recommendations on how to address these issues tend to revolve around making lifestyle changes and taking breaks from social media .

Hate speech on social media

Hate speech is rife on social media . Detecting it is difficult, however, due to many interactions online being grammatically incorrect, the use of slang terms or context-specific phrases, and the sheer volume of text on social media being generated at any moment.

The United Nations defines hate speech as the following:

Any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.

Hate speech can also be conveyed through images, memes, and symbols, which further complicates detecting it. Preventing it is a complicated issue, as it is influenced by complex, constantly shifting emotional, political, and social factors.

Hence, MDPI authors have attempted to use explainable artificial intelligence to detect hate speech on social media platforms.

Detecting hate speech using explainable artificial intelligence

An Editor’s Choice article in Algorithms explores the literature on using XAI for hate speech detection on social media. The authors found that hate speech detection is being explored using different AI approaches, but not using XAI specifically. They outline the goals of their study:

The main goal and the intended contribution of this paper are interpretating and explaining decisions made by complex artificial intelligence (AI) models to understand their decision-making process in hate speech detection.

The paper’s primary aim, then, is not only detecting hate speech but understanding how AI tools can do this to further improve them.

We’ll outline the methods and findings of the article, which you can explore in full here .

Training explainable artificial intelligence tools

The authors used two datasets. The first is the Google Jigsaw dataset, which includes user discussions from English Wikipedia, and the second is the HateXplain dataset, which includes over 20,000 examples of hateful, offensive, and normal text from Twitter and Gab.A key step is cleaning the data. This involves removing any incorrect or inconsistent information, improving data quality, and correcting any structural errors. Then, they performed a series of other steps that enable the tools to process and sort the information in the datasets, including converting the data into numbers.

This was all in preparation for the main goal of the article: understanding how different models detect hate speech.

Can XAI tools detect hate speech?

Overall, the authors tested the accuracy, precision, and F1 score for the different models, finding high accuracies:

• Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) had the highest accuracy at 97.6%.
• Multinomial Naïve Bayes followed behind with an accuracy of 96%.

Alongside this, the bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) models, which are machine learning frameworks designed to analyse the context and meaning of language, performed well when paired with other models:

• BERT + Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) achieved an accuracy of 93.55%.
• BERT + Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) achieved an accuracy of 93.67%.

These results demonstrate that AI tools have a lot of potential to be used for hate speech detection on social media, with accuracies over 90%. But what about their explainability?

How explainable are the AI tools?

The AI tools output a number which indicates the probability that the text is hateful or not. The XAI tools reveal how much weight each word in the text has in the number depicting the probability that it is hate speech. The predictions are counted as matches if any of the word predictions overlap with the rationales annotated by humans.

Where the BERT tools excelled was in terms of their explainability. For these, the authors found that there was good performance overall in terms of ERASER, which refers to evaluating rationales and simple English reasoning. This is the benchmark for measuring the explainability of AI models.

Using XAI tools and understanding how they achieve their outputs allows users to ensure the tools work as intended and are not achieving the desired outputs in incorrect ways. The latter could lead to the tools working on initial datasets and then failing to function correctly when implemented on live data.

Furthermore, since hate speech detection can have serious consequences, understanding the tools and ensuring they work correctly will only benefit users on social media platforms and ideally reduce the negative mental health effects of them.

Tackling hate speech online using XAI

Social media has a range of benefits and negative consequences. Hate speech can spread online and impact individuals or groups of people, with effects extending outside of online spaces.

AI tools are being implemented in hate speech detection, but often not using explainable artificial intelligence. By using XAI, these tools can be implemented more efficiently and also transparently, to help build trust in their use.

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Why Republicans are calling Walz 'Tampon Tim' — and why Democrats embrace it

Rachel Treisman

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, pictured at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, is getting attention for a law he signed last year requiring public schools to provide free period products. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption

For more on the 2024 election, head to the NPR Network's live updates page.

Republican critics of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz have given him a new nickname: “Tampon Tim.”

After Vice President Harris announced her pick , Stephen Miller, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, tweeted , “She actually chose Tampon Tim.” Chaya Raichik, who runs the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok, photoshopped Walz’s face onto a Tampax box.

#TamponTim pic.twitter.com/eBPyEOSWPC — Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) August 6, 2024

“Tampon Tim is hands down the best political nickname ever,” tweeted conservative commentator Liz Wheeler. “It’s so… savagely effective. In one word tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about Tim Walz’s dangerous radicalism.”

The moniker refers to a law that Walz, the governor of Minnesota, signed last year, requiring public schools to provide menstrual products — including pads and tampons — to students in 4th through 12th grades.

The products are free for students, with the state paying about $2 per pupil to keep them stocked throughout the school year.

Takeaways from Tim Walz's introduction to the national stage

The law, which was the result of years of advocacy by students and their allies, took effect on Jan. 1, though students say the rollout has so far been smoother in some school districts than others .

It makes Minnesota one of 28 states (and Washington D.C.) that have passed laws aimed at giving students access to menstrual products in schools, according to the Alliance for Period Supplies.

The issue enjoys broad popular support: 30 states have eliminated state sales tax on menstrual products, and Trump himself signed a 2018 package that requires federal prisons to provide them.

But Republicans appear to be taking issue with the wording of the legislation, which says the products must be available “to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students.”

Some Minnesota Republicans initially tried to limit the initiative to female-assigned and gender-neutral bathrooms, but were unsuccessful. Even the author of that amendment ultimately voted for the final version of the bill, saying his family members “felt like it was an important issue I should support.”

The bill’s inclusive language reflects that not all people who menstruate are women, and not all women get periods, which was important to those who lobbied for the legislation.

“It will make it more comfortable for everyone … then people can use whatever restroom they want without being worried,” Bramwell Lundquist, then 15, told MPR News last year.

But some in the Republican Party — which has increasingly promoted anti-transgender policies and rhetoric — see that aspect of the bill as a reason to attack Walz.

“Tim Walz is a weird radical liberal,” the MAGA War Room account posted on X, formerly Twitter. “What could be weirder than signing a bill requiring schools to stock tampons in boys' bathrooms?”

'Midwestern Nice' and 'Fun Dad' posts abound after Tim Walz is named VP pick

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt made a similar argument in a Tuesday appearance on Fox News .

“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender-transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools,” she said. “Those are radical policies that Tim Walz supports. He actually signed a bill to do that.”

LGBTQ rights groups have cheered Walz’s selection and praised his track record, which includes a 2023 executive order making Minnesota one of the first states to safeguard access to gender-affirming health care, as dozens of states seek to ban it .

Walz, who once earned the title “ most inspiring teacher ” at the high school where he taught and coached football, hasn’t responded publicly to the “Tampon Tim” taunts. But he had strong words for his Republican opponents on Tuesday night.

“I'll just say it: Donald Trump and JD Vance are creepy and, yes, weird,” he tweeted , repeating the put-down he helped popularize in recent days. “We are not going back.”

Many on the left see “Tampon Tim” as a compliment

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Sandra Feist, the chief sponsor of the bill in the state House, sold it as a "wise investment" , explaining to her colleagues last year that “one out of every 10 menstruating youth miss school” due to a lack of access to menstrual products and resources.

She defended it again in a tweet on Wednesday morning, saying she was grateful to have partnered with Walz to address period poverty .

“This law exemplifies what we can accomplish when we listen to students to address their needs,” she wrote. “Excited to see MN representation at the top of the ticket!”

Feist ended the tweet with the hashtag #TamponTim.

Other Democratic figures have embraced both the hashtag and the policy behind it.

The case for free tampons and pads in schools

Many social media users responded that providing tampons in schools isn’t the bad thing that Republicans are making it out to be — and in fact, they see it as the opposite.

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said it was “nice of the Trump camp to help publicize Gov. Tim Walz’s compassionate and common-sense policy,” adding, “Let’s do this everywhere.”

Former Georgia State Rep. Bee Nguyen said Walz, as a former teacher, understands how the lack of access to menstrual products impacts educational outcomes.

“This makes me an even bigger fan of Tampon Tim,” she added.

Nearly 1 in 4 students have struggled to afford period products in the United States, according to a 2023 study commissioned by Thinx and PERIOD. Experts say period poverty is more than just a hassle : It’s an issue of public and personal health, dignity and more.

The Minnesota students who lobbied for the bill testified last year about having to miss class because they were unable to afford menstrual products, being distracted from schoolwork and tests and feeling that adults didn’t take their concern seriously.

“We cannot learn while we are leaking,” high school student Elif Ozturk, then 16, told a legislative hearing in 2023. “How do we expect our students to carry this burden with them during the school day and still perform well? The number one priority should be to learn, not to find a pad.”

• menstrual products

Table of Contents

No, jd vance didn’t fuck a couch. but saying he did is free speech. here’s why..

• Daniel Burnett

Consolidated News Photos via Shutterstock

Republican presidential nominee JD Vance

He certainly didn’t couch his words.

Last night, Democratic vice presidential pick and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz came to FIRE’s hometown of Philadelphia to campaign with presidential nominee Kamala Harris. 

“And I got to tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz  told the crowd . “See what I did there?”

Walz was referencing a now-deleted X post that has morphed from fringe joke into  mainstream political consciousness . 

X user @rickrudescalves posted on July 15: “can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an Inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181).”

I read “Hillbilly Elegy.” I definitely would’ve remembered that.

There’s no truth to the statement . And the X user who tweeted it acknowledged the post was a joke and deleted it about a week later — after it took off. 

But if it’s obviously not true, why is it protected?

First, some definitions.

Misinformation is simply false or inaccurate information. Nothing more, nothing less.  Disinformation is false or misleading information peddled  deliberately to deceive . The two get confused, but both are protected by the First Amendment, and for good reason. And political jokes — well, we’ll get to that.

Political disinformation is nothing new. Thomas Jefferson was  Native American ? Lincoln had a  top secret plan to make a new “American race” via interracial sex? Michelle Obama  has a penis ? People have been claiming wild falsehoods about the political classes for millenia. (Someday, archaeologists will surely find some ancient graffiti alleging that Julius Caesar is a Muslim and INELIGIBLE to lead.)

It’s up to Americans to weigh evidence for themselves and make up their own minds. If false claims weren’t protected by free speech, we’d have to  trust the government to decide the truth  for us. That’s exactly why the First Amendment gives wide latitude even to lies, misinformation, and disinformation. Check out our handy explainer on  misinformation and disinformation to learn more.

If we sacrifice comedy to save innocent voters from the horrors of misinformation, we’ll lose a lot more than killer SNL skits.

If you think it's bad for government bureaucrats to decide whether claims in the rough and tumble of political debate are true (and worthy of protection) or false (and worthy of punishment), just wait until you add in comedy. 

The brouhaha ignores an important part of our national discourse: the ability to joke. 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her house. That was  Tina Fey . And studies show that 7 in 10 Americans believed it! But if we sacrifice comedy to save innocent voters from the horrors of misinformation, we’ll lose a lot more than killer SNL skits.

The First Amendment rightly  protects satire and parody. In 1983, Hustler magazine parodied Jerry Falwell, a nationally known minister and public commentator, in  an ad for Campari featuring Falwell recalling a sexual experience with his mother in an outhouse. The cartoon even included a disclaimer that it is an “ad parody not to be taken seriously.” Falwell was awarded $150,000 in damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress before the case was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 1987.

So I can lie all I want?

Like much of First Amendment law, not exactly. Some forms of lying aren’t protected speech, including:

• Making false statements to government officials concerning official matters
• Falsely speaking on behalf of the government
• Impersonating a government officer to exercise false authority over someone

As my colleague Angel Eduardo says in his post on  lying and the First Amendment , “Like any deviation from the presumption that speech is protected, these exceptions to the rule are limited, narrowly defined, and place the burden on the government to justify.”

In a free society, there’s only one solution to fight misinformation and disinformation — and that’s an informed citizenry who can separate fact from fiction without the heavy hand of government regulation. 

Listen, FIRE isn’t playing the role of a fact-checker in this election. There are lots of other folks with the resources and mandate to do that. But when political disinformation explodes into the national conversation and you have questions about free speech and disinformation —  FIRE has your back .

Whether or not it’s gyrating on top of an unsuspecting loveseat.

• Free Speech

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Related articles, doj report: government communications with social media companies can threaten first amendment rights, germany punishes american writer over satirical swastika image, ctrl-f fail: florida public universities get chilling directive to keyword-search faculty syllabi to purge ‘anti-israel bias’, new alumni group brings free speech advocacy to ut austin, supreme court’s netchoice decision bolsters fire’s legal challenge to new york’s online hate speech law, victory: georgia city overhauls panhandling policies and pays up after fire defends man holding ‘god bless the homeless vets’ sign, press release.

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Britain’s Violent Riots: What We Know

Officials had braced for more unrest on Wednesday, but the night’s anti-immigration protests were smaller, with counterprotesters dominating the streets instead.

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By Lynsey Chutel

After days of violent rioting set off by disinformation around a deadly stabbing rampage, the authorities in Britain had been bracing for more unrest on Wednesday. But by nightfall, large-scale anti-immigration demonstrations had not materialized, and only a few arrests had been made nationwide.

Instead, streets in cities across the country were filled with thousands of antiracism protesters, including in Liverpool, where by late evening, the counterdemonstration had taken on an almost celebratory tone.

Over the weekend, the anti-immigration protests, organized by far-right groups, had devolved into violence in more than a dozen towns and cities. And with messages on social media calling for wider protests and counterprotests on Wednesday, the British authorities were on high alert.

With tensions running high, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet held emergency meetings to discuss what has become the first crisis of his recently elected government. Some 6,000 specialist public-order police officers were mobilized nationwide to respond to any disorder, and the authorities in several cities and towns stepped up patrols.

Wednesday was not trouble-free, however.

In Bristol, the police said there was one arrest after a brick was thrown at a police vehicle and a bottle was thrown. In the southern city of Portsmouth, police officers dispersed a small group of anti-immigration protesters who had blocked a roadway. And in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where there have been at least four nights of unrest, disorder continued, and the police service said it would bring in additional officers.

But overall, many expressed relief that the fears of wide-scale violence had not been realized.

Here’s what we know about the turmoil in Britain.

Where arrests have been reported

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