A brief history of hate-speech laws
Watch Lorcán Price's lecture at our Summer School last year – and apply for this year's event in July.
Last week, Brodie Mitchell was paid compensation by Royal Holloway University after being suspended for ‘alleged conduct that could be considered hate speech’. The suspension followed Mitchell comparing a pro-Palestine activist’s headscarf to a tea towel. In turn, Mitchell argued his university had behaved unlawfully after it subjected him to ‘unfair’ disciplinary measures over the petty ‘spat’.
We should be pleased Mitchell is now free to continue his studies. And we should also welcome the recent news that non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) have been scrapped after the government suffered repeated embarrassments in several high-profile arrests for speech deemed off-limits. The most notable case was that of writer and activist Graham Linehan, who was arrested last September by several armed police just after he touched down at Heathrow airport. His ‘offence’ was a social-media post: ‘If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.’ The Metropolitan Police announced the following month that no further action would be taken against him.
Yet we should be very wary of thinking that the use of hate-speech controls to constrain free expression is about to end anytime soon. Legislation entrenching ‘hate speech’ as an illegal practice is a relatively recent but still growing phenomenon globally, and raises many issues for those of us concerned to defend free speech.
Australia, for example, has introduced more new hate-speech laws after the Bondi Beach attack, defining offences based on ‘intent’ to cause hatred and whether conduct would lead a ‘reasonable’ person from that targeted group to fear harassment, intimidation, violence or for their safety. But who determines what a reasonable person might think? How does one define intimidation? Does stepping in against ‘hate’ toward targeted groups, rather than applying the law equally, lead to issues of ‘two tier’ justice?
It’s exactly these ‘two-tier’ fears that worry free-speech advocates in the UK in relation to the government’s official definition of ‘anti-Muslim hostility’. Will this effectively reintroduce blasphemy laws in the UK specifically for those who criticise Islam?
Looked at in this light, the decision to back down from pursuing Brodie Mitchell further bucks the wider trend for growing speech restrictions. Many stem from the 1986 Public Order Act, which prohibits threatening or abusive speech aimed at inciting hatred based on race, religion or sexual orientation.
The most recent legislation, the Crime and Policing Bill, requires further scrutiny still as it goes even further. The new law would empower police to ask courts for ‘respect orders’ that can prohibit someone from doing ‘anything described in the order’ as long as the person ‘has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person’.
Last year at our Summer School, Lorcán Price, legal counsel for ADF UK, delivered a fascinating lecture titled: ‘History of hate: origins and evolution of hate-speech laws’. Watch it on our YouTube channel. And hopefully you’ll be inspired to apply for this year’s summer school! Find out more about the event and how to apply on our Summer School 2026 page.