Aryeh Neier

About the author: Aryeh Neier is the president of the Open Society Institute in New York, which provides financial, technical, and administrative support for the Soros Foundation, a collection of nonprofit foundations located throughout the world.

A request by Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, a Rwandan radio station's encouragement of genocide, and Serbian media's fomenting of ethnic cleansing are three situations that can help clarify the relationship between free expression and hate speech. In the case of the Nazis, their hate speech should be protected because it could do little harm; in fact, such a demonstration by a minority group would likely be met by widespread protest that would actually facilitate dialogue about such views. In contrast, Rwandan radio station Mille Collines and the Serbian state television and radio network were...