Nico Hines deserved to be fired.

Haven’t heard of him? Well, Nico Hines was a reporter for the American news source, the Daily Beast, who has recently hit big headlines after writing and article called The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping. In this post, Hines detailed his time on dating apps such as Tinder and Grindr as he sought out Olympians, namely closeted gay Olympians in order to "expose" their "secret." Hines's article is a direct attack against the Olympians as many of whom he outed face legitimate danger in their home countries. Now, regardless of your personal stance, you must see that Hines's actions can be deadly and thus should not be tolerated, especially as a means of entertainment. But what exactly is the legality of the situation? Wasn’t he just exercising his right to speak freely?

As Americans, we pride ourselves in the development of a supreme law that both firmly dictates and defends the rights of citizens of the United States of America. However, many of us haven’t really taken the time to dissect exactly what the Constitution proclaims and if it still stands as firm as it did when it was ratified in on June 21, 1788. Surprisingly enough, even amendments, which act as a change to the Constitution, can also be somewhat revised or more clearly defined under a later Supreme Court ruling of which the law must abide. But what’s tricky about Supreme Court rulings is that unless a case is presented first to a local, then state, then district court without resolution can it go far enough to reach national attention? Simply put, if a case is taken all the way to the Supreme Court, it means that the focus of the case is one that stands to further clarify a typically gray area that occurs within our outstanding laws, which is precisely why the rulings of the Supreme Court stand firm in defining the exact legality of a law.

The Constitution itself was made to be broad, so that laws could be interpreted by the states. It was also written as a default to better help define or guide a state when making a decision. For that reason, the Supreme Court was created within the Constitution. So, ideally the document that created the first true outstanding laws of the United States of America was created in a manner which allows for it to adjust itself with time by utilizing the Supreme Court justices, who are appointed by our current elected president and approved by our existing senators to better fit our ever growing nation. With that being said, we have all been taught some of the more famous amendments as a means of understanding the fundamentals of our rights. Typically, the most known being the first which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. However, have many of us taken the time to further check up on how free our speech really is since the Constitution’s ratification? For example, did Hines have the right to publish his article in our country?

For the most part, American citizens are allowed to say whatever they wish and cannot be thwarted in their right to do so, but the Supreme Court has since had to take into consideration the fact that, typically, it is the pen which incites the sword and thus the mightiest weapon can be our tongues. The best way I could summarize this ideal is by describing the idea of linguistic relativity in relation to human cognition. Basically, our cognitive construction of words determines both our actions and thoughts due to our inability to formulate an idea that has yet to be described by language in some form. So, in that regard, our choice of language and rhetoric can be seen as catalyst which defines our actions. Whether it be something someone directly tells us or something we learn based off of societal communications, either way, the speech of another has always been transcribed from generation to generation into the fundamental programming of our thoughts. Which is exactly why the Supreme Court has had to come to the conclusion that it is best for the majority of our people that our speech is limited to terms that do not run the risk of causing harm in any form.

The first major example of this being Schenk v. United States in 1919. During this case the legality of the Espionage Act of 1917, a law created in the peak of World War One to prevent speech which inhibited or deterred people from entering the draft, was being debated as a man named Charles Schenk, who was vehemently against the war, mailed thousands of pamphlets to drafted recruits urging them not to fight. Schenk was then apprehended, to which he claimed that his right to the freedom of speech was being denied as the government was prohibiting him from speaking freely of his hatred towards the war and distrust in the government itself. However, his plea was denied as the court ruled that there was no violation of rights because, during a time of intense global and national issues, there was "clear and present danger" in his words because he was causing unpatriotic propaganda to spread through a nation that was heavily torn between its alliance to is "homeland" and its home. Mainly, the government feared that his rhetoric was giving way to ignite a passion within a heavily immigrant population to have greater nationalism towards their place of origin rather than where they reside. So now the Constitution does not guarantee the freedom of those who speak of things that may cause "clear and present danger" to the country, in order to better protect the country from divisive or hazardous current events.

Another example of a limitation to our freedom of speech is the Supreme Court case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, whose rulings better help to define the legality of speech which advocates illegal action. The case, which was taken on in 1969 after a Klu Klux Klan leader was indicted for advocating terrorist acts within the community, faced issues in determining the fine line between violation of the First Amendment and the more complex idea that the abuse of the First Amendment by the Klan leader caused the endangerment, and thus violation, of other citizens's rights. The court ruled that the state cannot forbid a person or the media to deny an individual’s right to speak unless it gave evidence to advocating or inciting illegal acts or acts of violence after coming to the conclusion that the propagandizing of acts of terror runs more of a risk to the American people than the repression of an individual’s immoral speech. This revision is seen as more cut and dry than the previous in the sense that it is more easy to define language that is targeting and provoking violence, as well as trace it back to a sole public figure who proclaims it.

Finally, another interesting ruling, among many, that the Supreme Court has made in light of the First Amendment would be the ruling of the Gertz v. Robert Welch case. In this 1974 case, a Chicago lawyer by the name of Elmer Gertz was slandered in the American Opinion, which was headed by a wealthy candy manufacturer named Robert Welch and published by the "far-right" John Birch Society, after Gertz had been hired by a family whose son had been killed by a Chicago policeman named Richard Nuccio. In the published article, Gertz was slammed for supposedly framing the Nuccio case to promote his own agenda as well as being called a Communist and a criminal. The publication of said article in the American Opinion basically allowed for the spread of falsified statements in the public by a private company, an act which Gertz represented solely himself in fighting against. It was taken up with the Supreme Court when he was asked to prove that the article showed intent to negligence of fact, which the private figure proved as he took on public officials who blatantly lied about his criminal record and affiliations.

Basically, because the paper attacked an individual who was not a well-known public figure, he was more susceptible to malicious acts in response to the article. The Supreme Court declared that you cannot publicly produce falsified statements towards individuals, especially private figures. But, these statements are mostly only held legally accountable if they are blatant lies which hold potential of malice. And because of that, a public figure has a lesser chance of legally stopping slandering because it does not pose such a threat for them to face these lies as they have a greater economic, political and social stability. But nonetheless, blatant slandering and lying by the media is illegal. This law is kind of like plagiarism in the fact that you cannot just outright preform the act, but subtlety and with a broader rhetoric it can be done. But does that mean its morally acceptable? Of course not.

On the topic of moral acceptance, all of these laws seem to produce the effect of protecting the morality of the concept of the First Amendment. So in that regard, it is actually ethical to believe that the protection of an individual’s right to say unacceptable things can be overturned for the protection of the American majority. After all, the Constitution does read “We the people," not “I the me," But as 2016 has proven many times, the American people have seemed to become more radicalized and accepting of the individual over the majority. Yes, we are a nation that focuses on individualism, but we also are very strong in our sense of unity as whole. However, we have begun to allow a rampart of ridiculous, risky rhetoric to spew from the mouths of our leaders and media. Most of which, besides being morally disturbed, can also be seen as nearly illegal or synonymous to the aforementioned Supreme Court rulings.

We have politicians who scream about exercising their right to speech, but at the same time they do not respect the laws regarding our speech, if they even know them at all. Mind you, your freedom of speech is a guaranteed American privilege; however, if it is harmful your speech is both disturbing and, depending, not your right either. We do not live in a time where words are any less dangerous than a gunman, because for the most part, it is the bombardment of negative words in the media and from our figures that helps to pull the trigger. Legally, you cannot just say whatever you want in America, and that is OK. These laws were made to protect and care for the American people as a whole. It’s like what you’ve been taught, "if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all," because it’s irrelevant in producing anything constructive to anyone else but your loose tongue and loud ego. So next time you decide to say something radical, or at least allow for somebody else to, just remember that it does not reflect your exercising your freedom of speech, but rather your own convictions and where it is not morally acceptable, it is neither legally.

So in a basic sense, did Nico Hines have the right to say what he did? Yes, barely. But in an ethical sense he did not keep in mind what our founders and leaders have truly wished our freedom of speech to be. And for that, not only did he disappoint America as a whole, he also deeply betrayed and violated the wills of other nations as he intended to defame their Olympians.