Is it illegal to make racial slurs?

Answer 1

No, you can be a racist if you want to, but it's best not to share it with other people. There's no law against racial hatred just discrimination. However, if there's a crime committed, like a beating or something, it could be considered a hate crime if it was proven to be racially motivated.

Answer 2

Answer

Yes and no.

In theory, you have freedom of speech. *pauses, waits for laughter to die down*

In reality, if you are interviewing people for a job, and comment in a racially insensitive way about some applicant, you may be violating some employment laws. Likewise if you are a loan officer at a bank.

Another situation arises in which if you beat up someone who is the same color as you, you are charged with one crime - assault - with one penalty.

But if you beat up someone of a minority color, and yell a racial slur while doing so, you can be charged under the hate crime laws, so that you will be charged for two things, and thus have two penalties. One for the beating, one for the supposedly free speech.

It is still permissible to make racial comments to non-protected peoples. You can yell "Mick" while beating up a person of Irish descent with no fear of running afoul of the hate crime laws. And if you are minority, you are free to yell any derogatory racial slur you like, against other races or your own.

Answer

Racial slurs, like most other speech, are protected as free speech under the First Amendment. If a racial slur is spoken so as to incite another to violence, it becomes "fighting words," which is prohibited.

Answer 3

Illegal from a criminal perspective, generally not. However there could have some issues if the words said incite violence, apprehension, or disrupt the general peace of those in the area. Some states may also have "public cleanliness" statutes that come into play here.

Note that while inevitably the individual may not be found guilty of any crime, using these epitaphs in public is a good way to at least get arrested and detained.

Also in some states, the person may be opening themself to civil tort liability from a third party that hears the words and is adversely affected.

Answer 4

It is not illegal but it's not acceptable and probably against a teacher's contract guidelines to make bigoted comments.