Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental rights protected by the United States Constitution. That protection extends to speech that may be offensive, hateful, prejudiced, or deeply unpopular.

It does not, however, give people unlimited freedom to threaten violence, intimidate others through unlawful conduct, or commit crimes motivated by bias.

Federal and state laws already address numerous forms of threats, intimidation, violence, interference with protected rights, and hate-motivated criminal activity. Effective enforcement of these laws is essential to protecting both public safety and civil liberties.

This petition calls for stronger and more consistent enforcement against credible threats of violence and unlawful intimidation motivated by bias while preserving constitutionally protected speech.

We ask relevant federal, state, and local authorities to:

• Improve training for law-enforcement personnel responsible for evaluating threats, hate crimes, and bias-motivated intimidation.
• Provide clear and accessible reporting procedures for people who receive credible threats of violence.
• Improve coordination between local law enforcement, federal authorities, schools, community organizations, and other institutions when threats may present a genuine risk of violence.
• Ensure that existing hate-crime and threat statutes are consistently enforced when their legal requirements are satisfied.
• Improve public education explaining the difference between constitutionally protected hateful speech and criminal threats, intimidation, harassment, or violence.
• Develop evidence-based approaches for evaluating threats communicated through social media and other digital platforms.
• Collect and publish reliable information about hate crimes and criminal threats to help policymakers and communities understand patterns and allocate resources appropriately.
• Preserve strong First Amendment safeguards so that enforcement efforts do not become a mechanism for punishing people merely for offensive, controversial, political, religious, artistic, or unpopular expression.

A free society must tolerate expression that many people find objectionable. At the same time, freedom of speech does not require society to ignore genuine threats of violence or unlawful intimidation.

The goal should not be to police opinions.

The goal should be to identify criminal conduct, respond appropriately to credible threats, protect people targeted by violence and intimidation, and enforce existing laws fairly regardless of the ideology of the offender or victim.

We ask public officials to strengthen the enforcement, reporting, investigation, and prevention of hate-motivated threats and violence while vigorously protecting the constitutional right to free expression.