Biden says advocate of federal "hate speech" law would oversee government media transition

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s selection of a transition chief for government-owned media entities is raising concerns over a potential Biden administration’s commitment to free speech, in light of Richard Stengel’s past calls for new laws recognizing that “all speech is not equal.”

Biden’s presidential transition website – which has been launched despite the presidential election having yet to be certified in his favor – identifies Stengel as leading his team that will “reflect the values and priorities of the incoming administration” in transitioning the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) from President Donald Trump’s hands. USAGM oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Middle-East Broadcasting Networks, and the Open Technology Fund.

Stengel, a journalist, former Obama administration official, and former head of the National Constitution Center, is an alarming choice to critics due to a Washington Post op-ed he wrote in October 2019 calling for a federal “hate speech” law. In the piece, he argues that America’s broad protections for even hateful speech are a global outlier, and that protecting “hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another...seems like a design flaw.”

He declared that “it’s time to consider” emulating laws other countries have passed since World War II to “curb the incitement of racial and religious hatred,” defining “hate speech” as “speech that attacks and insults people on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.”

“All speech is not equal,” Stengel concludes. “And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails. I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate.”