Constitutional Law II

Fighting Words

Fighting words are statements likely to cause the average addressee to fight. They must be given personally, face-to-face though.

Negligence might be enough mens rea.

Fighting words are unprotected speech.

Statutes can outlaw a subset of fighting words as long as that subset of fighting words is not content-based (based on viewpoint). (It gets strict scrutiny, even if the speech is worthless.)