Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in California

About 30 years ago, neo-Nazis organized a march through Skokie, Illinois, to taunt the many Holocaust survivors who made that city their home. While the village's government thought it was provocative and sought to ban the march, ultimately the courts permitted them to do so. Residents lined the streets and turned their backs as a show of disgust, as dramatized in the television film, Skokie.

The N-word about which you ask is similarly provocative, and has an even longer history associated with lynchings and centuries of slavery and oppression in this country. Although originally in common usage, United States culture has eschewed the word to the point that today it is considered perjorative. In 2007, the New York City Council symbolically banned the use of the N-word, although there is no penalty for using it. It is not uncommon today to hear younger people -- who have not established a sensitivity to its history -- to use the N-word about each other. However, for those persons who are more thoughtful or old enough to remember the civil rights struggles as late as the early 1970s, it is a bone-chilling epithet and reminder of times past, and might be considered "fighting words."

Have you ever heard the term 'free speech'? No, it is not illegal, although if used in the employment context against a worker, could give grounds for a discrimination lawsuit.