The First Amendment will be tested with newly introduced legislation that criminalizes “conspiracy to commit white supremacy,” including criticism of non-white people that influences an individual to commit a hate crime.
H.R.61, the “Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023,” was introduced last week by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and now sits with the Committee on the Judiciary. The bill’s text states that someone engages in a white supremacy inspired hate crime “when white supremacy ideology has motivated the planning, development, preparation, or perpetration of actions that constituted a crime or were undertaken in furtherance of activity that, if effectuated, would have constituted a crime.”