May 14, 2009 4:17PM 

# New at Cato: Nat Hentoff on Hate Crimes 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

With the support of President Obama, so-called “hate crime” legislation is on the move in Congress. According to Cato senior fellow [Nat Hentoff](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10188), laws that punish one time for the crime and another time for the hate violate the First Amendment, the 14th Amendment and protections against Double Jeopardy.

In April, Hentoff spoke at the Cato Policy Perspectives seminar in New York City about the current expansion of hate crime legislation.

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).