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In reply to the discussion: The Limits of Free Speech [View all]cheapdate
(3,811 posts)And the definition of a "true threat" is far more muddled than you suggest.
Furthermore, if this case were to go to court, the court would almost certainly consider the specific case in its specific context, that is, the context of a university president expelling students for making threatening and hostile speech.
Multiple court rulings have proposed tests for threatening speech. Sandra Day O'Connor weighed in in 2003
True threats encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders, in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur. - Sandra Day O'Connor. Virginia v Black (2003)
(EDIT: the context could also include actual violence that has taken place on university campuses, as well as a university president's obligation to create a safe environment.)