After twenty-five minutes of hearing ethnic slurs from the crowd whenever he tried to score a goal, soccer star Kevin Prince Boateng kicked the ball into the crowd and walked off the field, accompanied by his teammates (Herman, 2013). Sadly, Boateng’s story is not an isolated event: anti-Semitic chants plagued another soccer club, and fans have thrown food and screamed insults at black players in others. Such language that offends, threatens, or insults a person or group based on race, religion, gender, or other identifiable characteristics is hatespeech (Waltman & Haas, 2011). Hatespeech employs offensive words to deride the person or group; thus hatespeech often creates vividly negative images of groups in the minds of listeners while downplaying the unique qualities of individuals in those groups (Haas, 2012, p. 132).

Other language choices may not be intended to offend individuals based on cultural factors but are nonetheless hurtful. For example, do sports fans have the right to jeer at the opposing team? Should they be allowed to bellow at referees throughout the game? What about the instance of an opposing team fan reading loudly from the grand jury report of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse case at a Penn State game (Pennington, 2012)? Although none of these behaviors are technically against the law, they have communication effects and are often considered hurtful language—inappropriate, damaging, mean, sarcastic, or offensive statements that affect others in negative ways.