right not to be offended

Friday before last, the lawyer who teaches our SG Ethics class, in a lecture about video game regulation, talked about the right of free speech vs. the right not to be offended. She continued to refer to the right not to be offended unironically, as if that were an actual, non‐hypothetical right.

Where in the Bill of Rights is the right not to be offended?, I asked, and opined that the right of free speech was a right to be offensive, and the right not to be offended doesn’t exist.

She thought a minute, then as an example of the right not to be offended, she cited atheists being offended by the Pledge of Allegiance‽

[Ed. This is a repost of a comment I made on another blog.]