A professor claimed that calling someone a “nerd” or a “geek” should be a hate crime because the terms can be used to bully intelligent people.
“Very high-IQ people are a minority group in society that are very much ignored, and they are not understood and are largely neglected,” said east London psychology professor Sonja Falck. “So, it is the case that individuals with very high IQ very often are bullied at school, for example. They are a target for being bullied, often quite viciously.”
Falck made the comments on the morning talk show Good Morning Britain. She then suggested that labeling someone a “brainiac” or “egghead” should mandate legal consequences.
“While the term ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ has historically been seen as being negative, people have now embraced the term and seen it as positive,” said mathematician and “proud geek” Bobby Seagull.
Though the validity of hate crimes has been debated in the United States, similar legislation has been implemented in the United Kingdom. In 2016, a county in the U.K. made it a hate crime to “upset women,” and, in 2017, one British Member of Parliament warned President Trump that he could be arrested for “inciting religious hatred” if he visited the country.
An Iowa man, who was found guilty of a felony hate crime and third-degree harassment, was sentenced on Thursday to 16 years in prison for burning a gay pride flag.
