484
Opinion of the Court
struction to be binding on us. But here the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not, strictly speaking, construe the Wisconsin statute in the sense of defining the meaning of a particular statutory word or phrase. Rather, it merely characterized the "practical effect" of the statute for First Amendment purposes. See 169 Wis. 2d, at 166-167, 485 N. W. 2d, at 813 ("Merely because the statute refers in a literal sense to the intentional 'conduct' of selecting, does not mean the court must turn a blind eye to the intent and practical effect of the law—punishment of motive or thought"). This assessment does not bind us. Once any ambiguities as to the meaning of the statute are resolved, we may form our own judgment as to its operative effect.
The State argues that the statute does not punish bigoted thought, as the Supreme Court of Wisconsin said, but instead punishes only conduct. While this argument is literally correct, it does not dispose of Mitchell's First Amendment challenge. To be sure, our cases reject the "view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled 'speech' whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea." United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376 (1968); accord, R. A. V., supra, at 385-386; Spence v. Washington, 418 U. S. 405, 409 (1974) (per curiam); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 555 (1965). Thus, a physical assault is not by any stretch of the imagination expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 628 (1984) ("[V]iolence or other types of potentially expressive activities that produce special harms distinct from their communicative impact . . . are entitled to no constitutional protection"); NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U. S. 886, 916 (1982) ("The First Amendment does not protect violence").
But the fact remains that under the Wisconsin statute the same criminal conduct may be more heavily punished if the victim is selected because of his race or other protected sta-
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