FIRE blog reports
FIRE Press Release
BERKELEY, Calif., and BOULDER, Colo., March 17, 2009--Open discussion of Israeli-Palestinian issues can now resume unburdened at the University of California at Berkeley, which has slashed a "security fee" that would have kept a controversial speaker off campus. Meanwhile, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder are nervously awaiting a promised $2,200 security bill for a speech by controversial professors William Ayers and Ward Churchill. Students at both universities have turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.
"Charging for extra security because of a potentially hostile audience grants the most disruptive or violent hecklers a veto over controversial events and creates an incentive for that kind of behavior," Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's President, said. "It's also unconstitutional at a public college or university."
At Berkeley, members of the Objectivist Club of Berkeley (OCB) turned to FIRE when faced with a $3,000 security fee to host a speech by Elan Journo entitled "America's Stake in the Arab-Israeli Conflict." OCB President Dave Zornek was told by the UC Berkeley Police Department that uniformed officers would be required for the event because of the subject matter of Journo's presentation and previous tension between Israeli and Palestinian student groups. On February 5, Officer John Lechmanik estimated that OCB would have to pay for two sergeants and at least ten or twelve officers at a total cost of at least $3,220.63.
On February 12, FIRE wrote Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau to protest the prohibitively expensive security fee. FIRE's letter cited the Supreme Court's ruling in Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992), which prohibits increasing a security fee because of a potentially hostile audience: "Listeners' reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation.... Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob."
Berkeley responded on February 25 by promising to use only content-neutral criteria for security. According to Zornek, such criteria included the expected number of attendees, the nature of and number of exits from the room for the event, whether money would be exchanged, and so on. As a result, OCB was charged only about $460 for two police officers.
However, Zornek also reported that Berkeley's Assistant Chief of Police told him on February 27 that in cases when the audience causes a real threat to public safety, it would be up to the sponsoring group to decide whether to close down the event or to incur additional security costs. This policy would unconstitutionally burden unpopular speech, giving the most violent and intolerant members of the community the power to shut down a controversial event.
"Berkeley must publish its content-neutral criteria for security costs as soon as possible," Adam Kissel, Director of FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program, said. "Doing so would help other public universities around the country, like the University of Colorado at Boulder, impose security costs fairly and without violating the First Amendment."
At the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder), FIRE is working with the student group Students for True Academic Freedom to ensure that the university does not impose unacceptable security costs for a March 5 event that included controversial speakers Ward Churchill and William Ayers. The university reportedly plans to bill the group $2,203.42 for security for this event, which has already occurred and which did not see significant disruption.
According to CU-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard, as reported at thedenverchannel.com, the school also recently charged the College Republicans group $4,800 in security fees for "an event featuring two men who claimed to be former members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization."
"Whether it's Bill Ayers or anti-PLO speakers, CU-Boulder must not charge its students extra for bringing controversial ideas and speakers to campus," Kissel said. "A university should be society's ultimate marketplace of ideas. Pricing some ideas right out of the market with excessive, unconstitutional fees makes a mockery of American freedom."
UNMITIGATED ACLU GALL
Unmitigated gall. But, then, again, what might be expected from a
Marxist-Leninist organization, which calls itself the "American Civil
Liberties Union" and whose ranks have included card-carrying
Communists and their "fellow-travelers" parading through the courts.
Its latest ploy is to claim that it "won" the foremost First-Amendment
case, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that there
could be no charges imposed upon Nationalists seeking to speak
at courthouses, city-halls and public-squares.
Prior to 1992, despite the First Amendment's prohibition against any
law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances," it was considered "legal" for
government-officials to charge a fee, an unlimited fee, at that, to
those whose message they disliked, as a means to prevent speech and
assembly at the seat of government. The Nationalistic-minded simply
were shunted off onto "private property," where they remained out of
sight and sound.
This all changed when Mark Watts and his fledgling Nationalist
Movement, opposing racial-integration in all-white Forsyth County,
Georgia, were assessed a $100.00 fee to hold a protest at the Forsyth
County Courthouse. Opponents had congregated, without a fee. The law
maintained that any amount could have been charged, to cover
"police-costs," but the administrator stated that he "kept the amount
low." The legal-challenge blind-sided bureaucrats, who had assumed
that pro-majority elements were either too poor or too unsophisticated
to go far.
Enter the ACLU. The left-wing association had made a career of
opening doors to Communists and other subversives and, occasionally,
would seize an opportunity to represent some down-and-out
right-winger, as a conduit to further open doors to its own minions.
For example, it represented segregationist David Holland over a
"free-speech" issue, but promptly lost the case, after ballyhooing
how much it cared for the "downtrodden." It, then, volunteered to
represent the Nationalists, who turned it down. The Nationalists,
then, proceeded to federal-court.
"Conservative" Republican federal-judge William O'Kelley, ever
the "palace-guard" to the GOP-establishment, ruled that the
Forsyth-County law was "constitutional" and fined the Nationalists
$8,000.00 for bringing a "frivolous" lawsuit, requiring the Nationalists
to pay the County's attorney-fees. From the get-go, the Nationalists
had contended that there could be "no fee in freedom, no pay in
patriotism." On appeal, the fine was vacated, O'Kelley reversed
and the law invalidated on the grounds that $100.00 was not "nominal."
On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ACLU asked the Nationalists
if it could argue the case. The Nationalists refused, prompting a
raspy response that the Nationalists' lawyer was too "headstrong."
The ACLU, then, asked the Nationalists for permission to file an
amicus curiae brief, which the Nationalists refused, although the
court gave its own permission. In its brief, the ACLU stated that the
$100.00 fee was constitutional and should be upheld, but objected to
the ability to charge larger fees.
On the other hand, the Nationalists insisted that no fee, whatsoever,
large or small, nominal or non-nominal, could be imposed on
free-speech. The Nationalists upbraided not only the ACLU, but the
Association of Police Chiefs, the City of Orlando and various others
who were vying to uphold the fee-measure. The Nationalists won, fees
were abolished and the ACLU defeated. The Nationalists, then,
defended their watershed jurisprudence in Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, winning, across the board.
In fact, the ACLU, citing the Nationalists' victory, used the
decision against York, Alabama and Michie, Florida, in its drive to
"loosen up" laws that would have allowed Communists to be curbed.
However, the ACLU claimed that it had "won" Forsyth County v.
The Nationalist Movement. It issued a statement that "this case is
considered a win for the ACLU even though the ACLU's amicus brief
argued that a $100 speech fee sufficed and the court held that no fee
should have been applied."
The Nationalists, referring to the ACLU as "Anteaters, Critters,
Leeches and Undesirables," fired off a missive demanding "get your
facts straight." The ACLU retorted that since its brief had sought to
"align" with and "support" the Nationalists, in the high-court, it
had "won" even though its argument in favor of a fee had failed, the
challenged fee had been struck down and it had been rejected by the
Nationalists. Under such logic, the United States had "won" the war
on Iraq and John McCain had "won" the election.
It was not the first time that the ACLU had shown its "sour-grapes"
attitude with similar unmitigated gall. The ACLU had fought to
prevent Nationalists from including dossiers of anti-Communists, who
had opposed the Marxists, hippies and Negroes, bent on overthrowing
the segregated Mississippi-government, during the Sixties. When a
federal-judge sided with the Nationalists and allowed the materials,
as part of the Sovereignty-Commission archives, the ACLU claimed that
it had "won," because "the papers weren't worth reading."
Feigning to "support" Nationalists has not been a new tactic for the
ACLU. It once argued, in the Mississippi Supreme Court, that the
Confederate flag should come down, on the grounds that it represented
the white race. The Nationalists countered that it should keep flying,
because it represented the white race. Both the Attorney-General
and Sons of Confederate Veterans contended that the flag did not
represent the white race. The ACLU praised the Nationalists for
being the "most honest" in the case. The ACLU kept prating, but the
flag kept flying.
http://www.nationalist.org/docs/law/aclu.html
Copyright 2009 The Nationalist Movement