The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent

A National Lawyers Guild Report 35
Content-Based Exercise of Discretion in Denying Permits
and in Paying for Permits and Liability Insurance
Permit schemes must be content-neutral regulations authorizing
reasonable “time, place and manner” 91 regulations (such as trafficcontrol
considerations) to prevent licensing officials from
discriminating against groups or speakers with whom officials
disagree. 92 Written ordinances or regulations by which local police
departments issue permits for street parades or large demonstrations
should contain specific and narrowly defined standards, as well as a
clearly explained process by which permits are granted, such as the
expected size of the gathering that may require increased police
security measures. Unwritten policies directing officials to deny
permits based on applicants’ dress, for example, constitute
unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. 93
Historians point out that rulings denying the right to march hold
symbolic weight. 94 <strong>The</strong> very act of marching has had psychological
and emotional power over the past 200 years, power that does not
exist with stationary forms of protest. “<strong>The</strong> simple act of moving
forward in a group, made up of diverse contingents, has a visceral
force that energizes not only participants but observers.” 95 Marching
during the civil-rights movement was itself a form of political
expression—the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 brought
the voting-rights movement into the national eye. 96 Michael Kazin, a
history professor at Georgetown University specializing in social
movements, says that “[e]very social movement of any importance
has had mass marches, not just picnics or gatherings….[t]he
prohibitionists marched on Washington in 1913, women’s suffragists
marched on Washington, there have been antiwar marches, there
were pro-war marches.” 97
Yet cities around the country are passing ordinances placing
unreasonable or undue restrictions on marches and public
demonstrations, or are denying permits altogether. In the spring of
2001, organizers of a “Free Mumia” rally on behalf of death-row
inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and commemorating the anniversary of
the MOVE bombing were informed by Philadelphia officials that
their permit requests for a demonstration and an around-the-clock
vigil at City Hall were being denied. In the past, other groups,
including corporate supporters of the 2000 Republican National
Convention, were granted permits with greater access to City Hall.