Read story here.
https://youtu.be/JDECCASyE5U
Tags: Black Lives Matter, George Floyd Protests
Posted 16 Jun 2020 by Roger Rabbit
in Racism
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And with the right attorney he will have a lovely retirement.
Yes his opinion is ugly, but it is ugly speech that the first amendment protects.
It appears he is on his time, and taking down signs in a public park. At some point the city or county will take the signs down. the city does not own the signs and cannot side or with or against BLM, it must remain neutral. The city does not own the signs. The original owner has given up ownership rights by posting them, and without an agreement with the city can’t claim any ownership right, but can post more signs.
Once upon a time the ACLU would have gone to court to protect his speech. Todays ACLU should take this to court as a free speech issue, but it probably does not have the balls.
Your comment raises an interesting question: Can a public servant be fired for off-duty hate speech? The short answer is: Usually yes. There are a number of online resources available that attempt to answer this question, and I randomly picked this one: https://www.spigglelaw.com/employment-blog/can-fired-hate-speech-doesnt-first-amendment-protect-speech/
The question of removing the signs presents a different legal question. The fence is city property, so the city could remove them, but the city also could decide to leave them up. This gentleman was acting in his personal capacity, not as an authorized city representative. (Maintaining park property wasn’t his job.) If you google this, you’ll find most cities will tell people who have issues with signs on public property to contact the city, not remove the signs themselves, which might even constitute a misdemeanor offense. In this case, the individual couldn’t be prosecuted for his racist comments, and the ACLU (if he asked for their help) likely would defend his right to make them; but the First Amendment protects only his speech, not the physical act of vandalizing the signs. The speech and sign removal are discrete legal issues governed by different rules.