Questions Of First Amendment Violations Swirl After Saturday's 'Free Speech' Rally

Barbara Howard: This is All Things Considered, I'm Barbara Howard. Boston is getting accolades from across the political spectrum for keeping the peace at Saturday's rally, dubbed a "free speech" rally by its organizers. But now that the dust is settling, some are asking whether the peace was kept at the cost of free speech. With me on the line is Carol Rose, she’s Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Thanks for talking with us, Carol.

Carol Rose: Happy to be here, thank you, Barbara.

Barbara Howard: In the days leading up to Saturday's rallies, Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans said that the two opposing groups would be kept separate for their own protection. Was that reasonable?

Carol Rose: Well I think that in principle, it, of course it's reasonable to have neutral time, place and manner restrictions to make sure that maximum number of people are able to exercise their freedom of speech. We're fortunate here in Boston that the Boston Common is large enough as a public space to actually permit that to happen.

Barbara Howard: Well of the buffer zone, though, around the bandstand, or where the original organizers were,  it was quite wide. Without some sort of amplification, it would be impossible to hear the speakers.

Carol Rose: Problems arose from free speech perspective insofar that the buffer zone was so large for the people who ... had a permit to speak on the bandstand that the people who wanted to hear them were not allowed, and most importantly, that the press was not allowed – a way that their voices could have been amplified. If it is in fact true the reports that we have that the media was prevented from being able to hear the message or to relay the message to the outside world, that raises deep civil rights, civil liberties concerns from a freedom of speech perspective.

Barbara Howard: Well some of the speakers and others trying to attend the event on the bandstand, the Parkman Bandstand, said that they were turned away at the barriers and Commissioner Evans was asked about that and here's what he had to say.

Clip of Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans: "I'm not going to listen to people who come in here who want to talk about hate. And you know, what if they didn't get in, that’s a good thing, because their message isn't what we want to hear."

Barbara Howard: Now that begs the question, was he motivated by keeping people separate or by suppressing free speech?

Carol Rose: That's right. The job of the police is to keep everyone safe and to make sure that everyone's speech is protected. That's what the police are supposed to do,and by providing a permit on the Boston Common, that's what initially they said they were going to do. If in practice, they were motivated by not allowing their speech to be heard, that raises serious First Amendment and constitutional concerns.

Barbara Howard: As people were approaching the bandstand, it put the officers there in a quandary because how are they to know which people are going in there to make trouble?

Carol Rose: Right. And we don't – we're still gathering facts on how they made that determination and who was allowed in and who was not letting people in. But the bottom line is what we do know, is that the press is not allowed to go into the bandstand area, and that raises deep constitutional concerns for the ACLU.

Barbara Howard: Now some who were wearing Trump T-shirts showing up in the Common trying to make their way to the bandstand were besieged, of course, by counter-protesters, that was expected – yelling at them that they did not have a right to be heard. What are your thoughts on that?

Carol Rose: Well, the First Amendment ensures not only that you have a right to speak, but that the right of listeners to hear your message is also protected. So to that extent, if there were people who wanted to hear from the people on the bandstand or who wanted to cover it as reporters, there's a separate and independent free speech right for the message to be received, to be heard by its intended audience. So that's why this raises constitutional concerns.

Barbara Howard: John Medlar speaking for the original organizers says that he does plan to have another rally. Are these the kinds of issues that your organization, the ACLU, will likely take up on behalf of his group?

Carol Rose: Well, the ACLU’s client is really the Constitution, so what we're interested in doing is to [work] with city leaders here in Boston and around the country to make sure that we're able to have rallies that are both peaceful and where all the voices have an opportunity to be heard by people who would like to hear from them. But I think it's important for people to recognize that we as a nation and Massachusetts as a state and Boston as a city are trying to find our way forward to defend public safety and freedom of speech, and to speak out for equal rights under the law. And I think that's something that we can do as a society. I think Boston made a lot of progress with 40,000 people showing up and peacefully protesting, but there's a lot that we could do better in terms of making sure that free speech rights are protected, and that we also don't have police practices where people got pepper sprayed and dogs were brought out and things like that after the rally. So there's a lot of improvement we have to do, but I think that Massachusetts is open minded and finding a way forward and hopefully will be a model for the rest of the nation.

Barbara Howard: OK, thanks so much, Carol.

Carol Rose: Great. Thank you so much. These are hard issues, Barbara, as you can see.

Barbara Howard: OK, thanks so much, Carol Rose. That's Executive Director of the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union. This is All Things Considered.