Speaker 1: In the wake of the stabbing deaths of two men
Speaker 1: and the slashing of another who intervened when apparent white
Speaker 1: supremacists allegedly shouted anti Muslim comments at two women in Portland,
Speaker 1: the mayor of Portland, Oregon, is asking the federal government
Speaker 1: to cancel permits for two rallies scheduled to be held
Speaker 1: in the city in the next couple of weeks. One
Speaker 1: of the rallies is being called a Trump free speech
Speaker 1: rally and the other is being called a march against Sharia,
Speaker 1: and the mayor says that these are what he's terming
Speaker 1: alt right rallies, but his request may raise concerns under
Speaker 1: the First Amendment. Our guests to talk about the mayor's
Speaker 1: request of the federal government is Eugene Vallaka, professor at
Speaker 1: u c l A Law school and an expert on
Speaker 1: many things, including the First Amendment. Eugene, always good to
Speaker 1: have you on the program. Um we have you know there.
Speaker 1: You've had these murders in Portland which are pretty horrific. Uh.
Speaker 1: The mayor says that the city is grieving from them,
Speaker 1: and it's a bad time for this kind of rally,
Speaker 1: that it's gonna he he believes apparently is going to
Speaker 1: express views that are consistent with at least some of
Speaker 1: them will be consistent with the views of the person
Speaker 1: who allegedly committed to murders here in another slashing. Is
Speaker 1: there any basis, Eugene for the government to cancel the
Speaker 1: permits for these rallies? No. Uh. Just to give an analogy,
Speaker 1: imagine that there is a shooting of a police officer
Speaker 1: by someone who believes police officers should be killed. Uh.
Speaker 1: And is that a basis for canceling a planned rally
Speaker 1: by people who harshly condemned police officers. Absolutely not. What
Speaker 1: if the rally some of the people in the audience
Speaker 1: will take the view that actually killing police officers are justified,
Speaker 1: of course, a view that I totally disagree with. Is
Speaker 1: that a basis for canceling the rally? Absolutely not. Uh.
Speaker 1: Speech is protected regardless of its viewpoint, even if the
Speaker 1: viewpoint expresses hostility based to Muslims, or hostility to police
Speaker 1: officers and hostility to capitalists or to the one percent,
Speaker 1: or or to strike breakers or whatever else. And Uh,
Speaker 1: a rally can't be canceled just because of a fear
Speaker 1: that some people, some tiny fraction of the audience might
Speaker 1: actually turn that hostility into criminal violence, Eugene. Just for
Speaker 1: the sake of argument, suppose that there was a way
Speaker 1: to prove through memos of this group to emails of
Speaker 1: this group, let's say, or flyers, that they intended to
Speaker 1: incite violence with words and signs. Would that change anything?
Speaker 1: So the Supreme Court has made it quite clear. There's
Speaker 1: a case called Brandenburg View, Ohio from that deals with
Speaker 1: exactly this issue. Supreme Court has said that UH. Speech
Speaker 1: cannot be punished on the grounds that it's intended to
Speaker 1: advocate crime unless it's intended to end likely to promote
Speaker 1: imminent criminal conduct, which is to say, criminal conduct within
Speaker 1: the next few minutes, hours, maybe day or two. Uh So, Yes,
Speaker 1: if somebody is trying to organize a rally outside of
Speaker 1: somebody some building, let's say uh uh, and UH is
Speaker 1: egging on the crowd outside of that building saying let's
Speaker 1: rush the place and burn it down, yes, that is
Speaker 1: punishable incitement. But if older doing is they're trying to
Speaker 1: instill views that they hope eventually will lead to criminal conduct,
Speaker 1: that's constitutionally protected. And that emerged in part from the
Speaker 1: communist air cases because in fact, there was lots of
Speaker 1: evidence that communists who were trying to promote crime in
Speaker 1: the source sense of violent revolution, which of course criminal
Speaker 1: would have involved a great deal of murder, as of
Speaker 1: course communist revolutions always have. But the but the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: after some fumbling around in the nineteen fifties, ultimately concluded
Speaker 1: that even intentional advocacy of criminal conduct is constitutionally protected
Speaker 1: again unless it's intended to unlikely to cause imminent lawless conduct,
Speaker 1: And that protects people whether they are on the far
Speaker 1: left or far right or far whatever else. You know,
Speaker 1: there are sometimes people who are extremist eco activists or
Speaker 1: animal rights activists who think it's justifiable to go out
Speaker 1: there and say, attack, attack animal researchers. Unfortunately, some people
Speaker 1: in my own university have been have been targeted this way. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's that any advocacy of this
Speaker 1: kind of of violence like that is is very bad,
Speaker 1: but it's also constitutionally protective, and you can't shut down
Speaker 1: um general animal rights advocacy, even pretty extreme on the
Speaker 1: theory that maybe some of the people there might be
Speaker 1: hoping that that's going to turn into actual violence at
Speaker 1: some point in the future. Well, it's been reported. You
Speaker 1: we only have gout a minute left, but it's been
Speaker 1: a reported Eugene, that there are going to be counter rallies.
Speaker 1: And doesn't the city have some legitimate concern that they've
Speaker 1: got to make sure that, you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: these rallies kind of going at each other and violence results.
Speaker 1: That's why they hire police officers. And they hire the
Speaker 1: police officers to keep the groups apart. Again, imagine there
Speaker 1: was a Black Lives Matter rally or even a more extremist,
Speaker 1: let's say, anti police rally, uh, and there were going
Speaker 1: to be some counter protesters who are pro police. Would
Speaker 1: you say, oh, let's just cancel the rally because it's
Speaker 1: going to bring in counter protesters. No, you're gonna say,
Speaker 1: let's protect the protesters and the counter protesters so they
Speaker 1: can speak, which is their constitutional right, but they can't
Speaker 1: physically attack each other, which of course is illegal, uh
Speaker 1: and not their constitutional right. That's the job of the
Speaker 1: police department. And UH, the government can implement a so
Speaker 1: called Heckler's veto by which this mere fear of violent
Speaker 1: reaction on the part of counter demonstrators is justification to
Speaker 1: suppress the demonstration. That's Eugene fall A, professor at u
Speaker 1: c l A Law School. Eugene, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for being on Bloomberg Law today