Court To Litigants: A City Taking Down Its Own Statue Doesn’t Violate Your First Amendment Rights
from the because-duh dept
Some days, it has got to suck to be a judge. Well, actually a lot of days. Most judicial work is tedious, including contractual disputes or bankruptcy proceedings or maritime law or any dozens of other aspects of litigation that would put most people to sleep.
On other days though, it’s a particular kind of annoying. It’s like working for the world’s worst boss, someone who makes ridiculous requests and expects you to take them seriously.
This case, brought to us by the Volokh Conspiracy, involves deeply unserious people with patently ridiculous arguments. And it’s all handed by the federal court judge like it’s the most legitimate thing to ever land on Judge Janet Hall’s docket.
The First Amendment lawsuit was filed by the “American Italian Women for Greater New Haven” (referred to as “AIW” in the decision). It concerns the city’s decision to remove a statue of Christopher Columbus from Wooster Square, a public park in the city. The city owned the park and the city owned the statue.
Christopher Columbus — an Italian long revered for his supposed “discovery” of lands already populated by indigenous people — has seen his reputation dim considerably over the last couple of decades. This has resulted in similar actions all over the nation, as Columbus’ reputation as a colonizing racist superseded his inexplicably popular failure to locate any part of Asia’s 17.21 million square miles.
The AIW found this move to be reprehensible. And not just reprehensible, but unconstitutional. The statue — a gift to the city from 200 Italian immigrants in 1892 — represented something more to the group than a tribute to a questionable historical figure. According to AIW’s complaint, the group met in the square often to recruit new members, participate in activities, and conduct an annual wreath-laying at the base of the statue.
So, where does the First Amendment violation start happening when a city removes its own property? It’s difficult to tell. But the opinion [PDF] does give us a look at the ridiculous assertions made by the Italian women’s group.
According to AIW, the decision to remove the Columbus statue arose from the City’s “pro-African American/anti-Italian American policy”, a policy that the City deliberately “established and perpetuated.”
This imagined policy is the basis for several claims, including discrimination (against Italians, I guess?), due process violations (because the AIW was not allowed to vote on the removal, I guess?), and the First Amendment violation because… well, that’s what the AIW wrote down in their complaint.
The court decides AIW (barely) has standing to bring the lawsuit, based solely on the “wreath-laying ceremony” that occurs at the base of the statue. But having standing to pursue a lawsuit doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything actionable to pursue.
All the rest of the AIW’s activities could still be performed in the park with or without the statue. And, as the plaintiffs admit (which undercuts their discrimination claims), they have never been refused access to the park. Plus, the statue was made unavailable to everyone, not just Italian-Americans residing in New Haven.
There’s no due process claim to be had, either. Even if accepted as true, the allegation that the city somehow failed to allow residents to vote on the decision to remove the statue doesn’t work because the group did not have any property interest in a statue erected and owned by the city.
And that leads directly to this blunt dismissal of the group’s truly bizarre First Amendment claim.
Finally, in Count Four, AIW alleges that the removal of the statue violated its First Amendment rights. This claim fails, however, because the Columbus statue is government speech and, as such, AIW has no cognizable free speech interest in it. Indeed, the Supreme Court has directly foreclosed such a claim. In Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009), the Court “held that the messages of permanent monuments in a public park constituted government speech, even when the monuments were privately funded and donated.” See Shurtleff v. City of Boston, Mass., 142 S. Ct. 1583, 1590 (2022) (summarizing Summum). Where a city is “communicat[ing] governmental messages”, as is the case here, it is “free to choose the [monument it displays] without the constraints of the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause.”
That should be the end of this nonsense. The AIW is free to serve up an amended complaint, but it’s impossible to see how the group could come up with an actionable claim. The statue was the government’s to keep or remove. And it chose to remove it. Being angry isn’t the same as cognizable legal claim, something far too many plaintiffs fail to understand.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, christopher columbus, new haven, statues, wooster square
Comments on “Court To Litigants: A City Taking Down Its Own Statue Doesn’t Violate Your First Amendment Rights”
The AIW is free to serve up an amended complaint, but it’s impossible to see how the group could come up with an actionable claim.
Their free speech right to lay wreaths at the feet of a statue of the first African to sell members of a neighbouring tribe into slavery, perhaps? (-_Q)
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People buying slaves are just as evil as people selling them. I’m pretty sick of hearing this justification of slavery.
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In the African case, very probably more evil as the buyer, as they knew what was going to happen. The sellers (and more importantly, the larger cultures) could not know what was really going to happen to the slaves, or the larger tradition behind the (especially American, particularly US/pre-US) “peculiar institution”.
Not sure Autie is making that argument, tho’.
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About 20 years ago, there was a Washington Post magazine article about the slave trade in west Africa. One of those photos had a gate to a dock which the slave ships used. That gate looked a lot like the one to Dachau which I visited. All it was missing was the “Arbeit macht frei” sign.
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*whooosh*
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There are some things that don’t need a sarc mark. For everything else, there’s an AC without reading comprehension.
They’re not the only hateful plaintiffs filing unconstitutional lawsuits over irrational claims of “discrimination” like this. Though thus far Massachusetts has ruled in favor of free speech rights like Connecticut has here.
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“According to AIW, the decision to remove the Mussolini statue arose from the City’s “pro-African American/anti-Italian American policy”, a policy that the City deliberately “established and perpetuated.”
Fixed that for them.
I mean, if not glorifying a conquering slaver is “anti-italian” then that same principle applies to more than just Columbus. Something I’m pretty sure the AIW may have failed to consider.
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There are more Italians where that came from.
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“According to AIW, the decision to remove the Caligula statue arose from the City’s “pro-African American/anti-Italian American policy”, a policy that the City deliberately “established and perpetuated.”
There are indeed.
Tells me a lot about how lobby groups for caucasians always get as upset about the removal of a statue depicting a warlord slaver as they are about black people taking a knee to object about still being sporadically murdered in plain sight by supremacists in law enforcement.
“Indeed, the Supreme Court has directly foreclosed such a claim.”
At least until next week.
The Right
And, Twitter banning you is not a violation of your 1st amendment rights. We know you feel the need to be heard. If you want us to listen, have something useful, helpful or worthwhile to say. We’re not interested in bullshit conspiracies, whining, or divisive outrage.
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But even the Samaritans and Emotions Anonymous have banned me, citing my “depraved behavior.” So where am I to go if I can’t troll people online?
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Well that’s better than me shooting you in the face, isn’t it? My autism urges me to such conclusions.
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I completely understand your urge, but I think the comment you replied to is satire. When has that troll ever spoken honestly about himself without it involving projection?
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Thanks, Amber!
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How many times is that now? At least you’ve proven that you are indeed a psychopath. Anyone with average intelligence would have come up with something different by now.
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The definition of insanity is Phil trying these lies over and over again and expecting different results.
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Thanks, Amber!
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Is “Thanks, Amber!” the new “Let’s go, Brandon!” or something?
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I think it’s meant to suggest something along the lines of “Thanks for proving my case for me”, largely referencing Amber Heard’s poor showing in the recent lawsuit involving Johnny Depp – where despite Heard having previously won a defamation case against Depp in the UK, and the odds of her succeeding in the US case being reasonably favorable, she managed to sink the case with questionable testimony.
What the city owns, the people of the city own. Decisions like this which affect the people of the city (as well as its visitors), should be decided by the people of the city. That’s what democracy is all about. There should have been a vote to decide what to do about a statue and its removal.
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Not exactly. The people elect the people to make decisions for them. In theory, if the people don’t like what the elected officials do, they can vote them out of office. But elected officials make decisions that are unpopular with one group or another every day.
It’s pretty much impossible to have official elections for every little thing that a city does.
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While possibly true from some angles, this would require direct democracy for everything, which never worked anywhere ever. At least there would have to be institutionalized rules about certain aspects of governance where direct vote is required rather than one’s executive, legislative, or police having assigned powers.
Given the alternative would be to grant any person or group the ability to ‘lock in’ any feature of the city(like say statutes honoring people from the wrong side of The War To Preserve Slavery) by claiming that they engage in speech related to it yeah, the courts got this one right.
This just in:
Google says it will delete location history for visits to abortion clinics after overturning of Roe v. Wade
That’ll piss off the Republicans and give them an even stiffer hard on for ‘Big Tech’. 😸
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‘Now how are we supposed to stalk and harass women without leaving our houses?!’ -deranged pro-birthers
Columbus was bad?
I seem to remember that Columbus was financed by the Spanish Crown. So if they’re removing Columbus, I think its appropriate to also remove the Spanish.
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Good idea. In fact, why not remove every non-native person from the US? Of course, Europe will get mighty overcrowded. Wazzock. (-_Q)
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Uh, I’m,
that would literally be everyone. As there is no native people of the US.
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Not quite true. A few first nation people are descended from the first humans to migrate over the northern land bridge.
However, I’m pretty sure Naughty Autie was being sarcastic regarding “anon” deciding that removing a statue of a bad guy dead for 500+ years was the equivalent of a call for genocide of currently living people.
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We have statues of the Spanish crown in America? If so, I’m all for having them removed, too.
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“So if they’re removing Columbus, I think its appropriate to also remove the Spanish.”
Removing a statue of a bad guy dead for 500+ years means you should eradicate a currently living people?
You must be an alt-righter. That sort of “logic” does not come from the sane and rational.
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Probably the same crowd that objects to feathered dinisaurs, they seem to thank that giving dinosaurs feathers is the ‘woke’ attacking their masculinity or something.
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Not to mention that whomever thinks Dinosaurs are made wimpier by making them have feathers has not fought an ostrich.
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Or emu.
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“Or emu.”
Ah, the Emu wars of Australia…which the aussies lost, unless I misremember.
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Think about that for a moment, doubting techdirt readers.
Men with guns failed to kill off those birds!
The ostrich may be bigger.m, but they are more inclined to ‘flight’ so to say. Running away
Emu… …don’t.
Forget lions and tigers, if the Romans had emu nobody would volunteer to be in there.
Because the African Americans “benefited” its a plot against us.
That in which a hack lawyer tries to hang a case on the removal of Confederate statues in the south and recast it as an attack on Italian Americans.
Columbus did a thing, but it is not the only thing he did.
While you might like to only focus on the finding that which was already found by others, it was not all sunshine and rainbows for the people he decided didn’t own the land they lived on.
No one is all good, no one is all bad (Well Trump but come on) and while you only want to focus on the good, the whole colonization and slavery thing doesn’t seem good to others.
With as mad as you are because the statue was removed, find the ability to see how someone seen as horrible by others for other actions having a prominent statue celebrating who they see as a horrible person.
But this is only going to get better as they try to change the social studies program to turn slavery into involuntary relocation so kid’s won’t feel bad, because people long dead did really bad things a long time ago & this lead to bad things continuing but we are trying to work to fix them.
George Carlin’s routine about Shellshock goes here.
About how they keep making words longer & remove all of the impact they should have.
Columbus was a Celtic-Jewish Spanish pirate, and black to boot, so, seems like a legit complaint….
W T F
So a group of women got mad that the city removed a statue of a man that didn’t much do anything beside land on an island? Lol.
Where’s all the support for the vikings that came here before Christopher the Lost set sail?
Or the Chinese explorers who landed on the west coast a thousand years before that. Where are statues for the proto Sino-Rus who first crossed during the middle of the current ice age?
I never understood the praise for this idiot.
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I know that the Caribbeans are islands, but Central and South America too? 😮
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It wasn’t until a 3rd voyage that he managed to find actual costal land. and not just islands.
And that’s still somewhat debatable.
There’s a large minority that believe he made landfall on what is today know as Trinidad, not South America proper, on that third voyage.there are discrepancies in the accounts.
If correct, it would have been 1502 when he set foot on “America”. After Cabra! Meaning that by the time he discovered anything other than an island, others had landed in “America” ahead of him.
The reality was, any guess work aside, the man was a fool treasure hunting apocalyptic christian. One who grossly underestimated much of the reality of his intended first voyage.
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Looks like you could use some help with your own flagging brigade.
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And yes. The Americas are technically an island. The land is surrounded on all sides by water. An island. 🏝
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Said the continent of Australia to no one ever.
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https://web.archive.org/web/20100423151730/http://www.ga.gov.au/education/geoscience-basics/landforms/islands.jsp
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As I have already pointed out, Australia is entirely surrounded by water, yet it remains a continent, not an island. Hot tip: troll harder.
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The Island of EurAfrAsia begs to differ.
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Technically, it should be Afroeurasia.
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It’s not trolling, it’s fact. Nothing about continent and island are mutually exclusive.
That link was Australian. Their very government.
You’re also deflecting.
The simple fact is Columbus didn’t discover America. Period. It was already rediscovered by Lief, and partly mapped in the north, Apx 800 years earlier.
At best he’s the second Europe to have ships land. Depending on which side of the ‘third voyage’ debate you side, he may be the THIRD.
There’s also threads of evidence, that Both the Chinese and Vikings traveled along the Alaskan coast at times. As well as evidence of Chinese landings further south; along California. Various reports of Chinese artefacts dating to 800-1200. Such finds may, or may not, have traveled here in the first wave during the 1800s.
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According to Encyclopedia Britannica and National Geographic, they are mutually exclusive.
https://www.britannica.com/science/island
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/island
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Evidence of Chinese discovery is in the so-called 1418 map, the 1421 theory–Gavin Menzie’s evidence–and the voyages of Zhang He.
But African American historians also cite to sources in Columbus’ own journal’s of “black men” rowing away from the island as he approached, and Ivan Van Sertima also trace African root words and cognates of “gold” across the world, making a case for “guanini, guarini, guyana” etc. as evidence of gold trade between Africa and the “America’s.
Again–the entire Columbus shitshow is just more of the same post-Flavian concoctions of empire.
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But African American historians also cite to sources in Columbus’ own journal’s of “black men” rowing away from the island as he approached…
Because, like you, they’re either unaware or ignorant of the overuse of the term “black” in history. Hell, my own grandparents remember a time when Indian people were regularly described as black despite being no such thing.
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Tell me you know nothing about historical linguistics without telling me you know nothing about historical inguistics.
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Meh, take it up with Van Sertima’s other detractors, mostly white people with a hate boner for black scholars of any kind.
Historical linguistics isn’t my bag, just a side interest, and something that I indulge in when I am being accosted online by people from cuntish countries.
An @AC, I am well aware of how people like you use the term black–out of political convenience. Myself, having grown up in the arms of black and other people, don’t use it that way.
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The simple fact is Columbus didn’t discover America.
You’re redirecting, and thus failing to prove your point. If you even have a point, that is.
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Hey–could you give me a quick cheat sheet about “why these Intel trolls” and faux-spergs flag you? It would help going forwards.
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You don’t get flagged if you don’t troll. Never been flagged once from what I can tell.
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Thanks, Amber!
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“So a group of women got mad that the city removed a statue of a man that didn’t much do anything beside land on an island? Lol.”
Err…google “columbus atrocities”. The man did quite a bit more than just “land on an island”.
He was an industrious slaver, to begin with, and his response to unrest was to literally parade the dismembered bodies of natives in rebellion through city streets.
Columbus became a known entity for his role in “adding” a new continent to a european monarchy.
Leif Erikson, on the other hand, made a far smaller footprint, just founding a small settlement which, by all accounts, did not set out to attempt subjugating the natives.
According to the natural trend of history the person hailed as the “discoverer” was the brutal conqueror rather than the trader viking.
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It like many rulers that ‘the great’ added to their name were great killers via the wars that they fought.
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You misinterpret
I don’t need to. He was an apocalyptic Christian. Not a single good one in the lot.
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I don’t need to. He was an apocalyptic Jew. Not a single good one in the lot.
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That’s sick. Didn’t you blow your brains out?
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Watch this–notice what DOESN’T get flagged.