Q: When I led a petition drive against a school board, I wanted to set up in the downtown park. I was told by the downtown workers that I had to stand in a corner of the park away from the public. It has been a while since this but it is still going on. Protesting and public actions are being limited to this corner. I feel like the “corner” limits freedom of speech and is not right. Any advice?
A:There may not be a black-and-white answer to your question.
Public streets are generally considered public forums — in fact, they have been called “‘the archetype of a traditional public forum.'” Gaudiya Vaishnava Soc. v. San Francisco, 952 F.2d 1059, 1065 (9th Cir. 1991) (quoting Frisby v. Schulz, 108 S. Ct. 2495, 2499 (1988). This means that when public streets are at issue, “the government’s authority to restrict speech is at a minimum.” Gaudiya, 952 F.2d at 1065.
In order to restrict speech in a public forum, the restrictions must be content-neutral and narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and they must allow ample alternative channels of communication. Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983). Restrictions on speech in a public forum “must be justified without reference to the protected speech’s content.” ACLU v. City of Las Vegas, 466 F.3d 784, 792 (9th Cir. 2006).
In your case, this might mean, for example, that the government might be able to keep you from speaking in a place and manner that disrupted traffic, but only to the extent the restrictions were the minimum necessary to protect traffic and left adequate places/ways to express yourself.
Although it is not clear that requiring you to speak only in a designated area of the park would satisfy the First Amendment requirements for a public forum, the application of the test would be highly fact-specific, and it is not possible to tell you how a court would ultimately decide this issue in your case. In order to get a more definitive idea of what your rights are and for assistance with enforcing those rights, you would probably need to work with an attorney who could represent you. You might be able to find such an attorney through the FAC’s Lawyer’s Assistance Request Form at https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/lawyers-assistance-request-form/.