People wishing to hand out leaflets or loudly speak their mind on religion, immigration or the death penalty at Independence National Historical Park or any other national-park site will have an easier time doing so based on a recent court decision.
August 9, 2010
By Julie Shaw
The ruling would allow small groups and individuals the right to spontaneously express themselves – whether by distributing pamphlets on God, lecturing on global warming or holding antiwar protest signs – at any of the 392 National Park Service sites without having to get a permit.
“The only permit we need to speak to our fellow citizens is the First Amendment,” said Nate Kellum, a Memphis, Tenn., attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, who argued the winning case. “We don’t need to go through the bureaucratic nightmare of securing a governmental permit just to hand out literature, hold up a sign or engage in conversation.”
Kellum’s client, Michael Boardley, tried to hand out religious material in a “free-speech area” of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, in South Dakota, in 2007, but was stopped by a park ranger because he lacked a permit.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday ruled that park regulations requiring a permit for someone to engage in “expressive activities” are “antithetical” to a “core First Amendment principle.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which argued on behalf of the U.S. Department of the Interior, can appeal the decision by petitioning the court for this case to be heard before the full appellate court, or it can petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up this case.
Yesterday, Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., said that the government is studying the opinion and “has not made a decision on its next step.”
Meanwhile, it was not immediately clear what would happen if a person or small group held a peaceful rally at Independence Mall, in Center City, or at Valley Forge National Historical Park without a permit.
Jane Cowley, Independence National Historical Park spokeswoman, said that she was not yet familiar with the Boardley case and could not comment on it.
Barbara Pollarine, deputy superintendent at Valley Forge, said yesterday that policies won’t be changed until word comes from Washington.
Cowley and Pollarine said that in their years of working at the parks, they have never known of a permit being denied. Denial cannot be based on the content of the speech or literature, they said.
“We even had a Nazi rally here five or seven years ago,” Pollarine said. “That was all permitted.”
The permit system allows a park to manage groups so one is not on top of another in a competing space, Cowley said.
People walking on Independence Mall yesterday had mixed feelings about the court’s decision. “Freedom of speech should be preserved, that’s the Constitution speaking, not me,” said Jared Knoblauch, 19, of Califon, N.J.
But he added that national parks are also viewed as “sacred ground” – a place where “people can be free from the nuisance” of others’ advocating a certain viewpoint by pushing a leaflet in the hands of passers-by or loudly proselytizing.
The appellate court decision does distinguish between individuals and small groups on the one hand, and large groups on the other. It basically leaves the decision on what to do with large groups to the National Park Service or another government entity.
In a different decision touching on free speech, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, ruled in June in favor of Michael Marcavage, founder of Repent America ministries, saying that the government had infringed on his First Amendment right to free speech.
Marcavage’s case was different from a simple permit issue, and attorneys on both sides yesterday had different views on whether the Boardley ruling, if it had been in effect when Marcavage was arrested in October 2007, would have impacted his case.