1 Vernice Hankins
From: oz <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2022 11:30 AM
To: Oscar de la Torre; Christine Parra; Phil Brock; Lana Negrete; Kristin McCowan; Gleam Davis; Sue Himmelrich; councilmtgitems
Cc: Douglas Sloan; David White; Clara Harter; Catanzaro Sam; Jorge Casuso; Santa Monica Observer Subject: 16:B— ACLU disagrees w Himmelrich, Davis, de la Torre
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Item 16.B
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From: OZ
To: councilmtgitems; Oscar de la Torre; Christine Parra; Lana Negrete; Kristin McCowan; Gleam Davis; Sue Himmelrich
Cc: Douglas Sloan; David White; Sam Catanzaro; Jorge Casuso; Clara Harter; Santa Monica Observer Subject: OBJECT to 16-B: Censorship has no place in Santa Monica! Date: Tuesday, July 26, 2022 12:00:53 PM
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This item seeks to legitimize censorship of public comments under the guise of a “civility policy.”
Censorship has no place in Santa Monica!
The First Amendment to the US Constitution still stands.
An important reminder: the government may only impose content-neutral restrictions on public comments, e.g. it can limit the time or place where public comments can be delivered. It may not restrict the comments based on subject matter or point of view.
If you’d like to reduce hate speech, design an educational campaign instead of attempting censorship of public comments.
Here’s a quote from aclu.org:
“Since its founding in 1920, the ACLU has fought for the free expression of all ideas, popular or unpopular. Where racist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic speech is concerned, the ACLU believes that more speech — not less — is the answer most consistent with our constitutional values.”
Or, put more tersely: the remedy for bad speech is more speech, not censorship.
An excerpt from a video entitled, “Should the US government censor hate speech?” in which Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law at New York Law School and author of “HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship,” explains why free speech is enshrined in US law and why censoring hate speech actually does more harm than good:
“The best arguments against regulating hate speech are that it does more harm than good. Censorship is completely inconsistent with individual liberty, equality, and, indeed, democracy itself. Censorship does more harm than good to the very causes that advocates of censoring hate speech hope to advance. Those goals are actually undermined through censorship rather than promoted by them. Freedom of speech is essential to our democratic self-government.”
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And a couple quotes from a New York Times article "White America's Age-Old, Misguided Obsession With Civility," by Thomas J. Sugrue, who is a professor of history and social and cultural analysis, and also an author. The first one is about Martin Luther King.
“King aimed some of his harshest words toward advocates of civility, whose concerns aligned with the hand-wringing of many of today's politicians and pundits. From his Birmingham jail cell, King wrote: "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'." King knew that whites' insistence on civility usually stymied civil rights. (...)” “(...) civility is in the eye of the beholder. And when the beholder wants to maintain an unequal status quo, it's easy to accuse picketers, protesters, and preachers alike of incivility, as much because of their message as their methods. For those upset by disruptive protests, the history of civil rights offers an unsettling reminder that the path to change is seldom polite.”
As a US citizen and a member of the First Amendment Coalition I am extremely disappointed by this item, which if approved, will likely lead to litigation.
Regards,
Olga Zurawska
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