COLUMN: Occupy Wall Street ruling legally sound
Editor’s note: Nathan Inks is the president of College Republicans
On Tuesday, New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman ruled in a case temporarily upholding New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s order to evict the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors in Zuccotti Park in order to clean it up.
After the cleanup, the protestors were allowed to return, but were told they were unable to bring back tents, sleeping bags or large personal items. Protestors are also no longer allowed to sleep in the park.
At the heart of the case is whether or not these rules, as established by the owner of Zuccotti Park, a privately-owned public space, violate the protestors’ First Amendment rights.
Quite clearly, the answer is no. Judge Stallman cited the recently-decided Supreme Court case of Snyder v. Phelps, noting that “protected speech is not equally permissible in all places and at all times.”
The Supreme Court’s guidelines on time, place and manner restrictions have four components: It must be content neutral, narrowly tailored, serve a significant government interest and leave open ample alternative channels for communication.
The restriction is narrowly tailored — the protestors simply cannot bring in tents, sleeping bags, large items that interfere with the use of the park by other people and they cannot sleep there. Other than that, the protestors can protest for as long as they want.
The restriction serves a significant government interest in that having tents and sleeping items had become both a health and fire hazard.
The fourth guideline does not even apply here, as the restrictions do not prohibit the protestors from communicating their views.
As for being content neutral, the guidelines themselves do not discriminate between the OWS protestors or anybody else. However, OWS lawyers have argued that since the rules were established after the protests began, they are illegal. As long as the owners of the park enforce the rules against everybody, the regulations will be easily upheld.
The ruling in this case was simply a ruling on a restraining order to keep the rules from being carried out. To rule in favor of the protestors, they would have had to show that the rules needed to be struck down immediately in order to protect First Amendment rights.
Quite simply, their lawyers failed to indicate how these rules violate their Freedom of Speech and Assembly. They are still allowed to protest and occupy the park, they just are not allowed to sleep there, and not having the ability to bring a tent into a park is not a violation of the First Amendment.
When the case goes before the court for the final ruling, the outcome will be the same — the rules enacted do not infringe on the right to protest, and they are necessary for the safety of those in the park.
