ACLU Texas seeks SCOTUS to reverse ruling that could severely hamper U.S. citizens’ right to protest injustice and lessen democracy. Credit: Adobe Stock.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the ACLU are asking the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to overturn the state criminal court convictions of three North Texas community organizers who were sentenced to incarceration in county jail for peacefully protesting a Confederate monument outside a county courthouse.
Upholding this unjust punishment could have horrendous implications on the Black community and anyone who organizes protests against what they see as systemic injustices – i.e. police brutality, environmental racism, public school inequalities, court rulings against a woman’s right to choose, the use of U.S. citizens’ tax dollars to fund atrocities in the Congo, Gaza, the Sudan and other places, etc.
Gainesville injustice
On Aug. 30, 2020, Gainesville organizers Torrey Henderson, Amara Ridge and Justin Thompson marched calmly with approximately three dozen people on a route outside the county courthouse in Gainesville, Texas, a small town north of Dallas.
A few days later, they were arrested for “obstructing a highway or other passageway,” a misdemeanor under Texas law, even though they had not caused an obstruction under the law or directed others to cause one. In 2022, they were convicted in county court based on evidence about others at the march. In November 2023, the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo upheld their convictions.
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“We founded PRO Gainesville to speak out against injustice in our hometown and facing jail time for peacefully protesting shows how far we have still to go,” said Gainesville community organizers Torrey Henderson, Amara Ridge and Justin Thompson. “We are not the first protesters to petition the highest court in the land to defend our most fundamental rights. The struggle for the right to protest, especially against racial injustice, has been passed down through generations. With the law on our side, we carry the resolve of our Black elders who marched before us to build a more equal society where our children and future generations are free to speak against injustices without losing their liberty.”
The petition for certiorari asks SCOTUS to review the state appellate court decision and ultimately reverse the organizers’ convictions on the charge of obstructing a passageway. The organizers have also filed a stay application, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow them to remain free while the court reviews their petition.
Importance of right to protest
“Our democracy is contingent on the right to protest,” said Savannah Kumar, ACLU of Texas staff attorney and counsel of record for the three community organizers. “The Constitution protects our clients’ right to peacefully protest in their rural hometown, just as it protected the rights of civil rights leaders across the country before them. No one should lose their liberty for simply walking in a public space without obstructing traffic or directing others to do so.”
As the petition explains, convicting the organizers based on the actions of others and for their brief, orderly march along a public street and sidewalk violates the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment protects our right to use public streets and sidewalks to assemble, protest, and march about issues of public concern,” said David Cole (he/him), national legal director of the ACLU. “Punishing our clients for organizing a nonviolent civil rights protest – where they neither obstructed traffic nor directed others to do so – is unconstitutional.”
If these convictions stand, the U.S. will have moved dangerously close to the criminalization of protesters done by other countries such as China – a practice once condemned by U.S. lawmakers as anti-democratic and evidence of an authoritarian regime where citizens have little real freedoms.
McKesson v. Doe
Similar fears were expressed just a few months ago when SCOTUS announced in April, in a move that shocked civil rights observers and advocates, organizers, and activists, that they declined to hear McKesson v. Doe, effectively upholding a lower court ruling that according to the ACLU, can make protest organizers “liable for the independent, violent actions of others based on nothing more than a showing of negligence.”
The McKesson v. Doe case centers around the 2016 Black Lives Matter protest of the police killing of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. After an unnamed police officer was injured during the demonstration DeRay McKesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, was sued. The argument was that as the protest organizer, McKesson should be held responsible for the officer’s injuries.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the officer, allowing protest organizers to be sanctioned for illegal actions by protest attendees—even if the actions weren’t directed by the organizers. While the ruling does not ban nationwide protests, it has effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi that are covered by the Fifth Circuit.
Danger to democracy
That means organizers of the massive 2020 march in Houston protesting the killing of George Floyd would have been held legally liable if just one of the hundreds of thousands of protest attendees did anything deemed illegal.
Activists statewide and nationally contend that April 2024 McKesson v. Doe ruling was meant to target predominantly Black and Brown protesters and their causes.
“I can’t imagine there not being an underlying motive, be it Palestine or otherwise,” said Zynub Al-Sherri, the president and founder of the Palestinian Arts and Culture Club at the University of Mississippi. “How do you expect a single person or group of individuals to control the individual actions of hundreds or even thousands? The right to protest without severe consequences is something that my family lacks in Palestine due to Israel, but it’s something we loved about this country. It’s disheartening that we’re adopting Israeli policies that restrict freedom within our government against our own people.”
The more recent Gainesville convictions being upheld cause similar fears in those willing to organize against injustices often aimed at Blacks and other people of color.
Why?
Because if protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, anyone thinking about lifting their voices on behalf of the brutalized would think twice and, more than likely, remain silent.
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