William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

124 Chapter 4Chapter 4 || Civil LibertiesCivil Liberties

to protect the speaker, not to silence his speech.”^76 Otherwise, the right to assemble

would be restricted by a “heckler’s veto.” The Court elaborated on this responsibility

to protect expressions of unpopular views by striking down another town’s ordinance

that allowed it to charge a higher permit fee to groups whose march would likely require

more police protection.^77 But in many cases, permit fees do not come close to covering

the actual costs of security. When white supremacist Richard Spencer came to speak at

the University of Florida, as noted in the chapter opener, his group, the National Policy

Institute, was only charged $10,564 while the actual costs for security paid by the

university and the state were estimated at nearly $600,000.^78

The August 2017 “Unite the

Right” rally in Charlottesville,

Virginia—initially organized in

opposition to the removal of a statue

of Confederate general Robert E. Lee

from a public park—raised issues

of symbolic speech and freedom of

assembly. Can the use of symbols that

some deem offensive, such as the

Confederate battle flag, be regulated

by the government? Should groups

promoting hate speech be permitted

to peaceably assemble in public areas?

While broad protection is provided for peaceable assemblies, governments may

regulate the time, manner, and place of expression as long as these regulations do

not favor certain groups or messages over others. For example, the Court ruled that

anti-abortion protesters were not allowed to picket a doctor’s home in Brookfield,

Wisconsin, on the grounds that the ordinance banning all residential picketing

was content neutral; there was a government interest in preserving the “sanctity of

the home, the one retreat to which men and women can repair to escape from the

tribulations of their daily pursuits.”^79 “Time, manner, and place” restrictions also

may be invoked for practical reasons. For instance, if the Ku Klux Klan planned

to hold a march around a football stadium on the day of a game, the city council

could deny it a permit and could suggest that it choose another day that would not

interfere with game day activities. In the case of Spencer’s speech at the University of

Florida, the school initially turned down Spencer’s request to speak on campus just

a month after the tragic events in Charlottesville, saying that it would not have time

to provide adequate security for the event. However, it approved the talk for a date a

month later.^80

The legal standard for “time, manner, and place” regulations is that they must be

“reasonable.” This standard came into play in a 2014 case in which the Court ruled that

a Massachusetts state law creating a 35-foot buffer zone around entrances to abortion

clinics violated the First Amendment. While the buffer zone was content neutral, it

was unreasonable because it was more restrictive than necessary to allow access to the

clinics.^81 While the “reasonableness” standard is vague, it allows the courts to balance

the right to assemble against other practical considerations.

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