The First Amendment provides six freedoms including freedom of religion, from religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. These freedoms allow Americans to speak up and show their expression, but there are limitations. In the past few months, the Black Lives Matter movement has shown up across the country in several protests and other events. While many protests stayed peaceful to serve their purpose, other protests involved looting stores, destroying cars and statues, disrespecting police officers, and more. To what extent does the First Amendment cover these actions?
The Speech/Action Dichotomy provides insight to respond to that question. This dichotomy explains that speech is protected, but action is not. The exception here is that sometimes action moves over to the speech category and is protected because the action is expressive.
This article is about a Black Lives Matter group from Bay City and the Refuse Fascism Detroit Area group planning to be outside of a Trump rally on Thursday, September 10th. The rally took place at MBS International Airport where President Trump planned to speak from the aviation company Avflight Saginaw.
The Black Lives Matter groups planned their anti-Trump rally and named it the “Dump Trump Rally.” This rally was planned to start at 4 pm which was the same time the doors opened for the public to enter Trump’s rally. Their goal was to voice their opinion on anti-racism and claimed that Trump is trying to ban their efforts and that he supports fascism and divisiveness.
The Airport Manager James Cander explained, “We were going to try and set up an area for First Amendment activities, but once we heard there was 5,000 people, the space in is just too confined and with the restrictions involved we just couldn't find a good location for it.” This quote shows that people see these protests as using their First Amendment rights. As long as the protests involve speech and expression they are not breaking any laws.
A second article shared the events of the protest. Luckily, in this case, the protest remained peaceful and there was no violence, just First Amendment protected speech and expression. The protesters shared their opinions opposing Trump and their belief that he is ignoring the COVID-19 pandemic and racism. The only altercations that occured included verbal arguments between supporters of Trump and protesters. Since these arguments were verbal, both parties used their right to freely speak.
The articles themselves display the freedom of the press as the articles share supporting quotes from both sides of the arguments. While the quotes may not be the writer or organization’s opinion, they have the freedom to share both views. Both rally’s also show the freedom of assembly. Both sides are free to gather and express their opinions and views.
This protest and rally are both good examples of proper use of the First Amendment to speak and expressive opposing opinions.
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