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New Haven's Removal of Columbus Statue from Public Park Isn't a First Amendment Violation
From Friday's decision by Judge Janet C. Hall (D. Conn.) in American Italian Women for Greater New Haven v. City of New Haven:
[T]he Columbus statue is government speech and, as such, AIW has no cognizable free speech interest in it. Indeed, the Supreme Court has directly foreclosed such a claim. In Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum (2009), the Court "held that the messages of permanent monuments in a public park constituted government speech, even when the monuments were privately funded and donated." Where a city is "communicat[ing] governmental messages," as is the case here, it is "free to choose the [monument it displays] without the constraints of the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause." This is in contrast to when a city opens up a space "for citizens to express their own views," thereby creating a public forum and subjecting that forum to First Amendment constraints.
Here, the City has reserved the statue for its own expression and has not opened up Wooster Square for citizens to display statues of their own choosing there. Thus, the decision to display (or remove) the statue is government speech not subject to "the constraints of the First Amendment's Free Speech clause."
Clearly correct, I think. The government can choose which statues to put up and which not to put up, and does so all the time; it can likewise choose which ones to take down.
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I agree. Clearly correct that this is government speech. Also true that New Haven has (or had, last time I looked) a democratic government, so if the people object to the removal of the statue as (say) anti-Italian (or anti-European) bigotry, they can vote the bigots out of office.
It is not a First Amendment violation. It is anti-white, hate filled, racist vandalism. Columbus was a great man who brought civilization to this continent.
New Haven is also quite liberal so maybe the democratic government was elected (in part), to remove the statute.
statue….ugh…..
I bet the vast majority of people don’t care but you have more loudmouths speaking against the statue than for it.
They are all Jew haters as well as anti white racists, deniers of his greatness. They are here in the US because of his pioneering. They are also disrespecting Spanish culture of the time. He behaved as the Spanish did at home, harshly.
Seems like Spain of the 15th century wasn’t Jew friendly either.
“In Castile, once-flourishing aljamas such as those of Seville, Toledo, and Burgos lost many of their members; in 1492, the year of the expulsion, in the Crown of Aragon only a quarter of the former number of Jews remained. The famous Jewish community of Gerona, for example, was left with only 24 families.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain
>Clearly correct that this is government speech.
Probably right, but I think the analysis is a bit more complicated. For example, I recall some cases saying that e.g., Congress couldn’t de-fund NEA grants to artists whose work offended various groups.
Yes, the government speech doctrine(s) need some clarification…
Which cases were those?
I’m a bit surprised to see a post about this case. It seems entirely expected and uncontroversial. based on existing law (and on the agreed-on principle that you already noted…that if a govt can choose which statues to put up, it can similarly choose which ones to not leave up).
Are there cases in this or other Jx that have come to the opposite conclusion?
Maybe this particular case wasn’t really a close call, but there has long been some unresolved issues about the exact boundaries of government speech…
“has not opened up Wooster Square for citizens to display statues of their own choosing there”
But it would be cool if they did.
I am OK with people taking statues down if they want, but I am scratching my head over why they don’t take down the statue of Elihu Yale. He started Yale with a fortune made in the slave trade. I thought that was…frowned upon?
“They” who? The New Haven city government has no say about the statues Yale puts up — or takes down — on its campus. And Yale itself, which does, is a private entity not subject to the First Amendment.
Maybe they could charge the city with…
…wait for it…
…statue-tory rape.
heh
And there’s so much work still to be done:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_named_for_Christopher_Columbus
They are erasing Latinx bodies.
“Latinx ”
An anglo-colonialist term
I agree that the government has a right to remove statues from government property. I also think that they were ethically and morally wrong to do so. But, then, governments doing ethically and morally wrong things is sorta standard practice nowadays.
“But, then, governments doing ethically and morally wrong things is sorta standard practice nowadays.”
That has always been standard practice for governments. It’s not even sorta.
“
I’d be very interested in what the “ethical” and “moral” argument actually is.
There is no valid historical connection between Christopher Columbus and the USA. AFAICT it’s simply a previously successful propaganda effort from some Italian-American groups.
Of course there will always be people who prefer the myth to the reality.
OK, bigot
Without the Colombian Exchange, the United States would not exist.
Also, he did land on American soil in both the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Not a myth.
The Columbian Exchange is a tenuous link – and after all not how Columbus is generally recognised to the present day in the US.
And as the US Virgin Islands were sold to the US in 1917 and Puerto Rico seized in 1898, that hardly constitutes a genuine US connection. It certainly isn’t “landing on American soil” in the regular sense of the term.
This is just another step towards White Genocide. All White heroes must be replaced with non-white ones.
You are in reality what Kirkland considers every non-leftist commenter to be.
Thank you for this.
This is just another step towards White Genocide.
You know shit about genocide.
Good lord.
Guess I’ll block you for being a white nationalist.
White Genocide
Who can we get to be the face of the victims of White Genocide?
You know…to shed a tear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM
Big reassurance hug, my sad and scared little snowflake.
While I can see that the question of removing a monument or statue would not fall under the first amendment freedom of speech…
Might such a removal violate a deed of gift or contract with the donor? Especially if the gift was conditioned upon perpetual display on a location….especially in cases where the location was itself part of the donation. I can think of a number of late 19th & early 20th century parks which came conditioned with a monument prominently & permanently installed. While I understand that a government can not itself bind its successors in perpetuity, I’m not sure if the same holds for contracts with outside parties. And if a current government wanted to end the display, would they be obligated to return the monument to its donors (or their heirs)? What about land donated as part of the monument?
Well, if the plaintiffs here had a valid contract they could sue on, they presumably would have. My guess is that few cities, even in the 1890s, would commit themselves to display a monument in perpetuity; I doubt that they would even promise to return the monument. And even if they did so promise the donors, I doubt that these particular plaintiffs would own those donors’ contractual rights. It’s conceivable that there might be such a contract that someone might still be able to enforce — it’s just not very likely, which may be why it didn’t happen here.
I wonder if a promise to display the statue forever would be considered binding over a century later.
In this case the plaintiffs were found to have standing, contrary to a similar recent case involving a monument in Florida(?). Plaintiff “participates in an annual ceremony where its members lay wreaths at the base of the statue on Columbus Day.” This is like wanting to look at wildlife, which gives standing to enforce all sorts of federal laws.
I am a little dubious of the dismissal of the discrimination claims, not because I think they have merit but because of the tension with employment law where employees are allowed to cry “discrimination!” when they are upset about something that doesn’t upset another type of employee.
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033595859/virginia-supreme-court-remove-statue-robert-e-lee-confederate-richmond
OK, so just what are the limits of “government speech?”
We know the state can’t endorse “religion” (leaving aside how broadly to define that…). And then Masterpiece told us that the state can’t actively *condemn* people’s religious beliefs, at least for the fairly typical traditional beliefs that were at issue in that case…
But what else? Can the state condemn religions that promote racial discrimination? Can they endorse ostensibly “secular” positions that just happen to be the opposite of what their religiously-motivated counterparts believe (e.g., “Science says the resurrection didn’t happen…,” etc.)? Can the state endorse themselves (i.e., incumbents) for reelection? Can they endorse hot-button political issues that just happen to be at the center of election discourse (e.g., “find out where the candidates stand on gun control,” etc.)?
Some of these issues may be addressed via statutes at the moment, but I’m really wondering what the 1A lines are…
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Yeah, whatever’s thoughts on the colonization of the America’s, Columbus a truly exceptionally unusually repellent man, and I can see very little reason to be celebrating him. Even his “accomplishment” of crossing the Atlantic was the product of ignorance and fortuity rather than anything praiseworthy.
Queenie is a Jew hater given the background of Columbus.
Of course, that sort of discipline was standard fare at that time.
“Even his “accomplishment” of crossing the Atlantic was the product of ignorance and fortuity rather than anything praiseworthy.”
Actually, there is some evidence he knew that there was a land mass here and that his talk to the crowns of Italy, Portugal, and finally Spain about finding a western route to India was a con job to get his expedition funded. A con job that finally worked on Spain.
To be fair, I’ve been told by expert sailors that Columbus’s voyage was a great feat of seamanship.
Can you point to the evidence you have in mind? My understanding is that he believed, for a variety of dumb reasons, that Asia and/or Japan extended much further east than it actually does (and than conventional European geographers believed)—far enough to make a voyage feasible with late-15th-century sailing technology.