In a ruling Monday night, a federal judge said he would not force City Hall to widen and lengthen the route for Democratic National Convention protesters near the United Center, writing that the city has a “substantial governmental interest” in controlling expected crowds for safety reasons.
In her 24-page decision, federal judge Andrea Wood wrote that the latest challenges to the city’s proposed alternative parade route “boil down to a complaint” that City Hall failed to propose “the exact route that plaintiffs desired,” even though that route “allows them to speak in close proximity to their target audience.”
“This is not a violation of the First Amendment,” Wood wrote. “As such, the alternate parade route represents an adequate alternative channel of communication.”
The ruling, which comes just days before the convention begins, is part of an ongoing lawsuit claiming that the city of Chicago violated the protesters’ First Amendment rights by proposing an initial route through Grant Park that was far from “sight and sound” of the convention center.
Last month, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration proposed a revised route calling for protesters to gather at Union Park on the Near West Side before marching west along Washington Boulevard to Hermitage Avenue, then past a small park north of the United Center. The route then turns east on Lake Street to return to Union Park.
March organizers welcomed the new route but vowed to continue fighting for a wider and longer path to the convention center, including so that protesters can stay on Washington Boulevard instead of being diverted to smaller side streets. Other sticking points remain, including where and when the groups involved can hold a rally near the United Center.
“It’s a victory. But it’s not the victory,” Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the US Palestinian Community Network, one of the plaintiffs, told the Tribune. “Organizing works. You put a little pressure on the powers that be and you can make them move.”
However, in court last week, the two sides were still at odds, with plaintiffs’ attorney Chris Williams telling the judge they were “blindsided” by the possibility of not being able to hold a speech in a park two blocks north of the United Center.
Williams vowed to continue fighting for a plan for marches and speeches that he said would be safer than what the city has proposed and better consistent with his clients’ First Amendment rights.
“The city is doing this in a ‘take it or leave it’ way, ‘you do what we tell you,’” Williams told Wood at the Aug. 5 hearing. “It’s not enough to say, ‘You have a route, you’re going to live with it.’ You’re going to have chaos.”
In his decision Monday, Wood said that “the need to maintain an accessible route to and from the United Center in an emergency constitutes a distinct and important government interest” that is not overshadowed by free speech concerns.
The judge also noted the potential danger if the expected crowds – between 20,000 and 25,000 people according to the plaintiffs’ estimates – were allowed to continue marching on Washington Boulevard, where fencing will mark the security perimeter set up by the U.S. Secret Service.
“Simply put, allowing a crowd of this size (or even smaller) to walk directly along an inflexible barrier – regardless of how much of the street is available to pedestrians – poses a clear risk of injury,” she said.
A hearing on pending issues arising from the trial was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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