SCOTUS Just Made Protesting Much Harder

April 16, 2024

Evening, Meteor readers,

Before we get any further away from the afterglow of March Madness, I must congratulate our top bracketologist, Em, who is getting a brand-new Meteor tote. They had this to say about their unexpected victory when I contacted them with the news:

In today’s newsletter, we dig into a ruling targeting protest organizers, talk more basketball, and share a warning about the importance of oxygen.

Looking forward to the regular season,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

Freedom of assembly? Not for everyone: If you’re a protest organizer in Mississippi, Texas, or Louisiana, your life got a lot more complicated last Friday after the Supreme Court declined to hear a lower court case out of Louisiana: Mckesson v. Doe.

The case is super layered, so let’s break it down.

The question at the heart of the case, which was first heard in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, is whether or not a protest organizer can be held financially liable for the actions of an attendee who does something illegal. The organizer named in the suit is DeRay Mckesson, the famed blue-vest-wearing Black Lives Matter activist (and podcast host) who organized a protest outside a Baton Rouge police station in 2016. During the action, a police officer was struck by a rock thrown by an unknown person who was present. There is no evidence that Mckesson himself injured the police officer; the accusation is that he created an environment that allowed for the officer to be injured.

In the eyes of the conservative Fifth Circuit, Mckesson is financially liable for the illegal actions of this unknown assailant. But the legal logic to justify that is…loose. Under a 1982 court ruling in the case of NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware, protest organizers can only be held liable if evidence finds that they incited illegal activity through speech or authorized illegal action by attendees. But adhering strictly to that ruling would have let Mckesson off the hook, so the Fifth Circuit—with six Trump appointees—went further by adding an extra (intentionally vague) rule to the list of ways organizers can be found liable. According to this court, “The First Amendment does not apply ‘where a defendant creates unreasonably dangerous conditions, and where his creation of those conditions causes a plaintiff to sustain injuries.’”

Because Mckesson’s protest blocked access to a police station and a public highway (a very common tactic in direct actions), he created “unreasonably dangerous conditions” and is therefore liable. As one judge on the Fifth Circuit who wrote a dissenting opinion on the ruling noted, the decision would unfairly make organizers liable for “the unlawful acts of counter-protesters and agitators.”

Without action from SCOTUS, the ruling won’t be overturned, and any future organizer in Texas, Mississippi, or Louisiana will face great financial risk for anything that happens at their protest. While this doesn’t all-out ban protesting, it certainly makes it much harder to organize.

The move couldn’t come at a worse time. Protestors have taken to the streets over abortion rights, trans rights, and climate change over the last year, and just yesterday, protestors in California, Oregon, and New York blocked major roads to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. If you’re organizing a protest over any issue and want to know your rights, learn more here.

AND:

As predicted by literally everyone, Caitlin Clark was the overall top pick at last night’s WNBA Draft. It was a great broadcast made all the better by hosts Rebecca Lobo and Andraya Carter, and the fashion with a capital F was chef’s kiss. Clark is now officially part of the Indiana Fever, where she is projected to earn a base salary of $76,535. (Don’t feel too bad though; her NIL deals are worth $3 million.) You’ve probably seen the posts about what Caitlin would make if she were a man (the NBA salary minimum is over $1 million.) It’s worth noting that there are a lot of factors that go into this disparity, such as market size, team salary caps, imbalanced revenue sharing, and, of course, sexism. But make no mistake: Year after year, the W has shown that it can bring in viewership, and this year’s draft class is already selling out games. The money is in the room with us.

CLARK AND WNBA COMMISSIONER CATHY ENGELBERT (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

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