The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has overturned a prior district court decision, concluding that the city showed “selective enforcement” when arresting two pro-life activists for chalking public sidewalks in 2020.
The court observed that this arrest took place while the city officials seemingly ignored similar acts by Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors during the same period, The National Pulse reports.
In the summer of 2020, the District of Columbia witnessed extensive BLM protests.
Demonstrators extensively marked the city’s streets, sidewalks, and buildings with paint and chalk.
Despite these actions violating the District’s defacement ordinance, “none of the protesters were arrested.”
Contrastingly, during a protest led by The Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America, two pro-life advocates were taken into custody for chalking “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” on a sidewalk.
Following the arrests, both organizations launched a legal battle against the city, arguing that the inconsistent law enforcement was a manifestation of viewpoint discrimination, thus infringing on the First Amendment rights of the detained protestors.
Judge Neomi Rao, authoring the court’s opinion, emphasized, “The First Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of viewpoint irrespective of the government’s motive. We hold the Foundation has plausibly alleged the District discriminated on the basis of viewpoint in the selective enforcement of its defacement ordinance.”
She further highlighted numerous instances where BLM protestors defaced D.C. public properties without facing arrests.
The BLM protests that transpired in Washington, D.C. during 2020 reportedly led to damages costing the city around $14.5 million.
Read the ruling below:
