Does the First Amendment Protect Alt-Right Parades in Portland? – NBCNews.com

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks during a press conference on January 17, 2017 in Portland. Don Ryan / AP

"It may be tempting to shut down speech we disagree with, but once we allow the government to decide what we can say, see, or hear, or who we can gather with, history shows us that the most marginalized will be disproportionately censored and punished for unpopular speech," said the organization in a statement immediately following Wheeler's call to block the parades.

"The mayor is not just anyone on the street, he's a government official who has to uphold the Constitution," said Mathew dos Santos, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. "And he's not doing that," he said.

"Portland has a proud history of protest. I am a firm supporter of the First Amendment, no matter the views expressed. I believe we had a case to make about the threats to public safety posed by this rally at this place and at this time. My job is to protect the safety of everyone... protesters, counter-protesters, and bystanders alike," said Wheeler in a

Alt-right groups have scheduled a "Trump Free Speech Rally," on June 4. A "March against Sharia" event was scheduled for June 10 but organizers decided to cancel the rally in Portland and move it to Seattle instead.

Organizers felt the city was no longer safe for them.

"Due to Mayor Wheeler's inflammatory comments and what we feel is an incitement of violence, he has shamefully endangered every scheduled participant. Consequently, in order to ensure the safety of those who had planned on attending, we have taken the decision to cancel the Portland March Against Sharia," wrote the organization planning the march in a

June 4th parade organizer Joey Gibson said the mayor "needs to sit down and take a minute and listen," and feels that he is trying to "pin" Jeremy Christian on his movement.

Christian, who was arraigned on

The City of Portland has already

Wheeler also urged the federal government to follow in his footsteps and revoke federal permits issued to the group.

But the U.S. General Services Administration, charged with issuing permits, announced on Wednesday that it would allow the parades.

"All rules and regulations were followed by the applicant for the permit, including the timeframe for review. Since the permit was lawfully obtained to assemble at this federal location, GSA has no basis to revoke the permit," the agency said in a statement.

Revoking permits amounts to government suppression of speech, which has always been illegal, dos Santos said. You cannot withhold permits based on people's viewpoints, he said.

The case is a mirror image of another First Amendment battle out near Chicago 40 years ago.

In 1977, a neo-Nazi organization chose to stage their parade in the suburban Chicago town of Skokie, which at the time was home to thousands of Holocaust survivors.

Parade goers were slated to wear Nazi uniforms and emulate salutes and anti-Jewish chants from Nazi Germany.

Outraged community members tried to put a stop to the parade by using the same arguments set forth by Wheeler. The group said the parade promotes hate speech that would inflict emotional distress upon survivors of the Holocaust.

A girl leaves a message at a makeshift memorial for two men on May 29, 2017 in Portland. The men were killed on a commuter train while trying to stop another man from harassing two young women who appeared to be Muslim. Terray Sylvester / Reuters

Ultimately the Nazi group, represented by the ACLU, won at the Supreme Court level and was legally allowed to march under the first amendment. The group ended up holding a rally downtown instead.

"Part of the problem with hate speech is that it's in the eye of the beholder," said Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. "There is no neutral way to decide what hate speech is and courts will not even attempt it," he said.

The alt-right group has not made any indication that they are planning to incite imminent danger or violence during the parade, which may be questionable under the law, he said. "The idea that you can ban speech because it's offensive or may cause anxiety is not consistent with the first amendment."

Thus far, the alt-right group has not brought suit against the city for revoking their permits, but if the situation does arise, it's an open and shut case, Stone said.

"It's inconceivable to me that a court would uphold the mayor's argument," he said. "This is long standing, well-settled law, and the mayor has it completely wrong," he said.

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Does the First Amendment Protect Alt-Right Parades in Portland? - NBCNews.com