 WCLRF Represents NDP in Access Case 4-21-98 The Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom has taken on the representation of a group of Oak Park (IL) National Day of Prayer organizers who have been denied access to the local village hall. The organizers' attorneys filed suit yesterday in Illinois federal district court. The court will hold a hearing on the plaintiffs' motion for temporary restraining order today at 2:15 central time. Martin DeBoer and others interested in holding a National Day of Prayer event in Oak Park have been seeking to use Village Hall for an NDP meeting since 1992. Although village officials permitted them to use the hall in 1992 and 1993, they denied access in 1994 and 1995 on the ground that their intended use was "religious." Later in 1995, the village adopted a new "Village Hall Use Policy" that gives village officials extraordinary power to pick and choose which outside groups can use the facility. Under this new policy, the village denied the NDP requests to use village hall in 1996, 1997, and 1998. Among other things, the policy empowers village officials to reject any group whose proposed speech will not "benefit the public as a whole." Moreover, the policy permits village officials to reject any applicant whose proposed speech is "based on or promotes or espouses the philosophy, ideas or beliefs of any particular group, entity or organization." The federal civil rights complaint filed yesterday identifies a number of unconstitutional defects in the village hall use policy. Among others, the complaint observes that the policy gives village officials unbridled discretion, in the sense that it lacks sufficient precision to guide officials' decisionmaking. This opens the door to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. The courts have repeatedly struck down such policies. The complaint further observes that the policy impermissibly allows village officials to determine access based upon the content of the proposed speech. To faithfully execute the policy, village officials have to ask, "will the proposed speech benefit the public as a whole?" The First Amendment's Free Speech Clause forbids government officials to make access to fora like this turn on such questions. Since the policy's adoption, the village has permitted groups like the NAACP and the League of Women Voters to use village hall. It is fair to say that the village has violated its own policy, given that these groups -- like virtually all imaginable groups -- engaged in speech consistent with their "ideas" or "philosophy." In addition, the village plainly determine that their speech "benefitted the public as a whole" while, in their opinion, the prayers said at the NDP gathering would not. WCLRF cooperating attorneys representing the plaintiffs are CLS member Kevin Todd (and other attorneys with Hoogendorn, Talbot, Davids, Godfrey & Milligan, and David E. Hoy) Gregory S. Baylor
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