CINCINNATI — There's a renewed push to curb what's often described as hate speech following last week's neo-Nazi demonstration near Lincoln Heights. However, efforts through ordinances or resolutions aren't simple solutions.
"It’s not just our community," longtime Lincoln Heights resident Syretha Brown told WCPO. "It’s happening everywhere.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports these types of groups — often anonymous, clad in all black, flaunting Nazi symbolism — are ramping up their appearances. The SPLC branded many of the groups as "known hate groups."
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In November, a group similar to the one seen in the Tri-State marched in Columbus, Ohio. That same month, an apparent neo-Nazi group marched in Milwaukee. And in July, a group showed up in Nashville.
The Nashville demonstrations prompted lawmakers there to pass six different measures to curb their rhetoric and public displays. In Nashville, they did several things — prohibited the placement of signs on highway overpasses, revised the policy surrounding wearing masks and created buffer zones around public spaces for demonstrations.
What can be done here?
When it comes to protesting and the First Amendment, the current legal test was actually established here in the Cincinnati area. In 1969, Hamilton County prosecutors charged a Ku Klux Klan leader in connection with a demonstration held on a farm on Cincinnati's east side.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio, Clarence Brandenburg, a leader in the KKK, gave a speech at a Klan rally. Because of that speech, Brandenburg was convicted of advocating violence under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism Statute. The law made it illegal to advocate "crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform."
Brandenburg v. Ohio made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Klan leader won. This win established the "Brandenburg Test," which requires prosecutors to prove the person speaking directly advocated for lawless actions and that their pushing for those actions is immediate and "likely to occur."
Civil Rights attorney Marc Mezibov warned restrictions on any speech would need to pass this type of high constitutional bar.
"Speech can be disturbing, can be challenging, can be provocative and difficult sometimes for the listener to absorb, but that doesn't mean it isn't protected," Mezibov told WCPO.
Unlike other areas across the country, the Greater Cincinnati area is unique in that on top of ensuring free speech is protected, the city has extremely close self-governing communities, like Lincoln Heights, Lockland and Evendale.
So, unless those neighboring areas pass similar or identical ordinances that survive legal challenges, there won't be much change.
“Certainly we are here to be supportive and listening to the residents of Lincoln Heights," said Cincinnati council member Meeka Owens. "In fact, a gentleman was in chambers to give public testimony because he was actually on that bridge and drove through. We're not sitting on our hands, twiddling our thumbs at all at this. And we through, every legal means available to us will make sure we're pursuing that. We will make sure that we are understanding how we respond."
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