Bloomberg comes out with an article detailing the costs of (mostly, right-wing) protests around the country. Expect this to become a key argument in favor of restricting "problematic" protests to "free speech" zones.
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The High Cost of Free Speech, From Charlottesville to the Women’s March
The security bill for one smaller rally was $84,281 for body cameras, $14,982 for a chain-link fence, $823 for 250 Chick-fil-A sandwiches for the police ...
The Women’s March in Washington on Saturday, Jan. 20, might have been the 8,701st protest in the U.S. since Donald Trump’s inauguration a year ago. Or maybe there were more. Even the Crowd Counting Consortium, run by two university professors, with lots of volunteer help, can’t track all the rallies and marches since Trump took office. But they do know that between anti-Trump protests, rallies by white nationalist groups, and counterprotests against both, Americans have been exercising their First Amendment rights at a frenetic pace.
Amid the commotion and disruption, the price of free speech has gone up. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech in public spaces: It’s a civic right with civic costs. The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the government can’t impose fees on speakers based on the expected cost of security. “Speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob,” Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in a decision prohibiting Forsyth County, Ga., from charging the Nationalist Movement a fee to demonstrate against Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The result, says David Pozen, a visiting scholar at Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute, has been that the public now effectively subsidizes the speech not only of peaceful protests like the 200 or so Women’s Marches that took place across the U.S. this January, but also that of the most controversial, inflammatory figures, even when they’re just looking for a fight. It’s the provocateurs’ privilege. “The more provocative a speaker, the more costly it is to manage that event and the more ordinary people are going to have to bear those costs,” Pozen says.
When a group called the New Confederate States of America planned a rally on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., in mid-September, the city spent $570,000 to provide security. The bill included $84,280.85 for body cameras, $14,982 for a chain-link fence around the nearby Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletic Center, and $822.50 for 250 Chick-fil-A sandwiches for police officers. Half a dozen people showed up to march near a statue of Robert E. Lee; many times that number came out to protest. A League of the South rally in Murfreesboro, Tenn., in October didn’t amount to much either, except in costs to the city and county, about $350,000 in all.
Berkeley, Calif., has borne a particular burden. “We represent progressive forward thinking, and the white supremacists and hate groups come here to challenge us, provoke us, thumb their nose at us,” says Mayor Jesse Arreguin. His office estimates that it spent an additional $1 million for police and fire officers over the past year. “That had a significant impact on our city budget—it’s money not available for affordable housing, infrastructure, and crime prevention,” Arreguin says. The University of California at Berkeley paid an even higher price for its commitment to free speech in 2017: Five planned rallies and talks—including a Free Speech Week organized by the self-described right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos, which was ultimately canceled but still led to violence among those gathered—came to $4.84 million. The university, already tackling a $110 million deficit, spent more than $200,000 on barricades alone.
Even peaceful defiance has had a price. In August the city spent $4,000 to print 20,000 posters that read “Berkeley stands united against hate.” (The bill for that was crowdfunded.)
At the center of the controversy over how much the public should have to pay is Richard Spencer, the white nationalist who gave a Nazi salute to a cheering crowd after Trump’s election, was punched in the head outside the inauguration, and called the August tiki-torch march in Charlottesville, Va., “magical.” A supporter of Spencer, Cameron Padgett, has sued several public universities that refused to allow Spencer to speak on campus, claiming they were denying his First Amendment rights. In April, Auburn University in Alabama agreed to pay $29,000 in legal costs after Padgett successfully challenged its attempt to cancel Spencer’s speech, and Padgett recently brought a lawsuit against the University of Cincinnati for seeking a $10,833 security fee because of the disruption it anticipates when Spencer comes to campus during the school’s spring break.
On Oct. 19, Spencer arrived at the University of Florida in Gainesville with a small entourage. He hadn’t been invited, and he wouldn’t be welcomed, but he had the First Amendment on his side—and a $10,564 contract covering an auditorium rental on the edge of campus and basic security for the venue. Providing some of that security was Ricardo Delbrey, a 33-year-old black Puerto Rican police officer at the University of Central Florida in Orlando who was born on a naval base in Spain and served in Afghanistan.
For about a month, local law enforcement agencies had planned how to keep Spencer supporters from around the country—whom they expected to be armed and hostile—separate from the protesters, mostly angry students, and what to do if they encountered one another. The potential for violence was high, and three days before the speech, Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency. The night before the speech, Delbrey was told that he would be stationed inside the auditorium, in front of the stage, the last line of defense for Spencer. “It was kind of mixed feelings for me when I found out, being a military man and fighting for rights, for the Constitution, but knowing what he preaches,” Delbrey says. “Why am I protecting someone who preaches things I don’t believe? I had to keep in mind that this is what I signed up for.”
On Oct. 19, a SWAT team was on campus, helicopters were in the sky, and emergency responders stood by. The university sealed off roads, closed buildings, and canceled some classes. Inside the auditorium, students and other protesters shouted down Spencer, who insulted them and left the stage early. The protesters then chased his supporters off campus. Three white nationalists from Texas were arrested after one fired a single shot into the crowd.
Spencer says his talks are supposed to “make a splash,” and by that measure he considers the event, such as it was and as expensive as he says it was for him, a success. So does the university: The violence was brief and caused no serious injury. But the school spent far more than Spencer—some $600,000, much of it for overtime for the hundreds of security personnel. That figure doesn’t account for the untold hours spent calming anxious students and planning an alternative rally on the other side of campus.
Was it worth it? “Yes,” says Delbrey. “Free speech is what the nation is founded on. If we stop him, someone could stop others who are worth listening to. Everybody has the right to freedom of speech. But we have the freedom to listen—or not. He can talk, but you don’t have to listen.”
Richard Spencer (background) gives a speech as police officer Ricardo Delbrey provides security at the University of Florida in Gainesville on Oct. 19, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Gainesville, Fla., Oct. 19
Alachua County reports that it spent $302,184 on security for Richard Spencer’s speech at the University of Florida. That doesn’t include pay for officers such as Ricardo Delbrey, shown above.
$260,494 Law enforcement
$15,829 Communication services
$19,518 Fire and rescue personnel
$4,918 Jail costs
Source: Alachua County Board of County Commissioners
Police in riot gear in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON/REDUX
Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12
Many of the 85 or so businesses along the city’s eight-block pedestrian mall opened their doors on Aug. 12, even as thousands of white nationalists and militia members marched to nearby Emancipation Park for the Unite the Right Rally. A few minutes after noon, when violent clashes with counterprotesters persuaded Governor Terry McAuliffe to declare a state of emergency, most everyone closed up shop. About an hour later, Heather Heyer was killed and 19 others injured when a white nationalist drove into a crowd.
“We don’t have a way to calculate the losses from that weekend,” says Joan Fenton, owner of Quilts Unlimited and chair of the Downtown Business Association. The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce does. It reports that sales tax revenue declined 11.8 percent in September from the year before. “Those creeps invaded our town, hijacked our identity, and caused tremendous damage to our business community and our psyche,” says Timothy Hulbert, the chamber’s president. Even if the city offers a recovery package, Fenton expects that some businesses will close and that it will be at least a year before Charlottesville recovers. “We’ve been branded,” she says.
$50,347 Law enforcement
$14,176 Police logistics, including:
$2,900 Barriers
$2,414 Lodging
$562 Pizza
Source: Charlottesville Police Department, Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce
Businesses in Murfreesboro, Tenn., board up their storefronts before a White Lives Matter rally on Oct. 28, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Murfreesboro, Tenn., Oct. 28
As police prepared for a White Lives Matter march through downtown, David Sproles, a financial adviser at Edward Jones, decided to board up his office and another one nearby. The company sent a crew, just as they would for a hurricane. The cost: $2,890. Another rally took place in nearby Shelbyville; afterward, marchers gathered at a park in Chapel Hill.
$101,237 City personnel
$128,050 Gas masks with voice projection
$24,998 Barricades
Source: City of Murfreesboro, Edward Jones
Milo Yiannopoulos leaves Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley after being jeered by a large group of counterdemonstrators on Sept. 24, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON/REDUX
Berkeley, Calif., Sept. 24
A Free Speech Week organized by former Breitbart News columnist Milo Yiannopoulos turned into a 15-minute appearance at the University of California at Berkeley, where Yiannopoulos signed autographs and posed for selfies. “The most expensive photo op in the university’s history,” spokesman Dan Mogulof called it at the time.
$2.44 million Additional security personnel
$111,860 Barricades
$93,178 Campus police overtime
$65,062 Hotel rooms
$95,734 Facility rental
$25,999 Meals
$28,883 Van rentals
Source: University of California at Berkeley
Police in riot gear at a free speech rally at Boston Common on Aug. 19, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON/REDUX
Boston, Aug. 19
More than 500 police officers were on duty for a planned free speech rally at Boston Common that wound up attracting the attention of white nationalists. Some 40,000 people showed up to protest the event, leading organizers to abandon it.
$225,131 Police overtime
$10,230 Barrier trucks
Source: Boston Police Department
Police officer on a motorcycle at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2018.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Washington, D.C., Jan. 20
A year after Trump’s inauguration, tens of thousands of protesters marched from the Lincoln Memorial, down 17th Street, and to the White House. Like the 2017 march, the event was relatively peaceful—the organizers’ main security concern this year was people walking on the frozen Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as the temperature rose. Even peaceful protests can be expensive, but no official was prepared to estimate the cost of the two Women’s Marches. Congress sets aside money each year to help the city cover the costs of First Amendment activities.
$13 million Amount requested from Congress to help the city pay for providing public safety at events in the capital
Source: Washington, D.C., 2018 Budget
Police officers make an arrest at a rally in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 10, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON/REDUX
Portland, Ore., Sept. 10
Acting Police Captain Ryan Lee says that when protesters impede a major street in the city, the estimated cost is $234,000 per hour in lost economic activity. Then, “there’s a cascading effect,” he says. “If a restaurant isn’t getting much business, the microeconomics extend to the waiters and waitresses.”
$234,000 Per hour in lost economic activity
Source: Acting Captain Ryan Lee, Portland Police Bureau
A young girl stands in heart circles drawn by her mother in front of Alamo Square in San Francisco on Aug. 26, 2017.PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK PETERSON/REDUX
San Francisco, Aug. 26
Patriot Prayer, a pro-Trump group led by Joey Gibson, abruptly canceled plans for a controversial free speech march and rally at Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge. The National Park Service had granted the group a permit despite objections from the city. According to records obtained by the San Francisco Examiner, the city spent $775,000 on public safety and $115,000 on extra buses and traffic control. The mayor’s office says it has requested reimbursement from the federal government.
$890,000 Security and transit
Data Sheet Maps | On Musical Chicks | Rep Point Changes | Au Pairs on a Boat
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Spaniard88: "The "believe anything" crew contributes: "She's probably a good girl, maybe she lost her virginity to someone with AIDS and only had sex once before you met her...give her a chance.""
