Clay, Constitutional Scholar Ask Speaker Ryan to Reject “Vigilante Censorship”
WASHINGTON – As Republican efforts to attack the 1st Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression continue in the U.S. House, Congressman Wm. Lacy Clay (D) Missouri and his colleague, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D) Maryland, who is himself a constitutional scholar and instructor at American University on that same subject; sent an urgent letter to Speaker Paul Ryan (R) Wisconsin, asking him to turn aside calls to deprive a talented young American of his constitutional rights.
In the letter, which is attached in its entirely, Mr. Clay and Mr. Raskin noted that U.S. Supreme Court precedent clearly overrides any other restrictions or objections to artwork displayed in a limited public forum, regardless of whether that artwork is considered to be objectionable by some.
The letter notes in-part:
“In America we don’t arrest artwork. As the Member who sponsored the art work at issue and a Member who is a First Amendment constitutional scholar, we write to express our grave concern that you may follow up on an act of vigilante censorship in the House of Representatives by taking formal steps to remove a painting by St. Louis Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School Senior David Pulphus from display on a wall in the tunnel between the Cannon House Office Building and the Capitol.
The young man’s painting depicts a scene involving police officers pointing their guns at an African-American man, with the two officers and the African-American man all appearing to have animal-like facial features. The painting appears to show protesters in the background. We believe that removing this work – which has been on display for six months as one of more than 400 winning high school entries selected from each congressional district through the annual Congressional Art Competition – would be a violation of First Amendment free speech rights.
As the Supreme Court’s majority put it in Texas v. Johnson (1989) in a famous opinion that drew the support of Justice Antonin Scalia as well as Justice William Brennan:
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
The argument that the First Amendment does not protect Mr. Pulphus in this case because his painting violates the rules of the Congressional Art Competition or because the House may enforce decorum is unavailing.
We have no power to censor citizens based on their political viewpoint in the name of official “decorum.” By opening the Cannon tunnel (not the floor of the House) to the display of privately-created artwork by high school students in each Member’s district, the House has made the Cannon tunnel a limited public forum for these purposes, reserving the tunnel for a particular group (in this case, the selected student artists whose work has been so installed) to express themselves.
As the Supreme Court has made clear, once the government “has opened a limited forum . . . [it] must respect the lawful boundaries it has itself set. [It] may not exclude speech where its distinction is not reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum . . . nor may it discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint.”
This painting has already been selected and approved for display under the existing rules and procedures set by the House for the Congressional Art Competition. It passed the only legitimate screen, which is one of artistic merit and esthetic excellence. It has been on display for six months and has not harmed a single person over the course of that time. Stripping it from the competition under the guise of “protecting decorum” is an obvious pretext for violating Mr. Pulphus’ freedom of expression as an American.”