This reminds me of the controversy around whether or not Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter when he was president. Some people were saying that as a public official, he had no right to do that. I don’t recall whether there was any authoritative legal decision about it one way or another…
I consider myself a free-speech absolutist. I think even terrible people saying terrible things have the right to express themselves. However, I think banning these people from city council meetings doesn’t infringe on their right to express themselves at all. They can still speak freely to anyone who wants to listen.
The city council meeting is for the benefit of the council members and they should be free to decide which speech is useful for them to hear and which isn’t. There’s no more reason for them to listen to everyone who wants to talk than there is for them to read letters from everyone who wants to write to them. (It would be silly to make them read every letter if they wanted to read any letter.)
The meeting does serve a secondary purpose of allowing participants to address each other rather than the council members, but this is IMO incidental and preventing it does not limit anyone’s freedom of expression - they can still talk in public if they want to.
This reminds me of the controversy around whether or not Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter when he was president. Some people were saying that as a public official, he had no right to do that. I don’t recall whether there was any authoritative legal decision about it one way or another…
I consider myself a free-speech absolutist. I think even terrible people saying terrible things have the right to express themselves. However, I think banning these people from city council meetings doesn’t infringe on their right to express themselves at all. They can still speak freely to anyone who wants to listen.
The city council meeting is for the benefit of the council members and they should be free to decide which speech is useful for them to hear and which isn’t. There’s no more reason for them to listen to everyone who wants to talk than there is for them to read letters from everyone who wants to write to them. (It would be silly to make them read every letter if they wanted to read any letter.)
The meeting does serve a secondary purpose of allowing participants to address each other rather than the council members, but this is IMO incidental and preventing it does not limit anyone’s freedom of expression - they can still talk in public if they want to.