Assoc. Dean Amar Comments on First Amendment for Chronicle, Times
Associate Dean Vikram Amar commented for the Contra Costa Times and San Francisco Chronicle on First Amendment issues raised by Bay Area Rapid Transit's shutdown of cellular phone service at a BART station as a way of controlling protests over the shooting of a homeless man by transit agency police in July. BART has a longstanding policy against "expressive activity" inside the fare gates, but some legal analysts say the policy may be overbroad and may amount to an unconstitutional restriction on speech.
Amar told the Times that the government has some latitude to control speech on certain kinds of public property, and while BART ought not to shut down cell service because it disagrees with a particular protest, the agency is within rights to ensure that the protest does not disrupt its ability to serve its riders.
"We're always a little bit more scared of government action when it's not done pursuant to some transparent, across-the-board, generally applicable policy," Amar said. "A lot depends on how much we think their policy was targeted toward these particular persons."
Vikram Amar, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law with the UC Davis School of Law, is a national authority in the fields of constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal procedure, and remedies. His biweekly column for Justia.com, a leading provider of online legal information, centers on his expertise in constitutional law.