Free speech wins, even using ‘Hitler’
The state’s highest court looked to the intentions, practices and philosophies of Founding Fathers Samuel Adams and John Adams to declare that, yes, you have the right to call public officials Hitler.
“The people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to assemble … to request of the legislative body, by the way of addresses, petitions, or remonstrances, redress of the wrongs done them, and of the grievances they suffer,” reads Article 19 of the state’s Declaration of Rights, one of the prime documents in informing the SJC’s ruling that reversed a lower court’s decision and found that public bodies can’t bar the public from criticizing them.
The article was written by none other than John Adams, the second president of the United States and the namesake of the courthouse on Pemberton Square where the state Supreme Judicial Court issued its ruling Tuesday that also found this provision, informed by John Adams’ fiery cousin Samuel Adams, “expressly envisions a politically active and engaged, even aggrieved and angry, populace.”
Case in point is one Louise Barron, who came to the Dec. 7, 2018, meeting of the Southboro Board of Selectmen with a, in her words, “cheap but meaningful to me” sign featuring stop signs over the word “Spending” on one side and “Stop Breaking Open Meeting Law” written on the other — but she wasn’t going to let her sign do all the talking.
“This board, like this town, has been spending like drunken sailors,” she began, before getting to the main crux of her issues with the board, which was a violation of public meeting laws days before.
“I know it’s not easy to be volunteers in town. But, you know, breaking the law is breaking the law,” she said during public comment.
Board member Daniel Kolenda fired back, “So, ma’am, if you want to slander town officials who are doing their very best … then we’re going to go ahead and stop the public comment session now —”
“Look, you need to stop being a Hitler,” Barron said, adding “You’re a Hitler. I can say what I want” over Kolenda as he initiated a recess.
The audio of the public access video of the recording cuts out here, but Kolenda could then be seen standing, jabbing his finger at Barron and shouting something. The SJC fills in his words: “You’re disgusting!” And that he was going to have her “escorted out” if she didn’t leave.
The town’s public comment policy includes a provision the SJC found invalid: “All remarks and dialogue in public meetings must be respectful and courteous, free of rude, personal or slanderous remarks.”