Legal Experts: NYC Mayor Action Against Trump ‘Not the American Way’
Civil liberty advocates are jumping all over New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s order to “review” all of Donald Trump’s city contracts because of his recent comments on Mexican immigrants.
“This is not the American Way,” observed Alan Dershowitz, Harvard’s most distinguished civil liberties law professor, about the chilling effect de Blasio’s action could have on freedom of speech . . .
At his presidential campaign kickoff, Trump said immigrants from Mexico are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people” . . .
“The city says, ‘We don’t want to renew it because we don’t like your speech.’ That would presumptively violate the First Amendment,” noted UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh in a DCNF interview. “The statement by the Mayor is a real danger to public debate,” he said, charging it would set dubious precedent for all city contractors, big and small.
The law professor, who also posts the “Volokh Conspiracy” blog on the Washington Post, explained that the First Amendment rights for government contractors were long ago resolved in the Umbehr case. In a 7 to 2 majority written by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s, the court declared that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech shielded government contractors from facing the revocation of existing contracts due to things they said in public. (Read more from “Legal Experts: NYC Mayor Action Against Trump ‘Not the American Way'” HERE)
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