Farrakhan and the First

Apparently believing that he underreacted to Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan the last time he was here, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley is trying to make up for it by overreacting this time around. His announced desire to prevent Farrakhan from speaking at the Convention Center on Aug. 8 is a violation of the First Amendment, hands down.

Everyone condemns Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic and anti-Korean message. But Farrakhan has a right to rent the city-owned Convention Center on equal terms with any other renter. The city may not pick and choose among users of the Convention Center on the basis of the content of the speech that they propose to use it for.

The Convention Center is a public forum, and it enjoys full First Amendment protection. The building has been used for similar events in the past. Baptist organizations, for example, have met there. On another occasion, when a Russian exhibition was under way in the hall, the right of the Jewish Federation Council to lease space there at the same time was recognized.

City Attorney Jimmy Hahn was absolutely correct to raise the First Amendment issue when Bradley instructed him to find a way to break the contract with Farrakhan. “The Constitution forbids us from precluding anyone’s right to speak, regardless of how repugnant the message may be,” Hahn said. Good for him for pointing that out.

Having opened the place to all comers in the past, the city may not now close it to a group that it doesn’t like, no matter how reprehensible the group’s views. Nor is it relevant that Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam may have misled the city by renting the place under the name of Respect for Life, a subsidiary organization that markets the Black Muslims’ line of cosmetics and health products. The group would have been entitled to rent the Convention Center if it had used the name Nation of Islam.

First Amendment cases frequently involve the rights of people whose speech is distasteful or worse. No one ever tries to stop people who have popular things to say. In Bradley’s rush to make up for his initial silence on Farrakhan two years ago, he forgot that the First Amendment exists to protect unpopular views.