A federal appeals court has upheld a ban on chalking outside the White House, the second time in the past two months the court has ruled that certain forms of protest are prohibited at D.C. landmarks.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Tuesday that the District’s defacement statute — which bans defacing or defiling public or private property — is constitutional. Rev. Patrick Mahoney had challenged the law’s constitutionality after he was told to stop scribbling with sidewalk chalk outside the White House gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in a demonstration to protest President Obama’s views on abortion and to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
Mahoney filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that his First Amendment rights were violated. A judge dismissed the suit, and the circuit court affirmed that decision.
The ban serves “a significant government interest” and is “indisputably content neutral,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote in the appeals court opinion. Brown also noted that the chalking ban didn’t curtail Mahoney’s protest plans; he was still able to gather a crowd and wave signs and banners.
“No one has a First Amendment right to deface government property,” Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion. “No one has a First Amendment right, for example, to spray-paint the Washington Monument or smash the windows of a police car.”
The decision comes a month after the D.C. Circuit upheld a ban on dancing at the Jefferson Memorial. In that case, the court ruled that dancing “falls into the spectrum” of activities banned by memorial regulations after a woman arrested for dancing in 2008 had challenged her arrest. Dancing “stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration,” the appeals court wrote.
