NASSAU COUNTY, NY – In a win for free expression, a U.S. District Court granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting Nassau County officials from enforcing the county’s law that squashes constitutionally-protected speech within 35 and 100 feet of places of worship, respectively. This is the first judicial order in response to a “buffer zone” law prohibiting speech outside of places of worship in New York.
“With this ruling, the Court has rightly affirmed that Nassau County’s buffer law is likely illegal, unnecessary, and a sweeping restriction on First Amendment speech and activity,” said JP Perry, Senior Staff Attorney at the NYCLU. “It’s clear the purpose of Nassau’s law was to silence protected speech, deny residents their expressive rights to the sidewalks and streets, and to give Nassau police cover to conduct arbitrary and biased arrests. This ruling should put lawmakers across the state on high alert: unjustified and unnecessary buffer zones are illegal, and won’t hold up in court.”
“This buffer provision is unprecedented,” the district court writes in the decision. “It… prohibits… the most basic First Amendment activity, like wearing a t-shirt that contains a political, religious, or symbolic message of any kind… [and] the broad sweep of the law… constitutes a substantial infringement on core First Amendment activity.”
The NYCLU filed its original lawsuit in April, on behalf of two Long Islanders whose speech supporting immigrants’ rights has been stifled. In the suit, the NYCLU argued that Nassau’s law violates the First Amendment and Due Process, and sought to declare it unlawful and enjoin the law’s enforcement.
This lawsuit comes on the heels of Governor Hochul and the New York City Council passing legislation aimed at limiting protests outside houses of worship. It also comes as the federal government launches increasingly aggressive attacks on protest, free speech, and dissent across the nation, including the deployment of thousands of federal troops into U.S. cities following anti-ICE protests; threats of violence against anyone who dissents; the nationwide crackdown on protest; and the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.
All case materials can be found here.
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