A coalition of groups planning to protest the war in Gaza during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago next week will not be able to change their route and move closer to the United Center, where the event is being held, a federal judge ruled on Aug. 12.
Thousands of protesters are set to join the four-day demonstrations beginning on Aug. 19.
The protesters plan to express their views on the Israel–Hamas conflict to officials attending the DNC, where delegates will formally endorse Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the party’s nominees for president and vice president.
The protesters are set to march a 1.4-mile route that begins and ends at Union Park, near the United Center and including side streets offered to them by the city.
However, the route has been at the center of an ongoing legal battle between city officials and protest organizers, who filed suit alleging violations of their First Amendment right to protest and pushed for a wider march route.
In her ruling on Aug. 12, U.S. District Court Judge Andrea Wood found that the current route satisfies the First Amendment.
“The Court finds that the Alternative Parade Route is narrowly tailored to address significant governmental interests and leaves open alternative channels of communication, as the First Amendment requires,” the judge wrote.
Protest Route Legal Battle
The judge also set a status hearing to resolve remaining issues on the matter.The ruling was made after the coalition, March on the DNC, filed suit against the city of Chicago and Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom Carney, alleging violations of their First Amendment right to protest.
March on the DNC is made up of more than 200 groups and organizations from across the country, including the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, the Anti-War Committee, Students for a Democratic Society at UIC, and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network.
In court filings, the coalition stated that the route offered by city officials “imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their political speech.”
It sought a preliminary injunction requiring the city to modify its route in two ways.
First, the coalition sought to remove two turns within the route that would take the protest parades away from Washington Boulevard, and second, it sought to extend the route further west, increasing its overall length by about 1 mile.
That route would have protesters march west on Washington Boulevard from Union Park, then north on Western Avenue, east on Lake Street, and back south on Ashland Avenue.
City Officials Fear ‘Crush Zone’
However, city officials argued that the route offered to the protesters—which keeps them blocks away from the United Center—did just that.They further argued that the expanded route suggested by the coalition would create a “crush zone” between protesters and the secure perimeter that is currently being installed along Washington Boulevard.
That barrier will be “between eight and ten feet high, non-scalable, and designed not to move or flex,” city officials said in court documents.
It will also be “buttressed with concrete barriers at many locations.”
In her ruling, Wood agreed, noting that the government also has to ensure that the protest does not “substantially or unnecessarily interfere with traffic in the area” and that there will be sufficient police officers available “to police and protect lawful participants in the parade and non-participants from traffic-related hazards in light of the other demands for police protection at the time of the proposed parade.”
The Epoch Times has contacted March on the DNC for further comment.
