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.
“De Blasio seems to put himself directly, squarely in conflict with the First Amendment,” he told TheDCNF in an interview.
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.”
Thursday, de Blasio shot back, saying “Donald Trump’s remarks were disgusting and offensive, and this hateful language has no place in our city.”
But his press secretary went a step further, saying the city was reviewing all of Trump’s contracts. Now civil liberties advocates are striking back at the mayor’s proposed action, which Dershowitz said was “plainly unconstitutional.”
They point to a landmark 1996 Supreme Court ruling that overwhelmingly declared it was unconstitutional to tie governmental contracts to a person’s beliefs.
“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.
