First Amendment limits on Nazi March

[Zietlow, Rebecca E.]

Dear all,

Some of you may have heard that there was a riot here in Toledo last weekend after a group of Nazis planned a march in a residential neighborhood with a recent history of racial tension.  The Nazis did not participate in the riot, but it grew out of a counter-demonstration.  In fact, shortly before the march was scheduled to start the police told the Nazis that they could not march because the situation had already become violent.

Of course, the Nazis had a First Amendment right to march, but the question is whether they have a right to march in a residential neighborhood.  Could the city have required them to march on a commercial street, or even in a downtown location as a reasonable time place and manner restriction?  It seems to me that protecting the privacy of the home would weigh in favor of this type restriction (as it did in Frisby v. Schultz), but I don't know if that would be enough to justify it.  What do others think?  

My second question is, the Nazis are saying that they want to come back and march again.  What relevance, of any, does the violent reaction of the residents the first time have on the city's power to regulate the second planned demonstration?  (In other words, does Feiner help the city at all or is it completely discredited by the civil rights case like Cox v. Louisiana?)


Rebecca E. Zietlow 
Charles W. Fornoff Professor of Law and Values
University of Toledo College of Law 
(419) 530-2872 
rzietlo at utoledo.edu <mailto:rzietlo at utoledo.edu>