Are protestors criminals in America?
TOP STORY: Is that college kid a criminal?
Protesting is as American as apple pie.
Right?
Nope. Not if you live in one of the 21 states where Republicans have passed laws to criminalize and/or punish people exercising this constitutional right.
In fact, outlawing run-of-the-mill rallies is such a popular item on the ultraconservative to-do list, 41 bills in 22 states have already been introduced in state legislators this year — according to a recent piece in The Guardian.
And that’s a steep rise from the already worrisome 52 bills introduced last year.
Want to know if your state is on that list?
Check out the U.S. Protest Law Tracker.
Want to know what companies and non-profits in your state support this?
Check out The Center for Media and Democracy’s Anti-Protest Lobby Tracker.
Here’s what the state measures are doing:
Punishing environmental activists for protesting in certain areas.
Making it harder for police to be charged if they kill a protestor.
Tips on Alerting People to Anti-Protest laws in your state
Find protestors who have been disciplined, slapped with fines and/or arrested. Use them as a peg for stories about the laws and the legislators who are pushing them.
Find companies in your state that lobbied for these unconstitutional measures, using the Anti-Protest Lobby Tracker.
*GOOD FOR BIZ REPORTERS/STATE LEG REPORTERS
Find student groups that are self-censoring because they are worried that exercising free speech could get their members arrested, suspended or worse.
*GOOD FOR EDUCATION REPORTERS
Find local environment groups who are losing their ability to raise awareness about climate change because they are afraid to encourage members to protest.
*GOOD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTERS
Also In The News
We’re Reading
What the North Dakota GreenPeace trial is teaching us
Comic Relief
If You Like What You Are Reading:
Please share Reporting Right on your social media feeds.
Reach out for help at ReportingRight@googlegroups.com.
Tell your fellow reporters to subscribe.
See You Next Week!
Our Staff
Executive Editor Kyle Spencer
Guest Editor Chloe Taft
Our Board of Advisors
Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Copyright (C) 2024. All rights reserved.
SOS: Need reporting help? Contact:
ReportingRight@googlegroups.com