Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization

Supreme Court of the United States
307 U.S. 496 (1939)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

While municipalities may regulate the use of public forums like streets and parks with reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, they may not abridge or deny the rights of free speech and peaceable assembly by granting officials unfettered discretion to issue or deny permits for such activities.

Facts:

The Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), along with other labor organizations and individuals, sought to organize workers in Jersey City, New Jersey.
To accomplish this, they planned to hold public meetings, distribute leaflets, and display placards to inform workers about the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the benefits of unionization.
Frank Hague, the Mayor of Jersey City, and other city officials, implemented a policy to prevent these unionizing activities.
Pursuant to a city ordinance, officials repeatedly denied the CIO's applications for permits to hold public meetings in the city's streets and parks.
The ordinance gave the Director of Public Safety the authority to deny a permit if, after investigation, he believed it proper to do so to prevent 'riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage.'
Officials also enforced a separate ordinance that flatly prohibited the distribution of any pamphlets or circulars on public streets.
Acting on the mayor's policy, police forcibly ejected CIO members from the city, arrested individuals for distributing leaflets, and seized their materials.

Procedural Posture:

The Committee for Industrial Organization and individual plaintiffs sued Mayor Frank Hague and other Jersey City officials in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
The plaintiffs sought an injunction to prevent the officials from interfering with their rights of free speech and assembly.
The District Court, after a trial on the merits, found for the plaintiffs and issued a decree enjoining the defendants' actions.
The defendants, Hague et al., appealed the decision to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The Circuit Court of Appeals modified one provision of the decree but otherwise affirmed the District Court's judgment.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted the defendants' petition for a writ of certiorari.

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Issue:

Does a municipal ordinance that requires a permit for any public assembly in streets or parks, and grants a city official unfettered discretion to deny the permit to prevent 'riots, disturbances or disorderly assemblage,' unconstitutionally abridge the First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment?

Opinions:

Concurring - Justice Roberts

Yes, the ordinance unconstitutionally abridges the privileges and immunities of United States citizens. The right to peaceably assemble to discuss national legislation like the National Labor Relations Act is a privilege of U.S. citizenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause. Public streets and parks have immemorially been held in trust for public use for assembly and communicating thoughts. While this use can be regulated for general comfort and convenience, it cannot be abridged or denied under the guise of regulation. The ordinance is void on its face because it provides no standards to guide the Director of Safety, instead enabling him to refuse a permit based on his mere opinion, which makes it an instrument of arbitrary suppression rather than a legitimate means of maintaining order.

Concurring - Justice Stone

Yes, the ordinance is unconstitutional because it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Freedom of speech and assembly are fundamental personal rights secured to all persons, regardless of citizenship, by the Due Process Clause. Therefore, the Court should rest its decision on this established ground rather than the narrower and historically problematic Privileges or Immunities Clause analysis. Furthermore, federal courts have jurisdiction over such civil rights cases under § 24(14) of the Judicial Code without the need to prove a jurisdictional amount in controversy, as these personal liberties are not susceptible to monetary valuation.

Concurring - Chief Justice Hughes

Yes, the ordinance is unconstitutional. On the merits of the case, I agree with Justice Roberts' opinion that the ordinance is an invalid infringement on fundamental rights. However, regarding the basis for federal court jurisdiction, I agree with Justice Stone's reasoning that jurisdiction is properly founded on the protection of rights under the Due Process Clause and the relevant civil rights statute, rather than relying on the Privileges or Immunities Clause.

Dissenting - Justice McReynolds

No. The decree of the lower court should be reversed. Federal courts should refrain from interfering with a municipality's essential right to control its own local affairs, such as the management of its parks and streets. The respondents had an ample opportunity to pursue their claims in state courts, which are better equipped to handle such intimate local matters, with final review of any federal questions available in this Court.

Dissenting - Justice Butler

No. The ordinance is not void on its face and the lower court should be reversed. This case is controlled by the precedent of Davis v. Massachusetts, which upheld a similar Boston ordinance. In Davis, this Court affirmed that a state legislature has absolute control over public property like the Boston Common and can regulate its use as it deems proper. The challenged Jersey City ordinance does not differ in principle from the one upheld in Davis.

Analysis:

This landmark decision established the foundational principle of the 'public forum doctrine,' recognizing that public streets and parks are presumptively open for expressive activity. While no single opinion commanded a majority, the outcome severely curtailed the precedent of Davis v. Massachusetts, which had treated public property as being under the absolute control of the government. The case established that permit schemes giving government officials standardless discretion to grant or deny permits for speech are unconstitutional prior restraints. Although Justice Roberts attempted to revive the Privileges or Immunities Clause, it was Justice Stone's Due Process analysis that became the dominant legal framework for applying First Amendment protections to the states.

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