Our Clinic students have hands-on opportunities to litigate important constitutional questions that have real-world impact. The Clinic provides legal services pro bono to clients who do not have the means to hire First Amendment lawyers to represent them.
We accept cases that provide our students with a wealth of experience in strategic legal thinking and nuanced arguments, as well as practical skills necessary to good lawyering. Student attorneys conduct fact investigation and legal research, write legal pleadings, and argue cases in court, under close supervision of Clinic faculty. Students also participate in client counseling, and draft advocacy letters and policy papers in support of our clients’ goals.
Our diverse docket seeks to protect public discourse and combat censorship.
Protecting the “Public Square” for Dissent and Debate
The First Amendment protects the rights of individuals and groups to express themselves on public streets and sidewalks, in public meetings, and on the internet. Our students play a critical role in protecting these spaces as open for free expression.
Public Streets and Parks
- Our client Ross Brunet was criminally cited seven times for “obscenity on a public highway” for flying explicit anti-Biden flags off the back of his pickup truck. We helped Mr. Brunet sue the officials who continued to stop, ticket and haul him into court for months on end, putting him on trial for his protected political speech. Read more here and here.
- We represented multiple citizens arrested for the use of megaphones at a protest in a public park in Lafayette. Our clients challenged the use of sound ordinances to clear dissenters off of public property. Read more here.
- When residents of Louisiana wanted to march in opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment providing tax incentives to industrial plants, the town of Gramercy stopped the march by requiring a cumbersome permitting process prior to the march. Our client RISE St. James fought back and won an overhaul of the Grammercy town ordinances. Read more here.
- We represented multiple individuals arrested protesting in the streets in the days following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, working in partnership with other community lawyers to secure dismissal of all charges against the protesters.
- We frequently represent New Orleans street musicians and performers in protecting the streets and sidewalks of the French Quarter as places for the free expression of music and art. Street performers often face harassment by police for not paying taxes, not having an occupational license or performing past curfew. Our students consistently take up their cases and are currently litigating in Orleans Parish Civil District Court to protect a musician’s right to perform on public sidewalks.
- Union organizers handing Superdome employees leaflets found themselves expelled from the public sidewalks around the venue. Our students co-wrote a letter objecting to their ouster, and the organizers were permitted to continue to exercise their rights to free speech.
Free Speech on the Internet
- Social media is the modern version of the public square, as much political advocacy and discussion now occurs online. We are representing two Louisiana residents blocked on social media by a state senator because of critical comments on Twitter. Our clients seek to preserve social media forums for criticism of our elected officials. Read more here.
Public Meetings
- We represent a civically engaged citizen who was retaliated against by the City government for recording City Council meetings on her iPhone and publishing the meetings to Facebook. Read more about this case here.
- We represent a client who was repeatedly interrupted and silenced at City Council meetings for expressing criticism of the Council’s actions. Our client, a retired law enforcement officer and combat veteran, challenged the Speech Restrictions both facially and as applied to his speech. This case is currently on appeal.
- We represented two Louisiana women challenging anti-speech policies adopted by the Lafayette Parish Library Board of Control. The policies threatened arrest of individuals making offensive comments during the public comment period of the government meetings, and one woman was removed from a meeting for her comments on public matters. Government cannot censor citizen-speakers at public meetings, and our clients are pushed back. We reached a settlement that required the Library Board to stop enforcing unconstitutional speech restrictions and guaranteed First Amendment training for the Library Board prospectively, as well as a financial settlement for our Clients. Read more here.
- We represented a local resident who was banned from meetings of a regional council because council leadership found his comments at public meetings disrespectful. Our students successfully secured his readmission to the meetings and his ability to comment on matters of public concern.
From libraries and schools to prisons and public streets, the Clinic continues to advocate on behalf of citizens across the state to battle against government censorship and to protect citizens’ access to information.
- Louisianans across the state are standing up against censorship and book restrictions in public libraries. Local residents who oppose censorship efforts in Lafayette, Livingston, St. Tammany, and Rapides Parishes have requested our legal support. A team of our students continues to work extensively on library censorship issues, which include threats of criminal prosecution against librarians. Read more about the statewide threat here.
- A parish jail with no library instituted a policy whereby incarcerated persons could not receive any publications through the mail—effectively enforcing a book ban. Our incarcerated client challenged the policy for violating his First Amendment right to access information. We filed for a preliminary injunction, which the Court granted.
Retaliation for Criticizing the Government
- We represented two City workers who faced potential discipline for criticizing the City government, even off the clock. This 2022 case had a tremendous impact in protecting the free speech rights of more than 1,700 New Orleans employees and gave our students excellent, firsthand experience in litigation and negotiations. Read more.
- A member of a Lafayette library committee wrote a newspaper opinion piece opposing book censorship. As a result she lost her appointment to the library committee. Our students negotiated with the parish’s attorneys and won her reinstatement. Read more.
- We represented a law professor who was charged with contempt of court by the Baton Rouge Police Department for releasing a video of Baton Rouge police strip-searching two suspects, including a youth. We partnered with a private law firm to win a preliminary injunction on the professor’s behalf, ultimately successfully settling the case. Read more.
Clothing as Free Expression:
- Our students helped support a Winnfield woman cited with “indecent exposure” because of clothing she wore to a town festival, successfully arguing that the government cannot tell a person what clothing they can wear. Read more.
Public School Student Speech:
- We have supported several Louisiana public school students and their families in pushing back against school regulations of speech on campus.
- We represented one family challenging a requirement that a young student stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
- We provided support for the family of a student facing discipline for comments she posted on Google Classroom mentioning Black History Month.
- We supported another family whose children faced discipline for wearing “Black Lives Matter” facemasks to a public school during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Two of our student attorneys represented high school students who were not allowed to establish a Gender and Sexualities Alliance (“GSA”) club. After several months of advocacy the high school students were allowed to launch the club, which is now in operation and on equal footing with other extracurricular offerings.
