First Amendment
Super Bowl banner restrictions must be scaled back, judge rules
A federal judge has ordered New Orleans to reduce the size of a “clean zone” where unauthorized banners, signs and flags are banned during Super Bowl week.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday in a First Amendment lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, report the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Associated Press. Engelhardt said the city can enforce noncommercial restrictions only in an area around the Superdome.
New Orleans had sought to include the French Quarter in the clean zone, but the TRO allows noncommercial speech such as signs and flags in that area, the Times-Picayune reports. The plaintiffs are a street preacher and a member of Occupy NOLA.
