Right Trumps Might in Tennessee

by Clyde Weiss  |  July 18, 2011

The basic American right to protest, guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution, has been upheld in Tennessee. The case involves the March arrest of seven demonstrators at a state Senate committee hearing to consider anti-union legislation.

The July 15 decision of Davidson County General Sessions Court Judge Casey Moreland – to dismiss all charges against the protestors – is a reaffirmation of the principle that the public’s right to free speech should not be denied because they are simply “disruptive.”

Those who were arrested – mostly University of Memphis students now known as the “Nashville Seven” – issued a statement saying the judge’s ruling “has reinforced what people across the country already know: When our government fails to listen to the people they are supposed to serve, it is our right and responsibility to disrupt the ordinary flow of business and demand to be heard.”

The demonstration, at a Senate Commerce Committee meeting in Nashville, was aimed at several anti-union bills, including one curbing the collective bargaining rights of teachers, later signed into law, and other anti-worker bills.

Several protestors entwined their arms during the demonstration and refused to leave. Troopers carried them forcibly out of the room, arresting seven who were then charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Members of AFSCME Local 1733 stood in solidarity with the demonstrators but were not arrested.

AFSCME members at the Capitol at the time donated money to help defray the bail expense, a contribution matched by Local 1733. The union’s storied 1968 fight to improve working conditions and wages of Memphis sanitation workers brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city in support of their strike. King was assassinated there on April 4, 1968.

For more on the “Nashville Seven” case, read this article in The Commercial Appeal.