Victory! Court Allows East Cleveland Resident to Pursue First Amendment Political Retaliation Claims Against City and Officials

ARLINGTON, Va.—For over four years, William Fambrough has been pursuing justice against the city of East Cleveland, Ohio for violating his First Amendment right not to be retaliated against for his political speech. Yesterday, in a major victory the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld William’s right to continue with his lawsuit, allowing his core claims to go to trial. William is represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), a national leader in protecting political speech.

“This is an important step towards securing and defending not just the First Amendment rights of William, but those of all Americans,” said IJ Attorney Ben Field. “We will continue to fight for the freedoms and protections to free speech guaranteed under the Constitution, and the right not to face government retaliation for speaking your mind.”

William is a longtime resident of East Cleveland who decided to campaign for a challenger to the incumbent mayor in 2021. He outfitted a step van that he owned with speakers and a candidate poster and took to the streets to get his message out.

But rather than respecting his basic rights, the city government, angered at its political competition, used its police and law departments to retaliate against William in the months leading up to the election. Police officers repeatedly showed up at William’s home and claimed that parking the van there violated an old city ordinance—an ordinance that is rarely ever enforced, and never against anyone else in similar circumstances. They ultimately fined him and towed his van, doing thousands of dollars of damage in the process. And they cited William for “noise pollution,” despite his obtaining a permit to broadcast campaign messages from his van throughout East Cleveland.

Because the towing caused so much damage to the van, it knocked it out of commission for the crucial final weeks of the campaign. When William went to court to resolve the noise citation, the city’s assistant law director made it clear that William was being targeted for his political advocacy.

That targeting is unconstitutional and clearly violates the First Amendment’s safeguards to participate in the political process, to criticize government officials, and to advocate for political change

“Government cannot use the police to punish their political opponents,” said IJ Attorney Caroline Grace Brothers. “This is a basic, and vital, protection clearly enshrined in the First Amendment.

This lawsuit is a part of IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability, which is devoted to the simple idea that government officials are not above the law. Just as citizens must follow the law, the government must follow the Constitution.

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To arrange interviews on this subject, journalists may contact Phillip Suderman, IJ’s Communications Project Manager, at [email protected] or (850) 376-4110. More information on the case is available at: https://ij.org/case/east-cleveland-retaliation/