ARLINGTON, Va.—Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled against East Cleveland resident William Fambrough in his suit against the city for violating his First Amendment rights. The city had improperly retaliated against William for his advocacy of a candidate challenging the mayor of East Cleveland. Yesterday, William—along with the Institute for Justice—filed an appeal to vindicate his First Amendment rights and to hold city officials accountable. 

William cares about East Cleveland and has run his own media company in the Cleveland area for over four decades. As part of his company, he has used a step van as a sound truck to broadcast messages, including political messages. William has been a fixture in local politics through his media company and political activism and at various times, he has run East Cleveland’s public-broadcast channel, sat on the city library board, and run for school board.

So it was no surprise that William was involved as an advocate in the 2021 East Cleveland mayoral race, and he chose to support a challenger to the incumbent. The most visible way William supported the campaign was by outfitting his step van with a large candidate sign and sound equipment to broadcast campaign messages. William made sure to get a permit from city hall signed by the chief of police to operate his van as a sound truck during the election, in order to comply with the local laws. He and the challenger’s campaign manager would regularly drive the truck around the city in the months leading up to the election, occasionally as part of a larger caravan of supporters in cars. The sound truck processions were the candidate’s supporters’ principal form of campaigning.

But the mayor didn’t like William’s advocacy, and the police department set out to disrupt his political efforts. They began ticketing William’s truck for obscure local ordinances, all because he spoke out for a change in the government. Police officers repeatedly showed up at William’s home and claimed that parking the van there violated an old city parking ordinance—an ordinance that is never enforced against anyone else in similar circumstances. Indeed, William had parked the van at his home for fifteen years without ever receiving a citation. 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, and even though that noise ordinance had never before been used against political broadcasting, even though it is common in the city.

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.

“Government officials using the police to punish political opponents is a core violation of the First Amendment,” said IJ Attorney Ben Field. “To have the government punish people for political speech is a wrong that must be righted.”

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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/