Matthew Prensky
Matthew Prensky · January 16, 2025

ARLINGTON, Va.—Today, the Institute for Justice (IJ) sent a letter to city officials in Germantown, Tennessee, calling on them to cease all enforcement actions against Germantown resident Alexis Luttrell, and to reconsider the constitutionality of Ordinance 11-33. Both the ordinance and Germantown’s enforcement against Luttrell are a serious breach of Americans’ free speech rights. The government has no right to dictate when and how Americans celebrate holidays—including how people decorate their homes. 

“The whole idea behind free speech is that you get to choose what you want to put up to celebrate,” said Robert Frommer, an IJ senior attorney. “Officials shouldn’t get to block you from expressing yourself just because they dislike your reason for the season.” 

Last week Germantown officials issued Luttrell a court summons because she incorporated a skeleton and skeleton dog into her Christmas yard display, according to WREG’s reporting. In its summons, the city cited Ordinance 11-33, which bans residents from installing holiday decorations more than 45 days before the date of a holiday and requires residents to remove seasonal decorations within 30 days after a holiday. Luttrell’s court date is set for Feb. 13. 

As IJ stated in a prior statement, Germantown’s enforcement actions violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that government restrictions on an individual’s expression are presumptively unconstitutional. In its 2015 decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the Supreme Court made clear that restrictions on free expression must serve the most compelling of government interests. Installing holiday decorations “too early” or keeping them up “too late” falls short of that threshold. 

IJ has years of experience litigating across the country against similar violations of Americans’ free speech rights. IJ has sued several local governments, including Conway, New Hampshire, where city officials ordered a local bakery to remove a mural that was painted by some local high school art students, because it featured some of the same baked goods that were sold inside. In another case, IJ sued Norfolk, Virginia, which tried to suppress a small business’s protest banner because it condemned the government’s unlawful attempt to seize the business’s property through eminent domain. IJ won that case after going to the Supreme Court in 2015, and that small business, Central Radio Inc., is still alive and thriving.