Can Belleville officials keep you from displaying Confederate flags and swastikas?

In Reality Check stories, BND journalists dig deeper into questions over facts, consequences and accountability. Read more. Story idea? newsroom@bnd.com.

A weekend demonstration in Belleville raised questions about what local governments can do if a resident publicly displays symbols that neighbors find offensive, like the Confederate flag and swastikas.

A group of 25 people marched through the streets Saturday to protest public displays like those in a neighborhood near Union Elementary School. Yard signs expressing resident Stewart Lannert’s political views feature the Confederate flag and swastikas and reference the enslavement of Black people on plantations.

The protesters called on Belleville to take action.

But governments can’t prohibit yard signs because of their content or viewpoint, according to Belleville Mayor Patty Gregory and legal experts from the International Municipal Lawyers Association and American Civil Liberties Union.

That’s because the same law that protects people’s right to protest — the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech — also protects their right to express themselves in signs like Lannert’s.

Lannert said his Confederate flag sign criticizes protests that led to the removal of statues of historical figures across the country. He uses swastikas on signs that compare politicians to Nazis. He said he’s encouraging people to think for themselves with the signs referencing plantations.

Gregory described the signs as divisive and inappropriate, noting that children walking to Union Elementary pass by them. While she doesn’t approve of the signage, she said there’s nothing the city can do about it.

“I wish there was,” Gregory said.

Amanda Karras, executive director and general counsel of the International Municipal Lawyers Association, said precedents set by past legal cases show the First Amendment protects even offensive speech. The international lawyers association is a resource for local government attorneys.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977, for example, that Nazis displaying swastikas had the right to march through Skokie, a village in Cook County that was home to many Holocaust survivors at the time. The Supreme Court has also ruled specifically about signage: A government passing stricter rules for certain types of signs is unconstitutional, the justices ruled in their unanimous 2015 decision.

The ACLU, which advocates for constitutional rights in legal cases, represented the Nazis in the landmark decision from 1977 despite disagreeing with their clients’ message.

Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois, said the organization opposes the government making decisions about what to censor. It has also argued that the government shouldn’t refuse to allow a specialty license plate bearing the Confederate flag because members of the public found it offensive.

“The First Amendment requires skepticism toward government efforts to suppress or regulate certain ideas,” Yohnka stated in response to BND questions. “If the government has the power to limit hate speech, it also has the power to regulate speech about other ideas it deems dangerous.”

Yohnka said a recent example is governments trying to restrict classroom instruction about LGBTQ issues.