Home » About » Newsletters » November 1997
Challenging the "Miami Exception to the First Amendment"
By Jessica Connor, Editor/Staff Associate
November 1997
Little did Peggi McKinley know when she commented at a Miami Beach meeting that she would soon discover that the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech does not necessarily apply in Dade County.
McKinley, a MetroDade Film, Television and Print Advisory Board member, was exercising that right when she made a brief and seemingly noncontroversial statement questioning the economic impact of Dade County's ban on contracts with companies doing business with Cuba (including a ban on companies that do business with companies that do business with Cuba). Except that her statement was about Cuba. In a city of Cuban exiles. Her statement was not surprisingly received with wellorchestrated outrage by some Dade County politicians.
And although her comment was exactly the sort of advice she was appointed to provide the Dade County Commission, it prompted Commissioner Bruce Kaplan to remove McKinley from her position on the board.
"I was astounded and certainly surprised," said McKinley of her firing. "Freedom of speech is one of our basic rights and one of the reasons this country was originally founded. There is a volatile reactionary element here in South Florida. That was personally underscored to me by [Commissioner Kaplan's] reaction."
Her firing provoked outrage and heated debate throughout South Florida about both freedom of speech and the Cuba embargo, sparking widespread support from music icons Gloria and Emilio Estefan to County Commissioner Katy Sorenson.
McKinley's firing also resulted in a lawsuit filed last month by ACLU's Miami Chapter in U.S. District Court. ACLU cooperating attorneys Benjamin Waxman and Louis Jepeway anticipate reversing the County's decision to fire McKinley.
In Miami, this situation is not unique and is only the latest episode in the erosion of free speech. Because there is so much passion on issues related to Cuba, freedom of speech is often the first thing to be sacrificed in the face of any controversy. And the ACLU of Florida has been in the center of the controversies involving free speech in Dade County.
Just last year, radical elements of the exile community attempted to prevent Cuban singer Rosita Fornes from performing in Miami because she had not publicly denounced Fidel Castro. Enraged militants went so far as to bomb the Centro Vasco Restaurant in retaliation for her scheduled performance. But when, at the direction of the City of Miami Beach, the theater barred Fornes from advertising on the theater's marquee and required her to post a bond to cover the deductible on fire insurance conditions imposed on no other performer and which clearly contributed to a suppression of freedom of speech the ACLU of Florida stepped in. Ultimately, however, the economic pressures forced the singer's promoters to cancel the performance.
Also in 1996, internationally renowned Cuban jazz musician Gonzalo Rubacalba was the target of an organized protest because he, too, had not formally denounced Castro. Protesters gathered outside Gusman Hall got out of hand, going so far as to spit and physically assault concert goers. The police contributed to an environment of fear by inaction. The ACLU of Florida is investigating this matter.
In 1991, the City of Miami refused to renew the lease of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture because the museum had organized an exhibit of Cuban nationalist art. As a result of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of the museum, the federal district court held the City's actions unconstitutional, citing the City's actions as a clear violation of the First Amendment (Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, Inc. v. City of Miami).
Clearly Dade County is a hotbed of intolerance of dissenting ideas on Cuba, and the ACLU of Florida is at the forefront of the battle to ensure that more citizens like Peggi McKinley are not punished for speaking their minds.
For some, freedom of speech must take a back seat to opposition to the Castro regime. The ACLU disagrees the issue is protecting freedom of speech for everyone, regardless of their point of view and regardless of the passion they evoke.
"The First Amendment prohibits our local governments from limiting speech of those who do not agree with their viewpoint," said Benjamin Waxman and John De Leon of the ACLU Miami Chapter. "There is no Miami exception to the First Amendment."
"Peggi McKinley was appointed to provide public advice on the economic impact Dade County laws and policies might have on the entertainment industry, and that's exactly what she did. Her case squarely reflects a pubic official's right under the First Amendment to comment on issues of public importance without government retaliation," said Andrew Kayton, Legal Director for the ACLU of Florida.
"Ironically," Kayton added, "the case, and even McKinley's comments, are hardly proCastro. But the events which led us to file the action seem emblematic of how basic First Amendment rights are often made a casualty of the intense antiCastro sentiment that exists in South Florida."
For now, Peggi McKinley will just have to content herself with the fact that the ACLU of Florida is fighting her battle in the courts, and that much of the South Florida community, including many in the Cuban exile community, stands behind her.
But the situation has left her with a new perspective on the state of free speech in South Florida. "If being an American is in conflict with being a Dade Countian," a nowenlightened McKinley commented, "then our problems are much deeper than anyone ever realized."
