Better yet, the Pruneyard case is a classic example. Here is Ohio’s take on it.
Yeah, I’m all sadface over here because I provided the Pruneyard case earlier and nobody thought it signifant. Sadface I tell you!
Thanks for the extra case.
I do think there’s one additional wrinkle. Urbanredneck suggests that with great subsidy comes great responsibility: if the mall is getting lots of government kickbacks (and I’ll bet a shiny new nickel they are), maybe they should have some responsibility to allow political speech there.
As much as I wish that followed, being far more sympathetic to the protestors than to the mall owners, I’m not convinced it does. I don’t see a direct chain between “takes government payout” and “must provide space for protestors.”
I do, however, think that something similar would be a highly reasonable clause in future government handouts. To the extent that malls supplant other traditional social spaces in a community, and to the extent that they do so on the government’s dime (through tax breaks, discounted sewer lines, etc.), I think the government ought to make the handouts contingent on the mall providing some space for public discourse that mall ownership may not censor.
But if that is not included in the contracts beforehand, I don’t think it can reasonably be imposed afterwards.
Nothing I don’t have against any other Skinner-box temple to greed and materialism. Except maybe multiplied by 40, 80, 250 - whatever number of stores comprise the gantlet. But really, malls are more than a sum of their parts, so add a WTF factor of 1.2 to 3.7.
The Mall of America provides 4 meeting areas available on level 4 of the mall, with room for several hundred people.
http://www.mallofamerica.com/shopping/directory/moa-executive-center
It’s private property if it acts as such, if it does not, such as the MoA it is open to interpretation as to where it should fall. Public easement is a very primitive example, no one receives permission to be here. The difference between this and lets say Walmart, is the MoA is basically set up as a public easement for people to visit private stores, it is their business model to be a easement.
Huh. While that’s interesting, and while I can see where you’d argue that’s the kind of thing I was talking about, I really don’t think it is. First, when I talk about a place for “public discourse,” I’m definitely not talking about a place tucked away that’s invitation-only; the sort of public discourse that may be replaced by malls is the town square model, a place where citizens can hear opinions they’re not normally exposed to.
Second, it’s not at all clear that these meeting places are free from censorship. If the Communist Party of America wanted to rent those rooms, would Mall of America feel bound to rent to them? If they wouldn’t feel bound to do so–whether or not they actually would–then those places aren’t free from censorship.
Finally, those meeting rooms almost certainly cost shitloads of money to use. And that definitely falls outside of providing for public discourse: a vibrant democracy needs to ensure that the voices of all citizens can be heard, regardless of wealth.
By the way,there’s an argument to be made that the Internet has largely supplanted the need for town square-style dialogue, and I have mixed feelings about that argument. I hope it’s clear my thoughts on this subject are ambivalent, and predicated on the “Internet replaces the town square” argument not being valid.
So do you buy things or do you just live in a warren and eat stuff you find?
Not all beliefs are equal. Some of them are reasonable, some of them are bizarre, and still others are repugnant. Should I tolerate people walking through my store wearing a swastika armband? Even if my customers weren’t offended I certainly wouldn’t want that filth in my establishment.
We’re allowed to discriminate here in the United States so long as it’s not against a protected class.
I’ve seen a few posters insist that malls have supplanted other more traditional places of public discourse but nobody has really made a case that this is so. I can’t think of a single time I’ve been to a mall during the last 30 years, not at Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs, not at Collin Creek Mall in Plano, Texas, and certainly not at McCain Mall in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where I witnessed anything resembling a town square atmosphere. A mall ain’t exactly Times Square or the Marienplatz.
There might have been something like that in the 1980s but malls are dying and the MOA is a shadow of its former self.
I can agree that the MOA should never tolerate any group which goes in and shuts down the malls commerce. I’m glad those protesters were removed and many are being prosecuted.
However, I think MOA is big enough they can allow a dedicated space for free speech events which could include public protests. This could simply be a stage or say 20 x 20 foot section where a group of no larger than say 20 people, should feel free to present any skit, play, songs, choirs, dance, or other visual art forms which are designed to provoke a response from an intended audience. So really its nothing more than a kind of performance. And really many performers including Elvis (In the Ghetto), did songs that brought attention to different issues.
It’s kind of how Pearl Street in Boulder Colorado is organized. Any performer wanting to perform there has to abide by a set of rules governing when, where, and how they can do their show. One rule is no electronic amplifications so no microphones or speakers. Common acts are jugglers, dancers, bands, and magicians. They are allowed to solicit tips and donations and some of them actually can make a living just performing on Pearl Street. LINK
Well, “can” and “should” and “must” are three different words. Certainly they can–but should they? And must they? And if there’s no “must”, should there be a must?
I’d argue that they can, and they probably should, but there’s no must, but maybe there should be a must.
If the protesters were allowed at MOA they would have gone somewhere else.
Of course. But the reason they got the public funding was to provide jobs and tax revenue back into the state - and its the public funding that makes people argue its a public space. However, by now the economic gain to the state has exceeded their investment - the Mall has been successful economically beyond most people’s expectations. Of course that means its been profitable to the owners, but the state has gotten their return out of it as well.
The thing that gets me is that a lot of my very liberal friends were involved in this protest, and now want to boycott the mall. And most of them had never set foot in the mall before the protest. The mall has never been THEIR public space, its never been a place they hang out, walk for exercise, visit for dinner, have a drink at - much less shop. Its an empty threat of economic boycott, and the mall knows it.
I think there is a slippery slope there I don’t like AT ALL. I think the idea that welfare recipients should be drug tested before they get their checks or food stamps is horrendous. My tax dollars shouldn’t give me the right to invade someone’s privacy that way. If my health care is government subsidized, I don’t really want my medical records to be public because the public has a right to know if I take good care of myself. And the obvious analogy - if I get government subsidies on my housing, do I have to host protests in my living room?
I know that there is supposed to be a difference in how we treat a person and a corporate person - but we seem to want to make that line fuzzier and fuzzier.
I’m sympathetic to protesters, and I avoid the MOA from the middle of October into January (its the place I normally shop other than Target or the grocery store). But I’m also sympathetic to the people who wanted to get their last holiday shopping done last weekend (why they’d try that at the MOA is beyond me, the place is a zoo for the last two months of the year - even on a Tuesday afternoon, much less the weekend before the holiday).
You can have large events - rallies - at the Mall. Susan Komen does the walk there every year. The mall was coated in brown and green dressed girls for the Girl Scout 100 Year Anniversary Celebration. I’ve been there when they’ve had all sorts of events - but they have to be scheduled and permitted. And the Mall isn’t going to host them on one of their busiest weekends. They did it this way to get publicity and notice, and they got it.
With the logic being that they are only effective/purposeful if they’re being disruptive?
I think that might have been true ca. 1971. Protests, per se, haven’t been an effective tool since about then. They are video bites staged for the cameras and thus as much a co-opted tool of the media and authorities as they are any tool in the activist’s kit.
Why, yes, I do.
But I’ve managed to do so without setting foot in a mall for at least ten years, and making only the briefest, most directed visits for around twenty years before that.
What I never do is say, “Gee, I have a bunch of money… I’m going shopping!” - which makes malls about as useful to me as a Wiccan meeting house.
Yes. The organizer stated that was their goal. Do you think they went to the Mall after being told they would be arrested because they didn’t want to make waves? That they shut down an Interstate through downtown Minneapolis because they wanted to stay out of the way?
I kind of agree with this, especially when there are no tangible goals other than “raising awareness.”