Surprisingly or not, the Columbus City Council, apparently with the advice and consent of the City Attorney’s Office, publicly decreed at its Monday, March 6, 2023 meeting that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution does not apply to Columbus residents especially any who dares to speak honestly and openly about any element of the City itself. This is obviously not a problem for mayor, City Councilors, Council’s Chief of Staff, and major division heads.

On one hand, it is curious because City Attorney Klein likes to struggle very publicly and politically with the alternatively ignorant of and anti-Constitutional state Attorney General David Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, all of whom aspire to higher office. LaRose just returned from hobnobbing with 2020 election deniers at the Trumpist CPAC meeting. These two are busy suppressing voting and many other legal rights in Ohio.

On the other hand, this action is consistent with the mayor’s, City Council’s and its Chief of Staff’s, and the heads of major City divisions’ regular patterns of conflict of interest, lying to the media and private citizens, and corruption. (For examples, see References below, and Bill Bush’s reports in Columbus Dispatch.)

The case in hand is important both in itself and as part of an ongoing pattern, despite our major media’s usual disinterest.

One appointed member of the brand-new and still without a defined scope and mission  Civilian Police Review Board dared to speak out honesty about what must be viewed as misconduct by officers of the Columbus Police Department. Gambit S. Aragon III was officially removed because he deemed the police “‘oppressors’ and used anti-police rhetoric in social media posts in December. According to the Columbus Dispatch report of March 7. Council “concurred” with the mayor’s decision; “an overwhelming majority of the board” approved.

Aragon criticized CPD officers who, under the order of Chief Bryant, tolerated and actually saluted the Proud Boys’ illegal obstruction of an annual Columbus reading of drag queen stories at a Clintonville church. The Proud Boys have been declared a “terrorist organization” by the US Department of Justice. Many of their members are being convicted for leading the Jan. 6, 2021 illegal Insurrection at the US Capitol.

Was Aragon wise to make his posts, with which a great many Columbus residents agree? That is a matter for debate.

Did he have a First Amendment right to voice his opinion. Yes: according to the text and relevant case law on the Amendment and its place in our national history.

Why do not Ginther, Klein, or Assistant District Attorney Brian Shinn—the liaison to the police-know this? They claim law degrees. As often, I do not understand.

Aragon violated no state or city laws that anyone is able to state. If any actually exist, they clearly do not apply to any representatives of the City of Columbus.

Shinn, who allows another Assistant City Attorney to misread court cases and misadvise CPD, thus limiting their ability to do their jobs despite citizens’ appeals, defends the Civilian Police Review Board’s removal, Ginther’s move, and finally City Council’s action on “procedural grounds.” They assert that Aragon committed “negligent duty” in his social media posts and was therefore “biased” for speaking honestly.

Unfortunately, for all these elected and unelected officials, there is no document formally stating “duties” of the Civilian Police Review Board. Nor a statement of its scope, definition, and authority. So far, at least, it is no more than yet another City Slogan, a mayor and City Council trademark.

Gambit S. Aragon III cannot be legitimately and legally found to act in “negligent duty,” itself an exceedingly unclear concept, if there is no approved roster of duties..

To summarize: Gambit is removed without real cause for exercising his Constitutional rights. CPD allows a terrorist group to obstruct an annual event, with officers saluting terrorists. The elected mayor and unelected Chief of Police defend, even compliment the officers. The new Review Board violates the Open Meetings Law. At the same time, CPD reestablishes its very problematic specialized Jump Boys Gang Unit with a leader with a problematic history (apparently widely known within CPD but not the assistant chief who appointed him), in the wake of criminal policing by such units across the US, most recently in Memphis, but also prominently in Louisville, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and as the federal DOJ launches a national review of all such units. We are too familiar with CPD’s unnecessary murders residents, especially of young black males. We hear far too little about that by any anyone in City Hall of CPD command.

Columbus continues to be an exception to the US’s cities in negative ways, almost always out of step. Here, once again, is the true meaning of the Columbus Way: suspending the  First Amendment and celebrating its own lawlessness.

Dare I say in this context:  Go Bucks?

References by Harvey J. Graff

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of Columbus residents, Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, June 21, 2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of Columbus residents, Part Two,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press. June 24, 2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of Columbus residents, Part Three,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, June 27, 2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of Columbus residents, Part Four,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, June 30, 2022

“Remaking the City of Columbus for the 21st or is it the 20th century? Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, July 5, 2022

“Is Columbus the corruption capital of a corrupt state? Mismanagement, no management, and corruption in the 2020s,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, July 17, 2022

“Andy Ginther as Columbus, Ohio’s very own shabby 21st century limitation of New York City’s 1860-1870s Boss Tweed,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 9, 2022 

“The City that breaks its laws has a police force that refuses to enforce the city’s laws: The Columbus Way, Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 13, 2022

“The City that breaks its laws has a police force that refuses to enforce the city’s laws: The Columbus Way, Part Two,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 16, 2022

“Columbus, Ohio: Rude and Crude: The little big city that refuses to represent. serve, or respect its publics, Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Jan. 15, 2023

“Columbus, Ohio: Rude and Crude: The little big city that refuses to represent. serve, or respect its publics, Part Two,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Jan. 19, 2023

“Unsafe at any speed: The unsafe city—from mayor to city council to CPD,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Feb. 16, 2023

“J’accuse: The City of Columbus Division of Public (aka Private) Service,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Mar. 3, 2023

“Columbus’ right wing Democrats vs. the city’s publics,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Mar. 8, 2023

----------------------------------------------------

Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English and History at The Ohio State University and inaugural Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies. Author of many books, he writes about a variety of contemporary and historical topics for Times Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, Academe Blog, Washington Monthly, Publishers Weekly, Against the Current; Columbus Free Press, and newspapers. Searching for Literacy: The Social and Intellectual Origins of Literacy Studies was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022. My Life with Literacy: The Continuing Education of a Historian. The Intersections of the Personal, the Political, the Academic, and Place is forthcoming.