Iowa ACLU Sues Over BLM Protesters Banned from State Capitol

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of five Black Lives Matter protesters who allege they were banned from Iowa’s State Capitol complex by the Iowa State Police.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, alleges that state police officials violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition their government by banning them from the Capitol complex in Des Moines. The suit was brought against Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan K. Bayens, Iowa State Patrol Lt. Steve Lawrence, and three other state patrol officers.

The plaintiffs, Jalesha Johnson, Louise Bequeaith, Haley Jo Dikkers, Brad Penna, and Brandi Ramus, were among a group of protesters at a rally outside the Capitol on July 1, 2020, organized by Des Moines BLM to urge lawmakers to end the “lifetime disfranchisement of Iowans with felony convictions,” according to the complaint.

Des Moines Police Department officers arrested protesters at the event. Afterward, Iowa State Police officers issued verbal bans to 17 arrested protesters, including the five named in the suit, and barred Johnson, Bequeaith, and Ramus from Capitol grounds for one year, and Dikkers and Penna for six months.

Two weeks later, three protesters also received a letter notifying them of a six-month ban, until Jan. 1, 2021, from the Iowa Capitol Complex. That letter was signed by Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Tyson Underwood on official letterhead for Bayens.

The Iowa chapter of the ACLU is asking the federal district court to grant a preliminary injunction that would block the Iowa State Patrol and Iowa Department of Public Safety from enforcing these “unconstitutional” bans, allowing their clients to return to the State Capitol Complex, as well as declaratory relief and damages.

“This is true censorship,” Rita Bettis Austen, ACLU Iowa’s legal director, said on a call Monday announcing the lawsuit. “This prohibits them from exercising their free speech rights, their rights to assemble, and petition their government for redress of grievances on the front end.”

“As a young person, as a Black person, and as a woman, in professional spaces, our voices are often not heard,” Johnson, an organizer of the Des Moines Black Lives Matter group, told reporters Monday, calling the Capitol protests “our way of ensuring that we were at the table when decisions were being made.”

“Legislators and the governor can ignore our calls. They can also ignore our emails. We can no longer sit face to face with them,” Johnson added. “Now, our best way of conversing with government officials has been taken away. How are we supposed to be heard now?”

The Iowa Attorney General’s office said in a statement that it’s reviewing the lawsuit and will respond in court.

The case is Johnson et al v. Bayens et al, S.D. Iowa, No. 4:20-cv-00306, Filed 10/5/20.