Two teenage peace activists walking across the country say their constitutionally protected free- speech rights were violated at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Mike Israel, 18, and Ashley Casale, 19, are marching for peace from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., wearing 8-inch-by-12-inch placards that read “March 4 Peace.”
A park ranger stopped the pair Sunday and told the students that they couldn’t go inside the park wearing the placards.
“They stopped us and said our signs are too political,” said Casale, a student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
Park authorities say they were following rules, but a First Amendment expert said the rangers went overboard.
The Code of Federal Regulations, which governs parks, forests and public property, reads: “Public assemblies, meetings, gatherings, demonstrations, parades and other public expressions of views are allowed within park areas, provided a permit therefor has been issued by the superintendent.”
“If they would have contacted us ahead of time, we would have been happy to work with them,” said parks spokesman Kyle Patterson. “They showed up on a Sunday morning demanding to go through the park.”
Patterson said demonstrations in national parks are regulated as a safety precaution for protesters and to make sure they don’t detract from other patrons’ use of the parks.
But Alan Chen, a University of Denver Sturm College of Law professor who is a free-speech expert, said park officials overstepped their authority.
“This is an astounding story,” Chen said. “There is no question at all, those people have the right to not only wear the placards but walk through the park with them on.”
Gail Watson, a board member of Mountain Forum for Peace, a nonprofit based in Nederland, was upset that the two students were blocked from a public park.
“Two people is not a parade,” Watson said. “It was not a meeting; it was not an assembly.”
Watson questioned why the peace protesters were stopped when vehicles with bumper stickers pass through the park each day in the thousands and tourists with messages stamped on shirts are allowed in the park.
Patterson said a placard or sign “becomes more of a demonstration – a public expression – versus a personal expression” such as a bumper sticker.
Robert Nagel, a University of Colorado School of Law professor, said the issue depends on the park’s regulations.
“Presumably, there are some sort of standards that guide their decision-making; it would turn on that,” Nagel said.
The marchers, who plan to finish the walk Sept. 11, were also stopped in late May on the Golden Gate Bridge, and police ordered them to fold up a long peace banner because it could have distracted motorists and caused an accident.
On Sunday, the walkers removed the placards and wrote the message on their shirts. Rangers allowed them to continue their journey.
The pair said they were stopped for three hours and that their identifications were taken for 40 minutes before being returned. But park-ranger logs show they were on their way in about an hour.
On Monday afternoon, Israel and Casale walked through the park wearing the signs, after being driven to the point where they stopped Sunday night. Israel wore his sign on his back and Casale on the front of her body as tourist traffic whizzed by on Trail Ridge Road.
After riding bikes down Milner Pass, the pair left the park at about 5:30 p.m. Monday without any contact with park officials.
“We recognized it as an important First Amendment issue,” Casale said. “We were holding our ground.”
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
