Racial Justice Protests in Chelsea

In the summer of 2020 a group of high school students formed a group called Anti-Racist Chelsea Youth and held a non-disruptive march in downtown Chelsea to support the Black Lives Matter movement. The Chelsea police, rather than directing traffic and allowing the students to march, ticketed them for impeding traffic. In November 2020 the ACLU of Michigan joined the University of Michigan’s civil rights clinic in defending the youth in state court, filing a motion to dismiss the citations on grounds that the impeding-traffic statute violates the First Amendment because it makes exceptions for charitable solicitations but not political protests. In March 2021 Judge Anna Frushour agreed and dismissed all citations. The city did not appeal. (City of Chelsea v. King; ACLU Attorney Dan Korobkin; Cooperating Attorneys John Shea, David Blanchard, John Minock, Paul Reingold, and Delphia Simpson; co-counsel Michael J. Steinberg of U-M Law School, with student attorneys Diane Kee, Laila Kassis, and Jeremy Shur.)