The speakers of the meetings of the Los Angeles municipal council will be prohibited from using the word N and the word C, decided the council on Wednesday.
The prohibition comes after years of tirades by a few speakers who attack the weight, sexual orientation or gender of those responsible and who sometimes use racial insults.
The speakers will now receive a warning to use one or the other word – or any variation of the word. If they continue with the offensive language, they will be removed from the room and possibly prohibited from future meetings.
The Chairman of the Council Marquece Harris-Dawson, who is black, said that the use of words in public comments has discouraged people from coming to meetings.
“It is a language that, anywhere apart from this building where there are not four armed guards, would hurt you if you had said these things in public,” he said earlier this year.
The Council’s decision to prohibit words could be challenged before the court, some legal researchers claiming that this could violate the rights of expression of speakers’ speakers.
In 2014, the city paid $ 215,000 to a black man who was expelled from a meeting for carrying a Ku Klux Klan hood and a t-shirt with the word n.
Lawyer Wayne Spindler, who often uses offensive language during council meetings, said on Wednesday that he planned to continue the city for the ban. He said he will read the words of Tupac Shakur, including words of offensive curse, until it is prohibited from a meeting.
“I will submit my $ 400 million trial that I have already prepared and ready to deposit. If you want to make me the next millionaire, vote yes,” he said in public comments on Wednesday.
Spindler was arrested in 2016 after submitting a public commentary card showing a fire cross and a man hanging from a tree. On the map, he also wrote “Herb = [N-word]Referring to Herb Wesson, the president of the council at the time, who was black. The prosecutors refused to file a complaint against Spindler.
Armando Herman, who attended the vote of the municipal council on Wednesday, is also a frequent offender.
At a meeting of the municipal council earlier this month, Herman said that the Council was trying to suppress his speech, referring several times to himself as a white word. He also used the word C to describe a civil servant in the room.
In 2023, a judge prohibited Herman from participating in person in all public meetings at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, where the supervisors of the County of Los Angeles meet, after having allegedly sent sexually suggestive emails to four supervisors. He denied having sent the emails.
Many other public members have spoken against the new rule, saying that it violates their freedom of expression.
“You are so weak that you have to limit freedom of expression for everyone, and you know that this will bring prosecution,” said Stacey Segarra-Bohlinger, member of the Sherman Oaks Neighbourhood Council who often punctuates his remarks with the song, at the meeting of the council earlier this month.
“This is an attack on freedom of expression,” she added.