JUSTICE DEPT. BARS COURIER OVER ANTI-MEESE EMBLEM
By Ruth Marcus
Washington Post, June 23, 1988
Christopher Stalvey, bicycle messenger, had 15 minutes to spare to get the package to the Justice Department. He was cleared through the security guard and ready to sprint upstairs to file the papers when an unexpected snag developed: Stalvey was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, "Experts Agree! Meese Is a Pig."
The experts manning the entrance at Justice Department decidedly did not agree about the allegedly porcine nature of their boss, Attorney General Edwin Meese III. They checked with superiors and the ruling came down: Stalvey could not enter the building wearing the offending garment.
The guard "said you can't come in with that T-shirt," Stalvey, 19, said in an interview yesterday. "He said, 'Would you go to the White House wearing a "Reagan is a Jerk" T-shirt?' "
Stalvey tried the free-speech argument. That failed. He offered to remove the shirt. No dice. "You've been denied access to the building," Stalvey said the guard told him.
With the clock ticking away, Stalvey called his company, Quick Messenger, and told them to send another, more suitably attired messenger, quick. Another courier was rerouted from the Department of Agriculture. The papers were filed. The customer was satisfied.
But Stalvey did not forget the June 10 incident. And when he was making a run that took him near the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union this week, he stopped in and told legal director Arthur B. Spitzer about the encounter.
"We are prepared to bring suit if they say this is their policy," Spitzer said yesterday. "It seems like a perfectly clear case of discrimination based on the content of the T-shirt."
At the Justice Department yesterday, spokesman Patrick S. Korten defended the decision. Stalvey, he said, has the right to wear the T-shirt; the Justice Department has the right to impose certain standards.
"Just as we would not permit somebody to come strolling in here with a bathing suit, for example, I think it's reasonable to have some kind of standard," he said. Stalvey, he said, "was inappropriately attired."
Korten added that "this is an interim policy until a firm determination can be made on how such matters ought to be handled."
Korten "obviously doesn't understand what the First Amendment is all about," Spitzer responded. "If they had a rule that said no T-shirts, that might be an acceptable rule. But apparently they have a rule that says no T-shirts that insult Ed Meese. Presumably, this guy would have been allowed in if he was wearing a T-shirt that said 'Reagan-Bush '84.'"
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