Judge tosses Dave Agema’s suit after self-professed ex-Muslim terrorist’s speech shut down

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Allegan Public Schools after police shut down a self-professed ex-Muslim terrorist’s speech at the high school over safety concerns.

The ruling brings to an end a lawsuit that former state Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, and other organizers filed after Allegan Police Chief Rick Hoyer shut down the speech after he learned that the speaker had a $25 million bounty on his head.

Event organizers - Agema, Elizabeth Griffin, Mark Gurley and Willis Sage - arranged for Kalam Saleem, a self-professed former terroristwho teaches the dangers of radical Islam, to speak Jan. 26, 2012, at Allegan High School.

The organizers said that Saleem “has a unique perspective on the internal threat to America posed by Sharia law and radical Muslims as he was once a Muslim involved in terrorist activities who has since transformed himself and converted to Christianity.”

Others,including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-MI, and People for the American Way, dispute his claims he was once an Islamic terrorist, and contacted the school district before the event occurred.

The event was to take place from 6-9 p.m. at Allegan High School. Organizers had asked two police officers be present for the event.

Allegan city police, including Chief Hoyer, were at the scene. Shortly before it was to begin, a woman told police “that Kamal Saleem had a $25 million bounty on his head,” records showed.

A police officer talked to Saleem’s bodyguard, who didn’t deny the existence of the bounty. The bodyguard “further stated that there had been death threats directed toward Kamal Saleem from Islamic terrorists in the past,” records showed.

Hoyer ordered the event shut down while Saleem was speaking.

Agema and the others filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the City of Allegan, its police chief and officers, Allegan Public Schools and the leaders of CAIR-MI and People for the American Way. U.S. District Judge Janet Neff has dismissed the cases.

The plaintiffs argued that their rights to freedom of speech and assembly were violated, that the school district, which charged $90 for the room, breached its contract and that CAIR-MI and People for the American Way, by contacting the school district, were guilty of “tortious interference of a contract.”

Neff dismissed the final claims, against the school district, on Monday, March 9.

The school district said the plaintiffs could not show there was a policy, practice or custom that violated plaintiffs’ rights and said the school district, not the superintendent or high school principal, were the ones who set policy. The superintendent was named as a defendant.

School officials said they acted on the advice of police.

“Because a principal purpose of traditional public forums is the free exchange of ideas, speakers can be excluded from a public forum only when the exclusion is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and the exclusion is narrowly drawn to achieve that interest,” Neff wrote in her opinion.

“Similarly, when the government has intentionally designated a place or means of communication as a public forum, speakers cannot be excluded without a compelling governmental interest. Access to a nonpublic forum, however, can be restricted as long as the restrictions are ‘reasonable and (are) not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker’s view,’” Neff wrote, referencing previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

Earlier rulings have held that “school facilities may be deemed to be public forums only if school authorities have ‘by policy or by practice’ opened those facilities ‘for indiscriminate use by the general public,’ or by some segment of the public, such as student organizations.”

The judge had previously determined Allegan’s school facilities to be a nonpublic forum.

“The School District Defendants argue that there is also no evidence showing that the content of the speech in question motivated termination of the event,” Neff wrote.

“The School District Defendants assert that the testimony in this case has instead consistently confirmed that it was the report of the bounty, death threats and security concerns that motivated the termination. Indeed, the School District Defendants opine that '(had) Defendants been motivated by an intent to muzzle Mr. Saleem based on the letter received from CAIR or objects voiced through telephone calls, they would have refused to allow the event commence rather than cancel it mid-stream,” the judge said.

She said that even if police and school officials mistakenly assessed the risk of danger, the plaintiffs could not show they acted unreasonably.

She cited a previous ruling that said the government didn’t have to wait “‘until havoc is wreaked to restrict access to a nonpublic forum.’”

Neff has earlier ruled that police Chief Hoyer’s decision to halt the speech after hearing the bodyguard report death threats by Islamic extremists “was a reasonable safety precaution and a legitimate reaction to a potentially dangerous situation at a public high school.”

The plaintiffs argued that hecklers were the “true cause” of the speech being stopped.

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