On Feb. 10, 2015, The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed a class action lawsuit challenging an anti-panhandling ordinance that is being widely enforced by Fort Collins, in violation of the free speech rights of people who are impoverished and homeless, as well as street performers and non-profit canvassers.

Fort Collins police have issued “dozens and dozens” of citations, vigorously enforcing an unconstitutional law that criminalizes peaceful, non-threatening speech and expression, including silent requests for charity from solicitors who simply display a sign asking for help.

Our clients include four individuals who are homeless.  They represent a class of people who want to engage in peaceful requests for charity in Fort Collins.

Our clients also include Nancy York, a 76-year-old resident of Fort Collins.  Because she is over 60, York is classified as “at risk” by the law and therefore cannot be approached by people or organizations requesting charity.  She objects to the classification and believes that she is fully capable of deciding for herself whether or not to make a donation to a person or an organization.

Read more about our Fort Collins clients:

Lawrence Beall did not expect to spend his retirement on the streets. But when his former employer was bought by another corporation, his pension was cut to $500/month and he found himself unable to pay rent. To make ends meet, he began panhandling in Old Town Fort Collins, an activity he dislikes and finds embarrassing, but necessary. To avoid sleeping outside on frigid winter nights, Larry uses money he gets from panhandling to buy food and coffee at all-night coffee shops so that he can stay warm.

Every day, Larry is forced to choose between violating the law or going hungry and cold. He’s found that people leaving bars and restaurants in the evening are more likely to give him a couple quarters, as are people stepping out of their cars — who often have loose change in the vehicle — but Fort Collins panhandling law forbids him from asking for help in these circumstances. Larry is very careful to respect the personal space of those he asks for help and is always gracious and thankful to those he approaches.

“Bicycle Larry,” as he’s known, tries to show his appreciation for strangers’ generosity by paying it forward in whatever ways he can, often by fixing bikes for other homeless people.

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Jeffrey Alan spent 30 years traveling the country as a truck driver, a job that he loved. His career was cut short nine years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer. Multiple major surgeries and cancer treatments have left him disfigured, disabled, and unable to hold a steady job. Social security disability checks have not been enough to pay for the basic necessities of life, and so Jeff has spent the better part of the last nine years living on the street, forced to beg for money to pay for food and shelter.
 

Needing help but not wanting to be obtrusive, Jeff spends many days sitting quietly on a low concrete wall or bench in downtown Fort Collins, where outdoor cafes and banks are nearby, with a sign asking for assistance. He makes sure to stay out of pedestrians’ way and treats passersby with kindness and respect, regardless of whether they are able to offer him any spare change. In order to make enough money for the bare necessities, he must sit in an area with a good amount of foot traffic — often within 100 feet of an ATM or outdoor café — and is sometimes forced to panhandle after dark. His polite, unobtrusive requests for assistance violate Fort Collins panhandling ordinance.

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Abby Landow doesn’t feel comfortable verbally asking people for aid, so she sits silently on public sidewalks and benches with a sign asking for help, only speaking when she’s spoken to. Despite her unobtrusive panhandling, she’s been told by police repeatedly to “move on” when panhandling and has been ticketed for violating Fort Collins’s ordinance for simply sitting on a public bench and displaying her sign within sight of an outdoor café. Homeless and destitute, Abby can’t afford to pay the fine for violating the ordinance and has therefore often chosen not to panhandle, even though she’s been in desperate need of assistance.

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Susan Wymer recently became homeless when she was forced to move out of her Section 8 apartment after the Housing Authority declared her unit unlivable. Her current homelessness and severe health problems, which have rendered her unable to work, have forced her to panhandle in order to pay for life’s necessities such as food and medicine.

Susan believes the Fort Collins community is generous. She frequently asks for their help by flying a sign near ATMs and outdoor cafés or by using her voice to politely ask for spare change or leftover food. She also holds her sign at night when there’s good foot traffic. Susan is careful to never get in people’s way when she’s asking for help and always expresses gratitude when passersby choose to donate. She has found that many people who are older or disabled, like her, are eager to help. Despite the peaceful nature of her panhandling, the police have told her time and again that the way she panhandles, such as at night and near ATMs, violates the panhandling ordinance. Not wanting any trouble with the police, Susan always follows their directions to move on, even when she desperately needs charity. She’s worried that the ordinance will make her have to choose between courteously asking for help and violating the law.

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Nancy York is a successful businesswoman, homeowner, and Fort Collins native. She has long been concerned with homelessness and poverty in her hometown and considers herself a community activist. She has been approached countless times over the years by panhandlers and nonprofit organizations soliciting donations, but has never felt threatened or bothered by it and often chooses to share the money she’s earned with those in need. But Nancy is 76 years old, and in Fort Collins it’s a crime to ask her for aid — something she rightfully finds offensive. Nancy is fully capable of making her own decisions on whether or not to give, and does not appreciate the city’s paternalistic and stigmatizing ordinance forbidding panhandlers to approach those over a certain age.
 

In addition to being insulted by the age restriction of the ordinance, Nancy takes issue with the government’s attempt to push poor people out of sight and keep public spaces open only to those who are well-off. She enjoys talking with those facing poverty and homelessness and believes that everyone has the right to be seen and to ask for help in public places if they need it.

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Jennifer Flaherty is the regional coordinator for Greenpeace, Inc.’s Denver officer and plans all canvassing efforts in the Mountain Time zone. Greenpeace is a non-profit that aims to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions for a green and peaceful future. Canvassing, which Greenpeace has done with great success in Fort Collins for the past 8 years, is essential to the organization’s outreach, education, and fundraising strategies. Jennifer trains her canvassers to use their voices to initiate conversations with passersby in a non-obtrusive, polite, and jovial manner. The goal is to talk about the environment and the organization’s programs, as well as encourage membership and solicit donations.
 

Greenpeace is concerned that canvassers are engaging in behavior that would be banned by Fort Collins’ panhandling ordinance. For example, canvassers are quite often near the many ATMs, bus stops, and outdoor cafes in downtown area. Greenpeace does not want to train its canvassers to discriminate against people who are elderly or disabled, as the panhandling ban would require. After reviewing the text of the panhandling ordinance and learning how the Fort Collins police have enforced the law, Greenpeace fears that its canvassers are at risk of being ticketed and criminally prosecuted.

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GO BACK TO CASE PAGE

February 3, 2015
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Connecticut, and the Service Women’s Action Network filed a lawsuit today against the Department of Defense for failing to release records under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how three military academies maintain policies that result in an underrepresentation of women in the student population.
The lawsuit aims to capture information about the admissions and recruitment policies at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA), and the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, with the ultimate goal of ending the gender disparities and discrimination that women who aspire to become military officers face. The Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School, the ACLU, and the ACLU of Connecticut represent the plaintiffs.
DOD has a long history of denying women opportunities to serve equally and in leadership roles. Cadets and midshipmen attend the military service academies tuition-free, graduate with a bachelor of science degree with a commission as a second lieutenant, and must serve a minimum of five years on active duty. Yet, the percentage of women at West Point has remained between 14 percent and 17 percent for over 25 years, women are less than a quarter of the Brigade of Midshipmen at USNA, and the USAFA has limited its enrollment of women cadets to at or below 23 percent since 1976, despite commissioning its graduates into a service in which over 99 percent of career fields have been open to women for two decades.
Women’s underrepresentation in the academies contributes to a dearth of women officers in the U.S. armed forces. Overall, women comprise less than 17 percent of all officers in the military services, despite DOD’s rescission of policies restricting military jobs for women.
“The military service academies are premier educational institutions that provide tuition-free paths to leadership and are run by the federal government – there is no excuse for the government to provide this opportunity to women at such dismally low rates,” said Ariela Migdal, senior staff attorney in the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project.
Without the presence of more women, female students continue to be targeted for mistreatment, discrimination, harassment, and sexual violence. Despite nearly 10 years of research, training, and focus on the crisis of sexual assault at military service academies, sexual assault reports at the academies have not shown a substantial change in the past five years. The academies received 70 reports of sexual assaults in the 2012-2013 academic year. According to the DOD’s data, over 90 percent of the victims were women.
"Service women today are serving in unprecedented roles that are enabling the military to be a more effective fighting force," said Greg Jacob, Service Women’s Action Network policy director and a former Marine Corps infantry officer. "However, service academy culture and policies are preventing the military from becoming the 21st century leader we need it to be. In order to remain relevant, the academies must increase women's accession and leadership opportunities and actively support their advancement in the force. Instead, after nearly 40 years of integration at the academies, women are represented at abysmally low rates, and a sexually hostile environment still seems to be the norm."
The ACLU, ACLU of Connecticut, and SWAN believe the data that would be obtained from the FOIA request will shed light on the admission process as well as the assignments women receive after graduation. This information would assist in identifying the problems and discrepancies preventing women from being admitted to the military service academies and thus serving in leadership positions in the military.
“The admissions systems that result in student bodies of less than 25 percent women have been shrouded in a certain amount of mystery, and this lawsuit aims to throw a spotlight on the mechanisms that keep women’s numbers so low,” said Stephen Glassman, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut.
On November 14, 2014, the plaintiffs submitted FOIA requests to USMA, USNA, and USAFA for records relating to admissions policies, rates of admission, and information regarding admissions targets or quotas for women. The FOIA request also asked for information regarding facilities for women and policies and responses to sexual harassment and assault at the military service academies.
In violation of statutory deadlines established by Congress, the USMA and USAFA have not produced any documents. The USNA has disclosed records in response to some portions of plaintiffs’ request but have withheld all others and also partially denied the plaintiffs’ fee waiver request.
Accordingly, the lawsuit contends that DOD failed to release the records and failed to make a reasonable effort to search for the records within the statutory deadlines.
“FOIA is a powerful tool in holding our government accountable,” said Ashley Anderson, a law student intern at the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School and Service Academy graduate. “The military is obligated to recruit and train the best and brightest regardless of gender. If West Point, the Air Force Academy, and the Naval Academy believe they are fulfilling that duty, then they have nothing to hide and should release the requested data to the public.”
A copy of today’s filing can be found at http://servicewomen.org/military-academies/.
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has been our nation’s guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Whether it’s achieving full equality for the LGBT community, establishing new privacy protections for our digital age, ending mass incarceration, or preserving the right to vote or the right to have an abortion, the ACLU takes up the toughest civil liberties cases and issues to defend all people from government abuse and overreach. With more than a million members, activists, and supporters, the ACLU is a nationwide organization that fights tirelessly in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C., for the principle that every individual’s rights must be protected equally under the law, regardless of race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin.

The ACLU of Connecticut is a nonpartisan, non-profit membership organization that defends, promotes and preserves individual rights and liberties under the U.S. and Connecticut constitutions in state and federal court, the General Assembly and the state’s 169 towns and cities. The ACLUCT carries out this work from Hartford with a staff of eight full-time employees assisted by interns, volunteers, cooperating attorneys, an active Board of Directors, six regional chapters and five college and law school chapters. The ACLUCT is one of 53 affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union nationwide.

SWAN (www.servicewomen.org) is a national nonpartisan civil rights organization founded and led by women veterans. SWAN’s mission is to transform military culture by securing equal opportunity and the freedom to serve in uniform without discrimination, harassment or assault; and to reform veterans’ services to ensure high quality health care and benefits for women veterans and their families. You can follow Service Women’s Action Network on Twitter at http://twitter.com/servicewomen, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/servicewomen.

In the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School, law students represent individual veterans and their organizations under the supervision of clinical professors. Students engage in litigation before administrative agencies and courts on matters including disability benefits claims, Freedom of Information Act requests, and civil rights lawsuits. In addition, students represent local and national organizations on policy matters relating to the legal needs of veterans.

ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein held a press conference this morning responding to the Denver Police Department shooting of Jessica Hernandez. Watch video of the conference here via the Denver Post: