Posted on January 13, 2025

Supreme Court Rules State Went Too Far in Applying Civil Rights Act Against White Supremacists

Ethan DeWitt, New Hampshire Bulletin, January 10, 2025

The New Hampshire Supreme Court held that a local white supremacist group, NSC-13, did not violate the state’s Civil Rights Act when it displayed a banner reading “KEEP NEW ENGLAND WHITE” from an overpass.

In a 4-0 decision released Friday, the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the state against leaders of the group under the Civil Rights Act. Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald wrote that the state went too far in applying the civil rights statute and impinged on the activists’ free speech rights.

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The case stems from an incident in July 2022 in which 10 members of NSC-13 hung the banner from the overpass. They were stopped by Portsmouth police, who informed them that they were violating a municipal ordinance to hang banners from overpasses without a permit. After that instruction, they removed the banner and departed the bridge within 25 minutes.

The Attorney General’s Office attempted to bring a lawsuit against the NSC-13 members under a provision of the state’s Civil Rights Act, RSA 354-B:1, that protects residents from “actual or threatened damage to or trespass on property when such actual or threatened conduct is motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability.”

The state argued that because the activists were trespassing on a public roadway in order to display the sign, and were motivated by race to do so, they were violating the act. But the defendants said that was an incorrect reading of the statute, and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire helped provide them legal support.

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