PITTSBURGH – Though the Port Authority of Allegheny County has appealed an injunction granted in January to enjoin a ban on its employees wearing face masks emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” at work to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the trial judge ruled the injunction must stay in place for now.
In a Feb. 24 opinion, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan ordered the preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the “Black Lives Matter” mask policy would remain active, finding to do otherwise would violate the First Amendment rights of the defendant’s employees.
“Granting a stay would have the effect of allowing the Port Authority to enjoin speech of public importance that is protected by the First Amendment. That would be contrary to the public interest and cause harm to those employees who seek to exercise their First Amendment rights,” Ranjan said.
“Further, there is also a more practical harm that would result from a stay here. That is, granting a stay could effectively moot the entire lawsuit, handing the Port Authority a complete or near-complete victory by virtue of litigation delay alone.”
Plaintiffs Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, James Hanna, Sasha Craig and Monika Wheeler first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Sept. 30 versus the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT). All parties are of Pittsburgh.
“Founded in 2013, Black Lives Matter is an anti-racist social movement seeking to eradicate racial prejudices, seek equal justice, and build power to intervene in systemic violence inflicted on Black and Brown communities by state actors and vigilantes,” the suit stated.
“The BLM movement garnered widespread global support and attention in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police while in police custody on May 25, 2020. Support for BLM continued to swell worldwide throughout the summer of 2020. The ATU International and Local 85 as organizations have fully endorsed and support the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Shortly thereafter, on July 23, 2020, the defendant allegedly changed its “Uniform Standards for Port Authority Operators” to read as follows: “Buttons, stickers, jewelry and clothing (including masks or other face coverings) of a political or social protest nature are not permitted to be worn.”
Though PAT management publicly endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement, the transportation agency also held concerns that permitting its employees to wear masks in support of Black Lives Matter could potentially disrupt the workplace, from conflicts relating to other employees wearing face masks championing opposing sociopolitical movements.
However, there was not a single reported instance of such an incident.
In addition, PAT had previously espoused support for causes such as LGBTQ Pride, Black History Month, women’s rights and others, which the employees argued made the policy at issue an inconsistent one.
For these reasons and others, it led Ranjan to conclude that the policy unfairly infringed on the free speech and expression rights of PAT employees.
Ranjan felt that given the duration of federal court appeals, granting a stay in this matter would constitute an “unacceptable dereliction of its judicial duty.”
“Appeals in the Third Circuit, on average, take almost 10 months to decide from the date a notice of appeal is filed. At the same time, while very much uncertain, the increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines, and potential for herd immunity in the not-so-distant future, suggests at least the possibility that mask mandates could become unnecessary within that timeframe. Thus, if this Court were to grant a stay, the Union members could be subjected to an unconstitutional policy for its remaining duration, without ever having a meaningful opportunity to obtain recourse from the courts,” Ranjan said.
“Under these circumstances, granting a stay would, in the Court’s view, be an unacceptable dereliction of its judicial duty, and cause substantial harm to individual employees’ First Amendment rights. Given these considerations, the Court finds that the ‘public interest’ and ‘relative harm’ factors both weigh heavily against granting a stay pending appeal.”
Ranjan felt that the Port Authority “has not shown that it will suffer irreparable harm if the Court declines to stay its injunction.”
“Significantly, the Port Authority has not identified any new incidents or examples of disruption in the month since the Court issued its decision. Instead, as purported evidence of the disruptive potential of ‘Black Lives Matter’ masks, the Port Authority points only to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol (which did not involve the “Black Lives Matter” movement at all) and a local media report about someone vandalizing four Biden/Harris and two “Black Lives Matter” signs in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (Westmoreland County) around the time of the presidential inauguration. The Court fails to see the relevance of these unrelated events – neither of which occurred in Allegheny County, nor concern facemasks or the Port Authority’s operations,” Ranjan said.
“This lack of any actual or imminent disruption, coupled with the Port Authority’s continued failure to present other evidence that such disruption is likely to occur in the future, demonstrates that there is no basis for the Port Authority’s contention that it will experience meaningful disruption if the Court’s injunction is not stayed.”
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:20-cv-01471
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com