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 getthe package to the Justice Department. He was cleared through the securityguard and ready to sprint upstairs to file the papers when an unexpectedsnag developed: Stalvey was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, "ExpertsAgree! Meese Is a Pig."
The experts manning the entrance at Justice Department decidedly didnot agree about the allegedly porcine nature of their boss, Attorney GeneralEdwin 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 theWhite House wearing a "Reagan is a Jerk" T-shirt?' "
Stalvey tried the free-speech argument. That failed. He offered to removethe 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 paperswere filed. The customer was satisfied.
But Stalvey did not forget the June 10 incident. And when he was makinga run that took him near the Washington office of the American Civil LibertiesUnion this week, he stopped in and told legal director Arthur B. Spitzerabout 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 discriminationbased on the content of the T-shirt."
At the Justice Department yesterday, spokesman Patrick S. Korten defendedthe decision. Stalvey, he said, has the right to wear the T-shirt; theJustice Department has the right to impose certain standards.
"Just as we would not permit somebody to come strolling in herewith a bathing suit, for example, I think it's reasonable to have somekind of standard," he said. Stalvey, he said, "was inappropriatelyattired."
Korten added that "this is an interim policy until a firm determinationcan be made on how such matters ought to be handled."
Korten "obviously doesn't understand what the First Amendment isall about," Spitzer responded. "If they had a rule that saidno T-shirts, that might be an acceptable rule. But apparently they havea rule that says no T-shirts that insult Ed Meese. Presumably, this guywould have been allowed in if he was wearing a T-shirt that said 'Reagan-Bush'84.'"
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