Speakers at Los Angeles City Council meetings will be banned from using the N-word and the C-word, the council decided Wednesday.
The ban comes after years of tirades by a few speakers who attack officials’ weight, sexual orientation or gender and who sometimes use racial slurs.
Speakers will now receive a warning for using either word — or any variation of the word. If they continue with the offensive language, they will be removed from the room and possibly banned from future meetings.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is Black, has said that the use of the words during public comment has discouraged people from coming to meetings.
“It is language that, anywhere outside this building where there aren’t four armed guards, would get you hurt if you said these things in public,” he said earlier this year.
The council’s decision to ban the words could be challenged in court, with some legal scholars saying it could violate speakers’ 1st Amendment free speech rights.
In 2014, the city paid $215,000 to a Black man who was ejected from a meeting for wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and a T-shirt with the N-word on it.
Attorney Wayne Spindler, who often uses offensive language at council meetings, said Wednesday that he plans to sue the city over the ban. He said he will read Tupac Shakur lyrics, including offensive curse words, until he is banned from a meeting.
“I’m going to file my $400-million lawsuit that I already have prepared and ready to file. If you want to make me the next millionaire, vote yes,” he said during public comment Wednesday.
Spindler was arrested in 2016 after submitting a public comment card showing a burning cross and a man hanging from a tree. On the card, he also wrote “Herb = [N-word],” referring to Herb Wesson, the council president at the time, who is Black. Prosecutors declined to press charges against Spindler.
Armando Herman, who attended the City Council vote Wednesday, is also a frequent offender.
At a City Council meeting earlier this month, Herman said the council was trying to suppress his speech, repeatedly referring to himself as a white N-word. He also used the C-word to describe an official in the room.
In 2023, a judge barred Herman from attending in person any public meetings at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, where the L.A. County supervisors meet, after he allegedly sent sexually suggestive emails to four female supervisors. He denied sending the emails.
Numerous other members of the public have spoken against the new rule, saying it violates their freedom of speech.
“You’re so weak you have to curb freedom of speech for everyone, and you know this is going to bring lawsuits,” said Stacey Segarra-Bohlinger, a member of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council who often punctuates her remarks with singing, at the council meeting earlier this month.
“This is an attack on free speech,” she added.
