Free speech zones proliferated on university campuses in the 1980s and 1990s to limit where protesters could demonstrate.But the zones faded away in the 2000s after a series of court rulings determined public spaces should be open to displays of the First Amendment.Municipalities and schools could n ot legally place blanket bans on free speech in public spaces — especially in public parks that are considered public forums, the courts ruled.That's why Laura Hois was surprised last July when she saw a 15-by-15-foot "free speech zone" marked in a corner of Fishel Park in Downers Grove.She came to the park to promote her candidacy for the DuPage County Board before a concert. But a Downers Grove Park District employee told her that she couldn't mingle and talk politics with attendees, she said. She could only do so in the "free speech zone.""I was upset by it," Hois said. "It's completely un-American." Photos of Fishel Park shows the 15-by-15-foot “free speech zone” in its southwest corner. FIRE’s March 6 letter Civil rights groups agree with Hois that the Downers Grove Park District is overstepping in its attempt to restrict speech in its parks.The First Amendment requires the municipalities govern free speech "with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer," said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.His group is demanding the park district change its ordinance that limits free speech in eight public spaces, including Fishel Park and McCollum Park."The fundamental mistake ... is the idea that the government can convert a traditional public forum into a non-public forum by fiat," FIRE said in a March 6 letter to the Park District. "Under well-settled First Amendment doctrine, it cannot."The group is demanding a response from the park district, which says it will reply by a March 20 deadline.Derke Price, corporation counsel for the Park District, said the free speech zones were created last year out of a concern for safety. The ordinance was made in response to national protests during President Donald Trump's first term, Price said. He pointed specifically to concerns about protesters and counter-protesters during a 2017 Toby Keith concert at Rib Fest in Naperville. Free speech zones were also designated in McCoullum Park in Downers Grove.FIRE Price said the ordinance is lawful because it only restricts free speech during park district programming such as soccer games or concerts."All we're trying to do is guide you to the right places for a pop-up demonstration," Price told the Sun-Times.Terr said the ordinance is not clear if speech is allowed outside of free speech zones when park activities are not happening."The main problem with the ordinance is it claims no part of a public park is a public forum unless the government says so," Terr said. Rebecca Glenberg, senior supervising attorney for ACLU Illinois, said she found it "particularly disturbing" that the ordinance could be applied to a single person distributing literature in a park."That is a very unobtrusive type of speech that should be allowed in virtually every area of a public park, unless there's some particular reason why some area is unsuited for it," Glenberg said.In 2020, a federal judge struck down an ordinance in Chicago that limited speech in large parts of Millennium Park. Several students from Wheaton College had sued the city of Chicago, saying a municipal ordinance unconstitutionally prevented them from passing out religious materials.An area akin to a free speech zone was created outside the Democratic National Convention last summer when the city confined protests and speeches to a park just north of the United Center. "Generally we tend to look with disfavor on that," Glenberg said. "Sometimes, when there are massive crowds. it's hard to manage alternatives. But that's an exceptional situation."Hois said she hopes the Downers Grove Park District ordinance is repealed. She often walks around her hometown speaking with who she can about politics. She said she thinks the ordinance targets conservatives like her who are the minority in the western suburb."We've got to say something," Hois said. "We can't be silent about the expansion of the idea that free speech zones will be a thing now — that you'll have stand in a box to speak for mind."Read the full letter to the park district ...read more read less