Education advocates found not guilty for March protest
The raucous protest at school district headquarters was in opposition to school closures.
SIXTEEN EDUCATION advocates who were arrested in March for blocking auditorium doorways during a raucous protest at School District headquarters were acquitted yesterday.
Municipal Judge T. Francis Shields granted a judgment of acquittal at the request of four defense attorneys after hearing attorney arguments and testimony from police Lt. Joseph O'Brien, the trial's only witness.
In issuing his order Shields said he believed the protesters "went a little too far" but still concurred with defense attorneys that O'Brien had failed to identify any of the 16 defendants as those who blocked the three doorways into the School Reform Commission meeting.
"We're thrilled. Justice for these defendants and justice for Philadelphia schools," said defense attorney Lawrence Krasner.
The March 7 protest inside the school administration building on Broad Street near Spring Garden was in opposition to the commission's planned vote to close 23 schools. Among those arrested was Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second largest teachers union. (She was not among the defendants on trial.)
Krasner and fellow defense attorneys Giovanni Campbell, Lloyd Long and Michael Lee argued that their clients did not commit the crime of disorderly conduct by linking arms at the doorways because no hazardous condition was created.
Linking arms in protest, Krasner told Shields, has a long history among protesters, including civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and is a "way of speaking about what you are doing."
Lee called the protesters' actions "symbolic speech."
But Assistant District Attorney Greg Engle said the protesters were coordinated, did create a risk of danger and blocked members of the public from entering the meeting.
"The fact that no emergency happened is not a dispositive fact," Engle told the judge.
"The SRC is an unelected board, so they didn't have to listen to us. So we decided to block the doors to make them listen," said Claire Galpern, 25, one of the 16 defendants and a member of Youth United for Change.
