Federal Judge Upholds Circuit Court Barring Use of High School by Nazi Group

A federal judge upheld an Arlington Circuit Court ruling barring use last night by the National Socialist White People’s party of an Arlington school as the site for a celebration of Hitler’s birthday. Federal Judge Oren R. Lewis, in handing down his decision Thursday, called the group a successor to the American Nazi party, “hate-mongers” and held that “nothing in the Constitution says a school board has to let a hate-monger use a public facility.” He noted that the neo-Nazis had planned to exclude Jews and Negroes from the proposed birthday party at Yorktown high school. He held that such exclusion would violate public accommodations of the federal Civil Rights Act. Arlington Circuit Judge Charles Russell had ruled in support of the right of Arlington school officials to bar use of the school to the neo-Nazis.

The attorney appearing at the appeal hearing was James Cohen of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that the neo-Nazis had as much right to use the school as the Democratic party or the Republican party. He said the denial violated protection under the Bill of Rights. In a related court action, four Nazi party members, arrested in a disturbance in Arlington which broke out when the party was denied permission to hold a rally in the Yorktown building, were found guilty Thursday of violating the county noise ordinance. A fifth party member was found guilty of unlawful use of a loud-speaker at the disturbance.