High Court Won’t Consider Skokie Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court declined today to consider an application for an appeal by the Village of Skokie, III. to air the principles involved in the effort by the National Socialist Party, an American Nazi group, to march in that heavily Jewish-populated Chicago suburb last April.

The Village of Skokie had appealed the Seventh Circuit Court’s decision that denied the application to bring the entire case to a judicial hearing in a U.S. court. The U.S. District Court in Chicago had also turned down the application. A significant factor in the Supreme Court’s decision was the dissent from the majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun and concurred in by Justice Byron R. White.

Blackmun argued in a long opinion that the Supreme Court should hold a hearing and ultimately decide on future cases of this kind. In a previous decision, the Supreme Court had refused to consider an appeal by Skokie that it deny a permit to the Nazis to march through the village. Skokie therefore granted the permit but the Nazis did not use it and did not march.

Gilbert Gordon, senior attorney for the Village of Skokie who has been handling the issue from the beginning, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he has not yet received a copy of today’s decision by the Supreme Court. He said, however, that the decision has “no immediate practical effect” because Frank Collin and the National Socialist Party that he heads, received the permit but then “abandoned” it.

“We cannot speculate upon what the village might do should a similar case arise other than to say the village will take whatever action is necessary under proper Constitutional guidelines, to protect the citizens of Skokie from harassment, “Gordon said.