First Amendment Talk Set at CV Library

“The First Amendment: Our Most Fundamental and Contested Right” will be held at the library from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the Castro Valley Library on Tuesday, March 19.

Why the First Amendment matters more than ever while peoples’ doubts about it have also increased will be the subject of a forum held at the Castro Valley Library on Tuesday, March 19.

“The First Amendment: Our Most Fundamental and Contested Right” will be held at the library from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. The library asks attendees to pre-register on its website, but only to plan details such as how many chairs to set up.  

“We won’t actually be checking off names at the door,” laughed Adult Services Librarian Chris Selig, who is helping coordinate the event along with the League of Women Voters. 

The forum brings together an educator, a publisher, and a leading First Amendment activist to discuss the document, its history, and its use. It is one of several events supporting this year’s Castro Valley Reads book, “The Cold Millions,” by Jeff Walter, Selig said. 

Selig said that the book, set in the early 20th century during a time of much dissent and opposition to it, has freedom of expression as a major theme. 

The panel includes David Snyder, the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a Berkeley-based group that defends freedom of expression and enforces California’s Brown Act, which requires local government meetings to be open to the public. Snyder will be joined at the event by Katherine Ann Rowlands, publisher of Bay City News, and Nia Rashidchi, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for the Castro Valley Unified School District. 

Snyder said that the First Amendment is more important now than it has been in years, but doubts about it are also greater than in the past. He added that there is confusion about what it does and doesn’t do. 

“It protects you from the government’s restriction on expression, but anyone else’s,” he said. “And courts have generally upheld such limits as a ban on actual disruption of public meetings as long as the rules address actual disruption and apply to all, not just certain opinions.” 

Rowlands said she’d like to highlight the role of the press in what she termed the public information ecosystem. Her Bay City News supplies news stories to numerous Bay Area newspapers. 

“We just had an election. People should understand that they can make a difference, not only by voting on Election Day but by discussing issues in a wide variety of settings the rest of the time,” she said. But she added that some will not share your views, and you could each have information the other person doesn’t. 

The role of the press is to elevate civil participation by providing verified relevant information that’s the most useful to people in considering issues, she said. Rowlands called this “baseline factual information.” 

Selig said the First Amendment forum is one of several programs the Castro Valley Library is holding to support Castro Valley Reads. A group meets earlier that day at the library to discuss “The Cold Millions.”  There are also events to discuss the life of labor and social activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on March 23 and inequality in America on March 24. 

The library's website, aclibrary.org/locations/CSV/, has information on all the events and pre-registration for the First Amendment event.