A veteran was barred from Juneau's July 4th parade over an anti-war sign

K.J. Metcalf carried a sign reading "Wars: immoral, illegal." For that, the Juneau veteran says, parade organizers pulled him from the Fourth of July parade as it left the staging area — and on Monday he brought the dispute to the city Assembly.

"I felt ashamed," Metcalf, a member of Veterans for Peace Chapter 100, told the Assembly. "I felt that my sign was not hate speech, it was protected speech."

His case rests on who was doing the barring. Douglas Mertz, a retired civil rights attorney, told the Assembly the parade committee operates under a 2004 borough resolution that insures it at public expense — so Metcalf was removed from public streets by a borough-insured group, with police enforcing the organizers' wishes. That, Mertz argued, exposes the borough to "tremendous potential liability" when it delegates the power to interfere with a citizen's civil rights. Organizers, he said, "have the right to make all kinds of policies as long as they don't infringe on people's constitutional rights." He asked the Assembly to apologize to Metcalf and convene a group to review the parade's rules.

That's the knot: a nonprofit, the Juneau Festival Association, runs the parade, and one Assembly member noted a private group can set its own rules. But the event occupies public streets under municipal authorization, with public insurance and police backing — which is where viewpoint restrictions get constitutionally fraught. The parade rule bars entries involving political opposition, picket signs or language that "incite hateful language"; organizers have framed that as keeping the event family-friendly rather than silencing any message. None of them spoke Monday.

Craig Wilson, the chapter's president, said organizers reshaped the parade's rules without consulting the borough or the public. "I see it as the Assembly's responsibility to restore the social license," he said, asking the Assembly to reaffirm the parade's authorizing resolution and appoint a member to sit in on planning. The Assembly took no action.