SW News: A federal appeals court in the United States on Tuesday overturned the dismissal of a pro-life foundation’s lawsuit by a lower district court. The lawsuit claimed discriminatory selective enforcement of defacement laws against pro-life protesters in Washington DC over scrawling a chalk message on a public sidewalk.

Allegations were made that local authorities treated pro-life protesters harsher than Black Lives Matter activists in the case. The Frederick Douglass Foundation's lawsuit was dismissed by a lower court earlier, but the appeals court overturned that decision. The case has been sent to the district court for further proceedings, where the city will have the chance to present its own evidence in opposition to the pro-life protesters' assertions.

“The government may not enforce the laws in a manner that picks winners and losers in public debates. It would undermine the First Amendment's protections for free speech if the government could enact a content-neutral law and then discriminate against disfavored viewpoints under the cover of prosecutorial discretion,” the DC Circuit Court wrote in its opinion reversing the decision of a lower court in The Frederick Douglass Foundation v. District of Columbia lawsuit.
It was brought against the city by the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America after two pro-life activists were arrested on August 1, 2020, for chalk graffiti that said ‘Black Pre-Born Lives Matter.’

The organization admitted that the chalk graffiti broke local regulations, but claimed that Washington, DC's selective enforcement of the rules was unconstitutional. The foundation claimed that both the First and Fifth Amendment rights of the demonstrators were infringed.

The foundation argued that the rules were being selectively enforced. They also argued that the rules were being selectively enforced by citing the government's implied support of Black Lives Matter-related graffiti throughout the city in the summer of 2020.

In its ruling, the court stated that thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the District in the summer of 2020 to proclaim 'Black Lives Matter. Over the course of several weeks, the demonstrators painted and chalked businesses, sidewalks, and city streets. None of them were detained despite the fact that the markings were widespread and clearly in violation of the District's defacement code.

However, district police officers detained two pro-life activists during a smaller rally that same summer for writing 'Black Pre-Born Lives Matter' in chalk on a sidewalk. The Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America, who organized the smaller demonstration, were sued.