A New Free Speech Case in Florida

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a new lawsuit last month on behalf of the Miami Beach resident and Army National Guard veteran Raquel Pacheco, arguing that Miami Beach city officials conducted a coordinated campaign to suppress constitutionally protected speech—namely, the advocacy for the rights of Palestinians and criticism of the foreign government of Israel. 

On January 7, 2026, Pacheco posted a comment on Facebook criticizing City of Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner’s stance on Palestine. She wrote, “The guy who consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians, tried to shut down a theater for showing a movie that hurt his feelings, and refuses to stand up for the LGBTQ community in any way… wants you to know that you’re all welcome here,” referring to a 2024 attempt by Meiner to chill pro-Palestinian speech; Meiner had threatened to revoke the lease of O Cinema, a private Miami Beach movie theater, over its screenings of the Academy Award–winning documentary No Other Land, which documents Israel’s destruction of Palestinian villages in the West Bank.

The mayor reportedly flagged Pacheco’s Facebook comment for police, and on January 12, in an incident condemned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), two Miami Beach Police Department officers visited Pacheco’s home, questioned her about the post, and advised her to “refrain from posting things like that because that could get something incited.” Pacheco recorded the encounter and the video was posted on X, rapidly going viral. 

In the video, Miami Beach police officers confront Pacheco in her doorway. The complaint notes that when Pacheco opened the door, she invoked her right to have an attorney present before answering any questions, which the officers ignored, proceeding to question her anyway. Reading out-loud her own Facebook comments, the officer claimed that the purpose of their visit is “trying to prevent… somebody else getting agitated or agreeing with the statement,” saying that her comments could “probably incite somebody to do something radical.” 

When it comes to “incitement,” the Supreme Court has long recognized that speech is constitutionally protected unless 1) it is directed to producing “imminent lawless action” and 2) is likely to produce such action. Speech like Pacheco’s that is merely provocative or critical of public figures, but not an immediate call to violence, is entirely protected by the first amendment.

The ADC’s complaint, filed on Pacheco’s behalf against the City of Miami Beach, Meiner, Police Chief Wayne Jones, City Manager Eric Carpenter, two city commissioners, and unnamed police detectives, alleges four separate First Amendment violations.

The first count charges viewpoint discrimination and invokes the Supreme Court’s repeated holding that viewpoint discrimination is an “egregious form of content discrimination” that is “presumptively unconstitutional,” (Matal v. Tam, 2017, quoting Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va, 1995) and that political speech, particularly advocacy on controversial issues like pro-Palestinian advocacy, occupies “the highest, most protected position” (R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 1992) under the First Amendment. The ADC’s complaint argues that dispatching police to Pacheco’s home to question her about a post criticizing a public official, and instructing her not to post such content again, is exactly the kind of viewpoint-targeted government action the Constitution forbids. 

The second count charges unlawful retaliation, alleging that defendants took direct adverse action against Pacheco in response to protected political speech in a manner that “would chill the future speech of a person of ordinary firmness.” The ADC complaint quotes a second circuit case, Okwedy v. Molinari, which held that “oral or written statements made by public officials” may give rise to a First Amendment claim where they “can reasonably be interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the official’s request.” The detective’s directive to Pacheco to “refrain from posting things like that” plainly meets that standard, ADC argues.

The third count charges unlawful prior restraint; the Supreme Court has held that government prohibitions on speech before it occurs are presumptively unconstitutional, and that this principle applies not just to written legal orders but to informal threats and warnings by officials (Multimedia Holdings Corp. v. Circuit Court, 2005).

The fourth count charges unlawful viewpoint discrimination in a public forum, directed at Commissioners Suarez and Bhatt for blocking Pacheco from their official Facebook accounts. The complaint argues that by opening the interactive spaces of their official pages for public discussion of governmental matters, the commissioners created designated public forums subject to First Amendment constraints, and that excluding Pacheco from those pages on the basis of her pro-Palestinian views, violated her constitutionally protected rights to “to read and participate in a public forum, right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and right to access official statements.”

The speech-chilling measures taken against Pacheco, the ADC notes, come amidst two years of official conduct targeting pro-Palestinian speech in Miami Beach. In September 2024, the city passed an anti-BDS ordinance requiring vendors to certify they do not boycott the State of Israel. Under anti-BDS laws, now active across 38 states, Americans can boycott any other foreign government, and even other state governments within the United States but boycotts of that one foreign government are strictly prohibited. Miami Beach’s anti-protest ordinance, adopted in March 2024, is already the subject of separate litigation, with that complaint arguing that Meiner and Suarez made clear the ordinance was designed to impair expression critical of Israel, infringing on the first amendment protections of Miami residents.

The ADC hopes the case will establish that a mayor cannot weaponize police against constituents who criticize him on social media, regardless of the political views being expressed. “It’s virtually unheard of in America for police to show up at someone’s doorstep to interrogate her for airing a political view on social media,” Jenin Younes, the ADC’s National Legal Director tells The American Conservative. “It’s absolutely crucial for the future of free speech that courts make clear to law enforcement and political actors that this conduct isn’t tolerable under the first amendment.”

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