Bible Believers v. Wayne County

CLAY, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which COLE, C.J., BOGGS, BATCHELDER, MOORE, KETHLEDGE, WHITE, and STRANCH, JJ., joined, and SUTTON and GRIFFIN, JJ., joined in part. BOGGS, J. (pp. 262-64), delivered a separate concurring opinion in which BATCHELDER, CLAY, and WHITE, JJ., joined. GRIFFIN, J. (pp. 264-66), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part, and dissenting from Part IV and the final two paragraphs of • Part I.C.4 of the majority opinion. *233SUTTON, J. (pg. 266), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part in Part I of the majority opinion, and in Parts II and III of the dissent of GIBBONS, J. GIBBONS, J. (pp. 266-74), delivered a separate dissent in which COOK and McKEAGUE, JJ., joined, and SUTTON, J., joined in part. ROGERS, J. (pp. 274-78), delivered a separate dissent in which GIBBONS, COOK, McKEAGUE, and DONALD, JJ., joined.

OPINION

Plaintiffs Ruben Chavez (“Israel”), Arthur Fisher, Joshua DeLosSantos, and the Bible Believers (collectively “the Bible Believers” or “Plaintiffs”) appeal the district court order entering summary judgment in favor of Defendants Sheriff Benny N. Napoleon, Deputy Chief Dennis Richardson, Deputy Chief Mike Jaafar, and Wayne County (collectively “Wayne County” or “Defendants”). Plaintiffs initiated this constitutional tort action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and free exercise of religion, as well as their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the laws. The district court held that Defendants’ actions in cutting off the Bible Believers’ religious speech did not violate the Constitution. We REVERSE the judgment of the district court in full and REMAND this case for entry of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs, for the calculation of damages, and for the award of appropriate injunctive relief, consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 458, 131 S.Ct. 1207, 179 L.Ed.2d 172 (2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “Nowhere is this [First Amendment] shield more necessary than in our own country for a people composed [from such diverse backgrounds].” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 310, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940). Born from immigrants, our national identity is woven together from a mix of cultures and shaped by countless permutations of geography, race, national origin, religion, wealth, experience, and education. Rather than conform to a single notion of what it means to be an American, we are fiercely individualistic as a people, despite the common threads that bind us. This diversity contributes to our capacity to hold a broad array of opinions on an incalculable number of topics. It is our freedom as Americans, particularly the freedom of speech, which generally allows us to express our views without fear of government sanction.

Diversity, in viewpoints and among cultures, is not always easy. An inability or a general unwillingness to understand new or differing points of view may breed fear, distrust, and even loathing. But it “is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.” Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 376, 47 S.Ct. 641, 71 L.Ed. 1095 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring). Robust discourse, including the exchanging of ideas, may lead to a better understanding (or even an appreciation) of the people whose views we once feared simply because they appeared foreign to our own exposure. But even when communication fails to bridge the gap in understanding, or when understanding fails to heal the divide between us, the First Amendment demands that we tolerate the viewpoints of others with whom we may disagree. If the Constitution were to al*234low for the suppression of minority or disfavored views, the democratic process would become imperiled through the corrosion of our individual freedom. Because “[t]he right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas ... is ... one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes,” Terminiello v. City of Chi, 337 U.S. 1, 4, 69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949), dissent is an essential ingredient of our political process.

The First Amendment “may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” Id. If we are not persuaded by the contents of another’s speech, “the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” Whitney, 274 U.S. at 377, 47 S.Ct. 641 (Brandeis, J., concurring). And although not all manner of speech is protected, generally, we interpret the First Amendment broadly so as to favor allowing more speech. See Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 578, 85 S.Ct. 466, 13 L.Ed.2d 487 (1965) (“[W]hen passing on the validity of a regulation of conduct, which may indirectly infringe on free speech, this Court ... weights] the circumstances in order to protect, not to destroy, freedom of speech.” (internal quotation marks omitted)) (Black, J., concurring).

This case calls on us to confirm the boundaries of free speech protections in relation to angry, hostile, or violent crowds that seek to silence a speaker with whom the crowd disagrees. Set against the constitutional right to freedom of speech, we must balance the state’s interest in insuring public safety and preventing breaches of the peace. The scenario presented by this case, known as the “heckler’s veto,” occurs when police silence a speaker to appease the crowd and stave off a potentially violent altercation.1 The particular facts of this case involve a group of self-described Christian evangelists preaching hate and denigration to a crowd of Muslims, some of whom responded with threats of violence. The police thereafter removed the evangelists to restore the peace. Bearing in mind the interspersed surges of ethnic, racial, and religious conflict that from time to time mar our national history, the constitutional lessons to be learned from the circumstances of this case are both timeless and markedly seasonable.

In this opinion we reaffirm the comprehensive boundaries of the First Amendment’s free speech protection, which envelopes all manner of speech, even when that speech is loathsome in its intolerance, designed to cause offense, and, as a result, of such offense, arouses violent retaliation. We also delineate the obligations and duties of law enforcement personnel or public officials who, in the exercise of the state’s police power, seek to extinguish any breaches of the peace that may arise when constitutionally protected speech has stirred people to anger, and even to violence.

Facts

A. Dearborn and the Arab International Festival

Dearborn — home of the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company — is a city located in Wayne County, Michigan, that borders Detroit and has a stable popula*235tion of approximately 100,000 people.2 Dearborn is also home to one of the largest populations of Arab Americans in the country — second only to New York City.3 Dearborn’s Arab American population is comprised of both Christian and Muslim families whose national origins include Lebanon, Armenia, Yemen, Iraq, and Palestine, among other nations.4

Beginning in 1996 and continuing for 17 years thereafter, each June, Dearborn celebrated its Arab heritage and culture by hosting the Arab International Festival. The Festival, which was free to the public, featured Middle Eastern food, music, artisan booths, cultural acts, and other amusements, including carnival rides. A principal purpose of the Festival was to promote cultural exchange. Each year, the Festival took place on a stretch of Warren Avenue, covering several blocks temporarily closed to vehicular traffic. The street became a pedestrian thoroughfare lined with vendors and information booths. The brick and mortar stores lining the Warren sidewalks also remained open. The Festival attracted people from around the world, and by 2012, it was the largest festival of its kind in the United States, annually drawing more than 300,000 people over the course of three days.

Given the size of attendance and the Festival’s focus on cultural exchange, a diverse array of religious groups requested permission to set up information booths on the Festival grounds.5 The Festival also had a history of attracting certain Christian evangelists who preferred to roam free among the crowd and proselytize to the large number of Muslims who were typically in attendance each year.6 These evangelists would come from across the country to distribute leaflets up and down the sidewalks of Warren Avenue in the heart of the Festival. This practice was disrupted in 2009 when the Dearborn police enforced an anti-leafletting policy promoted by the American Arab Chamber of Commerce — the Festival’s primary sponsor — -and ratified by the City. A panel of this Court subsequently held that Dear-born’s anti-leafletting policy unconstitutionally encroached on the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment because it failed to serve a substantial government interest and it was not narrowly tailored, as is required with respect to any time, place, or manner restriction on protected speech. See Saieg v. City of *236Dearborn, 641 F.3d 727 (6th Cir.2011). The City of Dearborn thereafter ceded to the Wayne County Sheriffs Office (“WCSO”) primary responsibility over Festival security in future years.

B. The Bible Believers

The Bible Believers were among the self-described evangelical groups that attended the Festival for the purpose of spreading their Christian beliefs. The founder and leader of the Bible Believers, known as “Israel,” testified that due to his sincerely held religious beliefs he was required “to try and convert non-believers, and call sinners to repent.” Therefore, Israel and his Bible Believers regularly engaged in street preaching, which consisted of advocating for their Christian beliefs and parading around with banners, signs, and tee-shirts that displayed messages associated with those beliefs. Many of the signs and messages displayed by the Bible Believers communicated overtly anti-Muslim sentiments.

In 2011, Israel attended the Festival with a number of Bible Believers to preach to the crowd of Festival-goers. Upon their arrival at the Festival on Friday, June 17, 2011, the Bible Believers were directed to a protected area on the Festival grounds referred to as a “free speech zone.” When they returned to the Festival on Sunday, June 19, the Bible Believers were informed that the free speech zone had been removed and would not be made available again. The Bible Believers therefore opted to walk the public streets and sidewalks, spreading their message to those who passed by. The quintessential attribute of the Bible Believers’ message was intolerance, principally proclaiming that Mohammed was a false prophet who lied to them and that Muslims would be damned to hell if they failed to repent by rejecting Islam.7 This message was not well received by certain elements of the crowd. The Bible Believers allege that they were assaulted by various members of the crowd and that the WCSO initially watched and did nothing, then eventually silenced the Bible Believers by kicking them out and requiring them to leave the Festival grounds. They also alleged that Deputy Chief Jaafar personally arrested one of the Bible Believers to the delight of the “violent Muslims.” No formal action was taken by either party as a result of this alleged incident.

C. May 2012 Pre-Festival Letters and Preparation

Israel and his Bible Believers determined to return to Dearborn the following year for the 2012 Arab International Festival. Prior to the Festival, the Bible Believers, through their counsel, sent a letter to Defendants Wayne County and Sheriff Napoleon recounting the Bible Believers’ experience at the 2011 Festival. The letter also apprised Defendants of the Bible Believers’ expectations for the group’s return visit:

In light of the past actions by the officers, I write to remind the Wayne County Sheriffs Department [sic] of two points; First, the officers have a duty to protect speakers like Israel from the reactions of hostile audiences. See Glasson v. City of Louisville, 518 F.2d 899, 906 (6th Cir.1975) (“A police officer has the duty not to ratify and effectuate a heckler’s veto nor may he join a moiling mob intent on suppressing ideas. Instead, he must take reasonable action to protect from violence persons exercising *237their constitutional rights.”). If the officers allow a hostile audience to silence a speaker, the officers themselves effectively silence the speaker and effectuate a “heckler’s veto.” The First Amendment simply does not countenance this scenario. See, e.g., Forsyth County, 505 U.S. at 134 [112 S.Ct. 2395]; Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 320-21 [108 S.Ct. 1157, 99 L.Ed.2d 333] (1998). See also Smith v. Ross, 482 F.2d 33, 37 (6th Cir.1973) (“[S]tate officials are not entitled to rely on community hostility as an excuse not to protect, by inaction or affirmative conduct, the exercise of fundamental rights.”). Second, Israel has the First Amendment right to engage in peaceful expression on streets and sidewalks during the Arab International Festival. See, e.g., Saieg v. City of Dearborn, 641 F.3d 727, 737-41 (6th Cir.2011) (invaliding [sic] ban on literature distribution on public sidewalks open to public during the Arab International Festival).

(R. 13-7, May 9, 2012 Ctr. for Relig. Expression Ltr., PGID 110).

Wayne County, through its Corporation Counsel, responded by letter on June 14, 2012. The letter indicated Wayne County’s disagreement with respect to both the characterization of events at the 2011 Festival and with the Bible Believers’ interpretation of the law regarding the WCSO’s duties to the public and to the Bible Believers. Corporation Counsel noted the WCSO’s intent to “maintain public order consistent with its legal obligations,” but specifically disclaimed any “‘special relationship’ between the WCSO and Mr. Israel” to avoid the possibility that Israel would assert in subsequent litigation that the WCSO owed Bible Believers a heightened measure of protection. (R. 13-8, Corp. Counsel Reply, PGID 112).

The letter went on to “remind [the Bible Believers] that, under state law and local ordinances, individuals can be held criminally accountable for conduct which has the tendency to incite riotous behavior or otherwise disturb the peace.” (Id. at 113). In conclusion, Corporation Counsel likewise cited to Sixth Circuit precedent to support the County’s view that its obligations to protect the Bible Believers’ speechmaking had limitations:

[L]aw enforcement personnel are not required “to defend the right of a speaker to address a hostile audience, however large and intemperate, when to do so would unreasonably subject them to violent retaliation and physical injury.” Glasson v. City of Louisville, 518 F.2d 899 at 909 (6th Cir.1975). Rather, “[i]n such circumstances, they may discharge their duty of preserving the peace by intercepting his message or by removing the speaker for his own protection ... IT

(Id. at 113).

Earlier that month, Deputy Chief Jaafar circulated an Operations Plan memorandum, addressed to Sheriff Napoleon, which outlined the policies and procedures to be followed by the WCSO throughout the course of the 2012 Arab International Festival. The second item in the memorandum addressed potential “situation[s]” that could lead to trouble at the Festival. Among the purported situations was “a radical group calling themselves ‘The Bible Believers’ ” that had been attracted to the Festival in recent years, and that would “possibly show up at the festival trying to provoke [the WCSO] in a negative manner and attempt to capture the negativity on video camera.” (13-5, Ops. Plan, PGID 100). Deputy Chief Jaafar instructed his officers “to be alert and professional at all times ... [and to] [r]epeat as many times as necessary” the appropriate orders to *238any group causing trouble. (Id.) As an example, he suggested repeating the following command: “Sir, you are causing a disturbance, please keep moving.” (Id.) He also noted that the WCSO would “not abridge or deny anyone’s Freedom of Speech, unless public safety becomes [a] paramount concern.” (Id.)

The WCSO decided to employ both regular and reserve officers “to ensure public safety, keep the peace, and maintain order in the event there is a disturbance.” (Id. at 101). According to Deputy Chief Richardson, a greater number of WCSO personnel were “allocated to the Festival ... than ... to the World Series or to the President of the United States when he visits Michigan.” (R. 13-6, Richardson Aff., PGID 107). The number of personnel also exceeded the number “allocated to other large festivals in Michigan.” (Id.) The Operations Plan listed 51 officers (excluding those in command), most of whom were assigned to one of six zones. Among this group, there were also 19 officers (including 6 mounted units) who were not assigned to any one specific zone, allowing them to respond to changing needs and circumstances.

D. The 2012 Arab International Festival 8

The Bible Believers returned to Dear-born in 2012, at approximately 5:00 p.m. on Friday, June 15, for the 17th Annual Arab International Festival. As they had done the previous year, the Bible Believers traveled to the Festival so that they could exercise their sincerely held religious beliefs. Unfortunately for the Festival-goers, those beliefs compelled Israel and his followers to hurl words and display messages offensive to a predominantly Muslim crowd, many of whom were adolescents. These messages were written on their tee-shirts and on the banners and signs that they carried. The following is a sampling of the Bible Believers’ messages:

“Islam Is A Religion of Blood and Murder”

“Jesus Is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All Others Are Thieves and Robbers”

“Prepare to Meet Thy God — Amos 4:12”

“Jesus Is the Judge, Therefore Repent, Be Converted That Your Sins May Be Blotted Out”

“Trust Jesus, Repent and Believe in Jesus”

“Only Jesus Christ Can Save You From Sin and Hell”

“Turn or Burn”

“Fear God”

(R. 20-2, Israel Deck, PGID 176-77). In addition to the signs, one of the Bible Believers carried a severed pig’s head on a spike, because, in Israel’s own words, it would “ke[ep] [the Muslims] at bay” since “unfortunately, they are kind of petrified of that animal.” (R. 28-A, Raw Festival Footage, Time: 00:49:45).

Laden with this imagery, the Bible Believers entered the Festival and began their preaching. At first, few people paid attention other than to glance at what appeared to be an odd assembly. The first speaker told the crowd that they should not follow “a false prophet,” who was nothing but an “unclean drawing” and “a pedophile.” (Id. at 00:01:40). He continued by telling what was by then a group made up of approximately thirty teenagers that “[y]our religion will send you to hell.” (Id. at 00:03:30). Tensions started to rise as a *239few youths became incensed after the speaker taunted, “You believe in a prophet who is a pervert. Your prophet who wants to molest a child,” and “God will reject you. God will put your religion into hellfire when you die.” (Id. at 00:03:56, 00:04:38). This continued as a few of the teens became agitated, until one youth simply told his friends to “quit giving them attention,” convincing some members of the crowd to disperse. (Id. at 00:06:07).

After approximately seven minutes of proselytizing, some elements of the crowd began to express their anger by throwing plastic bottles and other debris at the Bible Believers. An officer was captured on video observing the scene without intervening or reprimanding the juvenile offenders. The size of the crowd ebbed and flowed. At one point an officer approached the Bible Believers and commanded that the speakers stop using a megaphone or be cited for violating city ordinances. The Bible Believers relented, but also responded by noting that “these angry kids are a little bit more vicious than the megaphone.” (Id. at 00:16:16). A few minutes later, an officer did ask thé kids to back up and subsequently removed one of the teenagers who he saw throwing a bottle. However, all police presence and intervention dissipated after this minimal and isolated intervention.

The Bible Believers continued preaching for another ten minutes without the megaphone, all while a growing group of teenagers jeered and heckled, some throwing bottles and others shouting profanities. At one point, a parent stepped in to reprimand his child for participating in the assault. The onslaught reached its climax when a few kids began throwing larger items such as milk crates. By that time, the Bible Believers had stopped all speech-making whatsoever.

A number of debates spawned between members of the crowd (which had continued to swell) and individual Bible Believers. A particularly emotional youth debated with a Bible Believer the merits of his group’s bigoted views, noting that he had studied both the Quran and the Bible, and that Muslims believe in the same First Testament as the followers of Christianity. This brief moment of reasoned debated devolved into a shouting match, and ended when the youth was pulled away by an unidentified individual.

A few minutes later, the crowd of youths became quiet after four mounted officers simply rode by, without making commands or pausing — even for a moment. The calm persisted while Israel gave an interview to a local news crew. But once this interview ended, and the police and camera crews left the scene, the Bible Believers again were assaulted with flying debris. The Bible Believers turned away from the crowd and started moving through the Festival for a second time. A large contingent of children ran after them, and the relatively light cascade of debris intensified into a barrage of bottles, eggs, and other debris being hurled upon the Bible Believers. When the Bible Believers again resettled at a new location, and with their backs no longer facing the crowd, the torrent died down. At some point during the deluge, Israel was struck in the face, which resulted in him suffering a small laceration.

When an officer arrived on the scene a few minutes later, the children’s belligerence and the assaultive behavior again ceased. The officer bellowed at a few youths to move out of the way; they complied immediately. He then told Israel, “you are a danger to public safety right now,” and stated that the WCSO did not have the manpower to keep the Bible Believers safe. (Id. at 00:43:12). The officer *240then suggested that the Bible Believers always “have the option to leave,” while he simultaneously ignored Israel’s plea that some sort of police presence just remain in the general vicinity. The officer departed, and the bottle throwing resumed.

A few minutes later, a group of officers returned to the area and cut a path through the crowd in order to approach Israel and his followers. Deputy Chiefs Richardson and Jaafar pulled Israel aside for the purpose of telling him that the Bible Believers would be escorted out of the Festival. But Israel responded that he was unprepared to leave without having the opportunity to finish walking his parade route while exercising his First Amendment rights.

Richardson explained to Israel, “We have the responsibility of policing the entire festival, and obviously your conduct especially is causing this disturbance and it is a direct threat to the safety of everyone here.” (Id. at 00:48:30). He also noted that “part of the reason they throw this stuff ... is that you tell them stuff that enrages them.” (Id. at 00:49:03). Israel protested, first by noting that the disturbances only occurred in the absence of any police presence, and second, by commenting that the Bible Believers had stopped preaching altogether during the previous twenty minutes and were only carrying signs. Israel suggested that if the WCSO just assigned two officers to insure that the crowd of adolescents surrounding the Bible Believers’ demonstration remained nonviolent, all concerns about public safety would be resolved. Deputy Chief Jaafar chimed in at this point by telling Israel that the WCSO could not provide individual officers for every group that wanted to protest at the Festival, and that Israel’s group needed to leave because his group’s conduct was “attracting a crowd and ... affecting public safety.” (Id. at 00:50:40). When Israel continued to protest that he was not speaking and his signs were permissible, Richardson, again, pointed to the Bible. Believers’ speech as the cause for the unrest. He stated, “ya know, apparently what you are saying to them and what they are saying back to you is creating danger.” (Id. at 00:50:48). Richardson continued suggesting that Israel leave, but Israel refused to do so unless the WCSO was prepared to threaten Israel with the prospect of being arrested. Richardson expressed fear that the situation was escalating and stated, “the problem is that one of your people’s gonna get hurt, or one of the crowd is gonna get hurt, or one of my officers is gonna get hurt.” (Id. at 00:52:41). When Israel again inquired whether the Bible Believers would be arrested if they did not leave the Festival, Richardson only committed to saying that they would “probably” be cited if they did not allow themselves to be escorted out. He thereafter told Israel that the Bible Believers were being “disorderly,” to which Israel replied, incredulously, “I would assume 200 angry Muslim children throwing bottles is more of a threat than a "few guys with signs.” (Id. at 00:53:48).

Following this exchange, Deputy Chiefs Richardson and Jaafar conferred with Corporation Counsel. Another half dozen officers stood along the edge of the barricaded area to which the Bible Believers had been secluded. On the other side of the barricade, the Festival continued. Richardson returned to speak with Israel and confirmed that Israel and his Bible Believers would be cited for disorderly conduct if they did not immediately leave the Festival. (Id. at 00:55:03) (“If you don’t leave we’re gonna cite you for disorderly.”). Israel complied, and the Bible Believers were escorted out of the Festival by more than a dozen officers. Four mounted officers also surveyed the scene on the edge *241of the Festival where the Bible Believers were being directed to exit.

The Bible Believers loaded into a van and departed. However, two WCSO cruisers immediately began following the van and pulled the Bible Believers over within only a few blocks of the Festival — a third cruiser pulled up shortly thereafter. Officers claimed that the Bible Believers were stopped because they had removed the license plate from their vehicle prior to their departure. After waiting for nearly thirty minutes, they were issued a citation. By that time, two additional officers had arrived on bicycles, bringing the total number of law enforcement personnel involved in this traffic stop to eight officers.

The WCSO made a post-operation report summarizing its version of the day’s events. The report noted that the WCSO was “able to ke[ep] reasonable control of civil peace[, but] [a]s the crowd progressed] around the protestors to an unsafe level, we suggested to the protestors to leave the area immediately because public safety was being jeopardized.” (R. 13-9, Post-Op. Rpt., PGID 114). The report further noted that “[a]ny subjects that were seen throwing objects [were] immediately taken into custody.” (Id.). They apparently did not see very much. Only one citation was issued to a 21-year old man who was caught throwing a bottle. The WCSO officers also issued three verbal warnings and briefly detained three juveniles, ranging in age from twelve to seventeen, before ultimately releasing them to the custody of their respective parents.

In summary, the Bible Believers attended the 2012 Festival for the purpose of exercising their First Amendment rights by spreading their anti-Islam religious message. When a crowd of youthful hecklers gathered around the Bible Believers, the police did nothing. When the hecklers began throwing bottles and other garbage at the Bible Believers, a WCSO officer intervened only to demand that the Bible Believers stop utilizing their megaphone to amplify their speech. Virtually absent from the video in the record is any indication that the police attempted to quell the violence being directed toward the Bible Believers by the lawless crowd of adolescents. Despite this apparent lack of effort to maintain any semblance of order at the Festival, each time the police appeared on the video — to reprimand the use of the Bible Believers’ megaphone, to suggest that the Bible Believers had the “option to leave” the Festival, to trot by on horseback while doing next to nothing, and to expel the Bible Believers from the Festival under threat of arrest — the agitated crowd became subdued and orderly simply due the authoritative presence cast by the police officers who were then in close proximity. Only once is an officer seen removing one of the bottle-throwing teens. Israel, when faced with the prospect of being arrested for disorderly conduct, observed, “and you would think we would be complaining, but we’re not.” (R. 28-A, Raw Festival Footage, Time: 00:55:16). The Bible Believers were thereafter escorted from the Festival and ticketed by a large group of WCSO officers for removing the license plate from their van.

Procedural History

On September 25, 2012, the Bible Believers initiated this suit, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The complaint alleged that Defendants violated the Bible Believers’ rights of free speech and free exercise, protected by the First Amendment, as well as their right to equal protection of the laws, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Defendants answered, and *242then subsequently moved, simultaneously, for summary judgment and dismissal of all of the Bible Believers’ claims. The Bible Believers filed a response to Defendants’ motion, which included a cross-motion for summary judgment, and Defendants filed a reply. The district court issued an opinion granting Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, denying the Bible Believers’ cross-motion for summary judgment, and dismissing the Bible Believers’ claims,

The Bible Believers thereafter filed a timely notice of appeal. The issues were briefed and the case was argued before a three-judge panel of this Court the following year. The panel, in a split decision, affirmed the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to Wayne County and the individual Defendants. Bible Believers v. Wayne Cty., 765 F.3d 578 (6th Cir.2014). The Bible Believers petitioned for en banc rehearing. We granted that petition, thereby vacating the panel opinion, id. (opinion vacated, reh’g en banc granted Oct. 23, 2014), and heard oral argument for a second time on March 4, 2015.

DISCUSSION Standard of Review

We review de novo an appeal from a grant of summary judgment. Gillie v. Law Office of Eric A. Jones, LLC, 785 F.3d 1091, 1097 (6th Cir.2015). Summary judgment is appropriate when there exists no genuine dispute with respect to the material facts and, in light of the facts presented, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56. “The court may look to the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits when ruling on the motion.” Gillie, 785 F.3d at 1097 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and the benefit of all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-movant must be afforded to those facts. Id. The mere “scintilla of evidence” within the record that militates against the overwhelming weight of contradictory corroboration does not create a genuine issue of fact. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

Analysis

I. The First Amendment and the “Heckler’s Veto”

Free-speech claims require a three-step inquiry: first, we determine whether the speech at issue is afforded constitutional protection; second, we examine the nature of the forum where the speech was made; and third, we assess whether the government’s action in shutting off the speech was legitimate, in light of the applicable standard of review. Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 797, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985); Saieg, 641 F.3d at 734-35.

We need only to address steps one and three because the parties agree that the Festival constituted a traditional public forum available to all forms of protected expression.9 The parties strenuously dispute whether the Bible Believers’ conduct constituted incitement to riot, and they also dispute the level of scrutiny that should be applied to this case. Ultimately, we find that Defendants violated the Bible Believers’ First Amendment rights be*243cause there can be no legitimate dispute based on this record that the WCSO effectuated a heckler’s veto by cutting off the Bible Believers’ protected speech in response to a hostile crowd’s reaction.

We address the following items in turn: protected versus unprotected speech; the appropriate level of scrutiny to be applied in a public forum given the facts of this ease; the precedents upon which the heckler’s veto doctrine is built; the rule derived from those precedents; and the rule’s application to this case. We then address whether the individual Defendants are liable or, instead, can seek refuge in the affirmative defense of qualified immunity. Finally, we consider whether Wayne County can be held liable for the actions of its law enforcement personnel.

A. Protected Speech

The First Amendment offers sweeping protection that allows all manner of speech to enter the marketplace of ideas. This protection applies to loathsome and unpopular speech with the same force as it does to speech that is celebrated and widely accepted. The protection would be unnecessary if it only served to safeguard the majority views. In fact, it is the minority view, including expressive behavior that is deemed distasteful and highly offensive to the vast majority of people, that most often needs protection under the First Amendment. See, e.g., Nat’l Socialist Party of Am. v. Vill. of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43, 43-44, 97 S.Ct. 2205, 53 L.Ed.2d 96 (1977) (recognizing First Amendment rights of Neo Nazis seeking to march with swastikas and to distribute racist and antiSemitic propaganda in a predominantly Jewish community); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827, 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969) (recognizing the First Amendment rights of Ku Klux Klan members to advocate for white supremacy-based political reform achieved through violent means); Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 405-06, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989) (recognizing flag burning as a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment); Snyder, 562 U.S. 443, 454-56, 131 S.Ct. 1207 (2011) (recognizing a religious sect’s right to picket military funerals). “[I]f it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection.” Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 55, 108 S.Ct. 876, 99 L.Ed.2d 41 (1988) (citation omitted). Religious views are no different. “After all, much political and religious speech might be perceived as offensive to some.” Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 409, 127 S.Ct. 2618, 168 L.Ed.2d 290 (2007). Accordingly, “[t]he right to free speech ... includes the right to attempt to persuade others to change their views, and may not be curtailed simply because the speaker’s message may be offensive to his audience.” Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703, 716, 120 S.Ct. 2480, 147 L.Ed.2d 597 (2000). Any other rule “would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections,” Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 21, 91 S.Ct. 1780, 29 L.Edüd 284 (1971), and the government might be inclined to “regulate” offensive speech as “a convenient guise for banning the expression of unpopular views.” Id. at 26, 91 S.Ct. 1780. We tolerate the speech with which we disagree. When confronted by offensive, thoughtless, or baseless speech that we believe to be untrue, the “answer is [always] more speech.” Williams-Yulee v. Fla. Bar, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 1656, 1684, 191 L.Ed.2d 570 (2015) (Kennedy, J., dissenting).

Despite the First Amendment’s broad sweep, not all speech is entitled to its sanctuary. There are a limited number of categorical exclusions from the compre*244hensive protection offered by the Free Speech Clause.10 These exclusions are rooted in history and tradition, and include only those forms of expression that are “long familiar to the bar” as falling outside the confines of First Amendment protection. United States v. Alvarez, — U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 2537, 2544, 183 L.Ed.2d 574 (2012) (plurality opinion) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Two areas of unprotected speech that have particular relevance to the interaction between offensive speakers and hostile crowds are “incitement to violence” (also known as “incitement to riot”) and “fighting words.” Both classes of speech are discussed below.

1. Incitement

The right to freedom of speech provides that a state cannot “proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting'or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg, 395 U.S. at 447, 89 S.Ct. 1827 (footnote omitted). Advocacy for the use of force or lawless behavior, intent, and imminence, are all absent from the record in this case. The doctrine of incitement has absolutely no application to these facts.

The Bible Believers’ speech advocated for their Christian beliefs and for harboring contempt for Islam. This advocacy was purportedly intended to convince Muslims at the Festival that they should convert to Christianity. Regardless of the wisdom or efficacy of this strategy, or of the gross intolerance the speakers’ conduct epitomized, disparaging the views of another to support one’s own cause is protected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., Snyder, 562 U.S. at 454, 131 S.Ct. 1207 (placards reading “You’re Going to Hell,” “Priests Rape Boys,” and “God Hates Fags,” “certainly convey[ed] ... [a] position on those issues” and constituted protected speech).

The only references to violence or lawlessness on the part of the Bible Believers were messages such as, “Islam is a Religion of Blood and Murder,” “Turn or Burn,” and “Your prophet is a pedophile.” These messages, however offensive, do not advocate for, encourage, condone, or even embrace imminent violence or lawlessness. Although it might be inferred that the Bible Believers’ speech was intended to anger their target audience, the record is devoid of any indication that they intended imminent lawlessness to ensue. Quite to the contrary, the Bible Believers contacted Wayne County prior to their visit, requesting that the WCSO keep the public at bay so that the Bible Believers could “engage in their peaceful expression.”

It is not an easy task to find that speech rises to such a dangerous level that it can be deemed incitement to riot. And unsurprisingly, “[t]here will rarely be enough evidence to create a jury question on whether a speaker was intending to incite imminent crime.” Eugene Volokh, Crime-Facilitating' Speech, 57 Stan. L.Rev. 1095, 1190 (2005).

In Hess v. Indiana, the Supreme Court held that a protestor who yelled, “We’ll take the fucking street again,” amidst an agitated crowd that was already resisting police authority could not be punished for *245his speech. 414 U.S. 105, 107, 94 S.Ct. 326, 38 L.Ed.2d 303 (1973). Because “[t]he mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it,” Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coal, 535 U.S. 234, 253, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002), speech that fails to specifically advocate for listeners to take “any action” cannot constitute incitement. Hess, 414 U.S. at 109, 94 S.Ct. 326.

Wayne County relies on Feiner v. New York, 340 U.S. 315, 71 S.Ct. 303, 95 L.Ed. 295 (1951), to support the proposition that the Bible Believers’ speech was subject to sanction, and that such sanction does not offend the Constitution. In Feiner, the Supreme Court upheld a conviction for breach of the peace where, in the context of a civil rights rally, a speaker “gave the impression that he was endeavoring to arouse the Negro' people against the whites, urging that they rise up in arms and fight for equal rights.” Id. at 317, 71 S.Ct. 303. The majority, over a vigorous dissent, supported its holding by relying on police testimony that the crowd had become restless, “and there was some pushing, shoving and milling around.” Id. The majority described the scenario as a “crisis.” Id. at 321, 71 S.Ct. 303. Thus, it has been said that Feiner “endorses a Heckler’s Veto.” Harry Kalven, Jr., A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America 89 (Jamie Kalven ed.1988).

The better view of Feiner is summed up, simply, by the following truism: when a speaker incites a crowd to violence, his incitement does not receive constitutional protection. See Glasson v. City of Louisville, 518 F.2d 899, 905 n. 3 (6th Cir.1975) (“For over twenty years the Supreme Court has confined the rule in Feiner to a situation where the speaker in urging his opinion upon an audience intends to incite it to take action that the state has a right to prevent.”). Feiner lends little support for the notion that the Bible Believers’ speech amounted to incitement. The Bible Believers did not ask their audience to rise up in arms and fight for their beliefs, let alone request that they hurl bottles and other garbage upon the Bible Believers’ heads.

Subsequent Supreme Court precedent illustrates that the speaker’s advocacy in Feiner itself could no longer be sanctioned as incitement. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 298-99, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008) (“To be sure, there remains an important distinction between a proposal to engage in illegal activity and the abstract advocacy of illegality.”); NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 928, 102 S.Ct. 3409, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215 (1982) (“[T]he mere abstract teaching ... of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.” (citation omitted)); Communist Party of Ind. v. Whitcomb, 414 U.S. 441, 450, 94 S.Ct. 656, 38 L.Ed.2d 635 (1974) (rejecting the notion that “any group that advocates violen[ee] ... as an abstract doctrine must be regarded as necessarily advocating unlawful action”); see also 5 Ronald D. Rotunda & John E. No-wak, Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure § 20.39(a) (5th’ ed.2013) (noting that “[t]he authority of Feiner has been undercut significantly in subsequent [Supreme Court] cases”). In Claiborne Hardware Co., a speaker explicitly proposed to a large crowd that anyone who failed to abide by the terms of an agreed upon boycott would have to be “disciplined.” 458 U.S. at 902, 102 S.Ct. 3409. The speaker also stated, “If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck,” Id. Nonetheless, this speech was not deemed by the Court to be incitement. Id. at 928-29, 102 S.Ct. 3409.

*246The Supreme Court has repeatedly referred to Brandenburg — not Feiner — as establishing the test for incitement. See, e.g., Whitcomb, 414 U.S. at 447-48, 94 S.Ct. 656 (“We most recently summarized the constitutional principles that have evolved in this area[ — incitement—]in Brandenburg.”); Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. at 928, 102 S.Ct. 3409 (“The emotionally charged rhetoric of [the plaintiffs] speeches did not transcend the bounds of protected speech set forth in Brandenburg.”); see also James v. Meow Media, Inc., 300 F.3d 683, 698 (6th Cir.2002) (“The Court firmly set out the test for whether speech constitutes unprotected incitement to violence in Brandenburg.”). The Brandenburg test precludes speech from being sanctioned as incitement to riot unless (1) the speech explicitly or implicitly encouraged the use of violence or lawless action,11 (2) the speaker intends that his speech will result in the use of violence or lawless action, and (3) the imminent use of violence or lawless action is the likely result of his speech. 395 U.S. at 477, 89 S.Ct. 1860. The Bible Believers’ speech was not incitement to riot simply because they did not utter a single word that can be perceived as encouraging violence or lawlessness. Moreover, there is absolutely no indication of the Bible Believers’ subjective intent to spur their audience to violence. The hostile reaction of a crowd does not transform protected speech into incitement.

2. Fighting Words

A second type of speech that is categorically excluded from First Amendment protection is known as “fighting words.” This category of unprotected speech encompasses words that when spoken aloud instantly “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942); see also Sandul v. Larion, 119 F.3d 1250, 1255 (6th Cir.1997). We rely on an objective standard to draw the boundaries of this category — no advocacy can constitute fighting words unless it is “likely to provoke the average person to retaliation.” Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 592, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 22 L.Ed.2d 572 (1969) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). Offensive statements made generally to a crowd are not excluded from First Amendment protection; the insult or offense must be directed specifically at an individual. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 432, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992) (Stevens, J., concurring); accord Cohen, 403 U.S. at 20, 91 S.Ct. 1780 (defining fighting words as a “direct personal insult”). The Bible Believers’ speech cannot be construed as fighting words because it was not directed at any individual. Furthermore, the average individual attending the Festival did not react with violence, and of the group made up of mostly adolescents, only a certain percentage engaged in bottle throwing when they heard the proselytizing.

B. Free Speech in Public Fora

Next, we must determine the character of Defendants’ actions. In public fora, the *247government’s rights to “limit expressive activity are sharply circumscribed.” Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45, 103 S.Ct. 948, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983); see also Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 480, 108 S.Ct. 2495, 101 L.Ed.2d 420 (1988) (public streets are the “archetype of a traditional public forum”). Speech restrictions in these fora fall into two categories: content-based restrictions or time, place, and manner restrictions that are content-neutral. United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 177, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983); Saieg, 641 F.3d at 734. The parties’ dispute is centered on whether Wayne County’s actions were content neutral — a distinction that determines the applicable level of constitutional scrutiny. Connection Distrib. Co. v. Reno, 154 F.3d 281, 290 (6th Cir.1998).

“Listeners’ reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation,” Forsyth Cty. v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123, 134, 112 S.Ct. 2395, 120 L.Ed.2d 101 (1992), or for taking an enforcement action against a peaceful speaker. See Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 133 n. 1, 86 S.Ct. 719, 15 L.Ed.2d 637 (1966) (“Participants in an orderly demonstration in a public place are not chargeable with the danger ... that then-critics might react with disorder or violence.”); Glasson, 518 F.2d at 905. Therefore, we find that Wayne County’s actions were decidedly content-based. It is indisputable that the WCSO acted against the Bible Believers in response to the crowd’s negative reaction. Deputy Chief Richardson told Israel, “your conduct especially is causing this disturbance;” “part of the reason they throw this stuff ... is that you tell them stuff that enrages them;” “apparently what you are saying to them and what they are saying back to you is creating danger;” and therefore, “[i]f you don’t leave we’re gonna cite you for disorderly.”

The sum of Wayne County’s counterargument to the charge that the Bible Believers’ expulsion was motivated by the views they espoused is merely that the WCSO Operations Plan was content-neutral, and that the WCSO’s only consideration was maintaining the public safety. This contention fails in the face of abundant evidence that the police have effectuated a heckler’s veto. It is irrelevant whether the Operations Plan is content-neutral because the officers enforcing it are ordained with broad discretion to determine, based on listener reaction, that a particular expressive activity is creating a public danger. Cf. Police Dep’t of Chi. v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 97, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) (“[B]ecause of then-potential use as instruments for selectively suppressing some points of view, this Court has condemned licensing schemes that lodge broad discretion in a public official to permit speech-related activity.”); see also Ctr. for Bio-Ethical Reform, Inc. v. L.A. Cty. Sheriff Dep’t, 533 F.3d 780, 787 (9th Cir.2008) (“If the statute, as read by the police officers on the scene, would allow or disallow speech depending on the reaction of the audience, then the ordinance would run afoul of an independent species of prohibitions on content-restrictive regulations, often described as a First Amendment-based ban on the ‘heckler’s veto.’ ” (citing Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U.S. 564, 567, 90 S.Ct. 1312, 25 L.Ed.2d 570 (1970))).

C. The Heckler’s Veto and Police Obligations

It is a fundamental precept of the First Amendment that the government cannot favor the rights of one private speaker over those of another. Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., *248515 U.S. 819, 828, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995). Accordingly, content-based restrictions on constitutionally protected speech are anathema to the First Amendment and are deemed “presumptively invalid.” Ysursa v. Pocatello Educ. Ass’n, 555 U.S. 853, 358, 129 S.Ct. 1093, 172 L.Ed.2d 770 (2009). An especially “egregious” form of content-based discrimination is that which is designed to exclude a particular point of view from the marketplace of ideas. Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829, 115 S.Ct. 2510; Perry Educ. Ass’n, 460 U.S. at 62, 103 S.Ct. 948 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“Viewpoint discrimination is censorship in its purest form and govern.ment regulation that discriminates among viewpoints threatens the continued vitality of ‘free speech.’ ”). The heckler’s veto is precisely that type of odious viewpoint discrimination. Cf. Police Dep’t of Chi, 408 U.S. at 98, 92 S.Ct. 2286 (“ ‘[T]o deny this ... group use of the streets because of their views ... amounts ... to an invidious discrimination.’ ” (quoting Cox, 379 U.S. at 581, 85 S.Ct. 466 (Black, J., concurring))).

Both content- and viewpoint-based discrimination are subject to strict scrutiny. McCullen v. Coakley, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2518, 2530, 2534, 189 L.Ed.2d 502 (2014). No state action that limits protected speech will survive strict scrutiny unless the restriction is narrowly tailored to be the least-restrictive means available to serve a compelling government interest. United States v. Playboy Entm’t Grp., 529 U.S. 803, 813, 120 S.Ct. 1878, 146 L.Ed.2d 865 (2000). Punishing, removing, or by other means silencing a speaker due to crowd hostility will seldom, if ever, constitute the least restrictive means available to serve a legitimate government purpose. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940); Terminiello v. City of Chi, 337 U.S. 1, 69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131 (1949); Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 83 S.Ct. 680, 9 L.Ed.2d 697 (1963); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536 (1965); Gregory v. City of Chi, 394 U.S. 111, 89 S.Ct. 946, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969). A review of Supreme Court precedent firmly establishes that the First Amendment does not countenance a heckler’s veto.

1. Early Cases: Clear and Present Danger

The “clear and present danger” test, first articulated by Justice Holmes in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed. 470 (1919), is a flexible means to protect speech while recognizing that the government might have legitimate reasons for imposing speech-restrictions due to exigent circumstances:

The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

249 U.S. at 52, 39 S.Ct. 247.12 The Supreme Court in Cantwell v. Connecticut and in Terminiello v. City of Chicago uti*249lized the clear and present danger test to establish the rights of speakers not to be silenced on account of listeners’ hostility toward their message.

In Cantwell, a Jehovah’s Witness was convicted for inciting a breach of the peace after going into a predominantly Catholic neighborhood and playing (to bypassers who were willing to listen) a phonograph recording. that demonized Catholicism. 310 U.S. at 302-03, 309, 60 S.Ct. 900. Two listeners of the recording were so offended that they threatened the Witness that he better leave or face violent retaliation. Id. at 309, 60 S.Ct. 900. The Court recognized that with religion and pqlities in particular, “[t]o persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement.” Id. at 310, 60 S.Ct. 900. Invoking the now-familiar clear and present danger test, the Court found that the expressive activity did not fall outside of the confines of free speech protection and therefore it could not lawfully be penalized by the state. Id. at 310-11, 60 S.Ct. 900.

In Tenniniello, the Supreme Court again applied the clear and present danger test to overturn a conviction based on a statute that allowed the state to punish speech based on crowd hostility — i.e. a heckler’s veto. 337 U.S. at 4-5, 69 S.Ct. 894. The hostility was quite real in that instance, as the crowd had gathered outside the auditorium and begun throwing icepicks, bottles, and rocks, in response to the speaker’s remarks. Id. at 15, 69 S.Ct. 894 (Jackson, J., dissenting). Justice Douglas wrote for the Court that “freedom of speech, though not absolute, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive'evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.” 337 U.S. at 4, 69 S.Ct. 894 (citations omitted). He noted that constitutionally protected speech “may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.” Id. Therefore, the state cannot sanction speech, consistent with the Constitution, solely on the basis that it “stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest.” Id. at 5, 69 S.Ct. 894.

Cantwell and Tenniniello instruct that offensive religious proselytizing, as well as speech that drives a crowd to extreme agitation, is not subject to sanction simply because of the violent reaction of offended listeners. Feiner came shortly after these cases, and it highlighted a significant flaw with the clear and present danger test in this context; chiefly, “it allows an audience reaction, if hostile enough, to be a basis for suppressing a speaker.” Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies 1041 (4th ed.2011). The Supreme Court recognized this flaw and eschewed any reliance on the clear and present danger test in the civil-rights era cases involving hostile crowds. See, e.g., Gregory, 394 U.S. at 112-13, 89 S.Ct. 946. Those cases reasserted, as paramount, the right of the speaker to not be silenced.

2. Civil-Rights Era: Protect the Speaker

In Edwards v. South Carolina, 187 black college and high school students were convicted for breach of the peace following a peaceful protest, where, in small groups, the students marched to the Columbia, South Carolina state house carrying placards bearing messages in support of equality and civil rights. 372 U.S. at 229-30, 83 S.Ct. 680. During the demonstration, between 200 and 300 white observers gathered in a horseshoe around *250the students. Id. at 231, 83 S.Ct. 680. The police threatened the students with arrest after “apprehend[ing] immin[ent] violence” by a number of troublemakers in the crowd of onlookers. Id. at 245, 83 S.Ct. 680 (Clark, J., dissenting); id. at 231 & n. 4, 83 S.Ct. 680 (majority opinion). The Supreme Court reversed the convictions, distinguished Feiner as being a ease involving incitement, and reaffirmed Ter-miniello by recognizing that expressive activity cannot be proscribed merely because it “ ‘stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition of unrest.’ ” Id. at 238, 83 S.Ct. 680 (quoting Terminiello, 337 U.S. at 5, 69 S.Ct. 894).

Similarly, in Cox v. Louisiana, a student civil rights organizer led 2,000 fellow students in a peaceful protest outside of a courthouse in downtown Baton Rouge. 379 U.S. at 538-40, 85 S.Ct. 453. Approximately 100 to 300 white onlookers gathered to watch .the protest. Id. at 541, 85. S.Ct. 453. When the student leader suggested to the protestors that they stage a sit-in at the segregated lunch counters in town, the crowd of onlookers reacted with jeers and became agitated. Id. at 550, 85 S.Ct. 453. Police feared that “violence was about to erupt” from the crowd of onlookers and dispersed the student protestors with a canister of tear gas, arresting the student leader the following day for breach of the peace. Id. at 548, 550 n. 12, 85 S.Ct. 453. The Supreme Court invoked Edwards, noting that the “evidence showed no more than that the opinions which the students were peaceably expressing were sufficiently opposed to the views of the majority of the community to attract a crowd and necessitate police protection,” and overturned the conviction because “constitutional rights may not be denied simply because of hostility to their assertion or exercise.” Id. at 551, 85 S.Ct. 453 (citation, brackets, and internal quotation marks omitted).

Finally, in Gregory v. City of Chicago, a group of civil rights protestors peacefully marched around the Mayor of Chicago’s home to draw attention to and air their frustration with the slow pace of integration in Chicago’s public schools. 394 U.S. at 111, 89 S.Ct. 946. The protestors were assaulted by onlookers with rocks and eggs, despite “a determined effort by the police to allow the marchers to peacefully demonstrate.” Id. at 117, 89 S.Ct. 946 (Black, J., concurring). The protestors hurled invective back at their hecklers; but otherwise “maintained a decorum that sp[oke] well for their determination simply to” exercise their constitutional rights. Id. The police determined that the hecklers “were dangerously close to rioting,” and therefore ordered the protestors to leave. Id. at 120, 89 S.Ct. 946. They were charged with and convicted of breach of the peace for refusing to vacate. Id. The Court, in a plurality opinion, called it a “simple case” because due process does not allow for a conviction for breach of the peace where there is no evidence that the protestors were themselves disorderly. Id. at 112, 89 S.Ct. 946. Justice Black, joined by Justice Douglas in his concurrence, reaffirmed Edwards and Cox as controlling, inasmuch as the state cannot punish a speaker simply because his lawful speech has attracted an angry mob of hecklers. Id. at 123-24, 124 n. 8, 89 S.Ct. 946.

The civil-rights era cases tell us that police cannot punish a peaceful speaker as an easy alternative to dealing with a lawless crowd that is offended by what the speaker has to say. Because the “right ‘peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’ is specifically protected by the First Amendment,” Gregory, 394 U.S. at 119, 89 S.Ct. 946 (Black, J., concurring), the espousal of views that are disagreeable to the majority *251of listeners may at times “necessitate police protection,” Edwards, 372 U.S. at 237, 83 S.Ct. 680. “Liberty can only be exercised in a system of law which safeguards order.” Cox, 379 U.S. at 574. It is “a police officer’s ... duty ... to enforce laws already enacted and to make arrests ... for conduct already made criminal.” Gregory, 394 U.S. at 120, 89 S.Ct. 946 (Black, J., concurring). Therefore, the natural order of law enforcement and crime mitigation are not upended simply because community hostility makes it easier to act against the speaker rather than the individuals actually breaking the law; this is true when it appears that a crowd may turn to rioting, Cox, 379 U.S. at 588, 85 S.Ct. 466, or even in the face of actual violence that was indiscriminately directed, Gregory, 394 U.S. at 129, 89 S.Ct. 946 (“The police were dodging the rocks and eggs” along with the protestors) (Appendix to Opinion of Black, J., concurring).

3. Sixth Circuit Precedent: Glasson and Damages Liability

In the decade following this string of Supreme Court precedents, a heckler’s veto case came before the Sixth Circuit. See Glasson v. City of Louisville, 518 F.2d 899 (6th Cir.1975). Glasson recognized, consistent with the aforementioned precedents, that “[a] police officer has the duty not to ratify and effectuate a heckler’s veto nor may he join a moiling mob intent on suppressing ideas.” Id. at 906.

The dispute in Glasson originated when a speaker intent on voicing her displeasure with the Vietnam War, as well as the issues of racism and poverty in America, displayed a placard reflecting her grievances while waiting on a motorcade route for then-President Richard M. Nixon. Id. at 901. One of the police officers responsible for crowd control noticed that a group of Nixon supporters on the opposite side of the street became agitated, started hollering, and were likely to riot, after perceiving the poster. Id. at 902. Instead of reprimanding the rabble-rousing crowd, the officer destroyed the speaker’s poster after she refused to hide it from view. Id.

The police officer’s actions in Glasson were a patent violation of the speaker’s First Amendment rights, because the speaker did not “somehow forfeit!] the protection afforded her message by the Constitution because it unintentionally evoked a hostile reaction from others.” Id. at 905. However, this Court’s inquiry in Glasson did not end there; the officers were entitled to seek shelter from damages by way of qualified immunity — then framed as a good faith defense. Id. at 907. This defense was applicable if the officer acted reasonably under the circumstances and in good faith. Id. With respect to reasonableness in the context of free speech and unruly hecklers, Glasson states:

Ideally, police officers will always protect to the extent of their ability the rights of persons to engage in First Amendment activity. Yet, the law does not expect or require them to defend the right of a speaker to address a hostile audience, however large and intemperate, when to do so would unreasonably subject them to violent retaliation and physical injury. In such circumstances, they may discharge their duty of preserving the peace by intercepting his message or by removing the speaker for his own protection without having to respond in damages.

Id. at 909.13 Ultimately, the Glasson Court held that the officers could not claim *252the shelter of the good-faith defense because (1) it was the hecklers who posed the threat, and not the speaker (if any threat existed at all); (2) a favorable number of other officers (relative to the size of the crowd) were nearby and available to assist if called upon; and (3) had that number of officers been insufficient to accomplish the task, reinforcements should have been called before they chose to take action against the speaker. Id. at 910-11.

4. Constitutional Rule:

No Heckler’s Veto

The Supreme Court, in Cantwell, Terminiello,.Edwards, Cox, and Gregory, has repeatedly affirmed the principle that “constitutional rights may not be denied simply because of hostility to their assertion or exercise.” Watson v. City of Memphis, 373 U.S. 526, 535, 83 S.Ct. 1314, 10 L.Ed.2d 529 (1963) (citations omitted). If the speaker’s message does not fall into one of the recognized categories of unprotected speech,14 the message does not lose its protection under the First Amendment due to the lawless reaction of those who hear it. Simply stated, the First Amendment does not permit a heckler’s veto.

In this Circuit, a modicum of confusion is understandable with respect to the prohibition against the heckler’s veto due to Glasson’s discussion of a good-faith affirmative defense. ■ However, this defense is inconsistent with subsequent Supreme Court precedent, with the strict scrutiny that must be applied to content-based discrimination, and with the superseding affirmative defense to a § 1983 suit—qualified immunity.15 Therefore, to the extent that Glasson’s good-faith de-fense may be interpreted as altering the substantive duties of a police officer not to effectuate a heckler’s veto, it is overruled. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (“By defining the limits of qualified immunity essentially in objective terms, we provide no license to lawless conduct.”).

In a balance between two important interests—free speech on one hand, and the state’s power to maintain the peace on the other—the scale is heavily weighted in favor of the First Amendment. See, e.g., Terminiello, 337 U.S. at 4, 69 S.Ct. 894. Maintenance of the peace should not be achieved at the expense of the free speech. The freedom to espouse sincerely held religious, political, or philosophical beliefs, especially in the face of hostile opposition, is too important to our democratic institution for it to be abridged simply due to the hostility of reactionary listeners who may be offended by a speaker’s message. If the mere possibility of violence were allowed to dictate whether our views, when spoken aloud, are safeguarded by the Constitution, surely the myriad views that animate our discourse would be reduced to the “standardization of ideas ... by ... [the] dominant political or community groups.” Id. at 4-5, 69 S.Ct. 894. Democracy cannot survive such a deplorable result.

When a peaceful speaker, whose message is constitutionally protected, is confronted by a hostile crowd, the state may not silence the speaker as an expedient alternative to containing or snuffing out the lawless behavior of the rioting individuals. See Watson, 373 U.S. at 535-*25336, 83 S.Ct. 1314. Nor can an officer sit idly on the sidelines — watching as the crowd imposes, through violence, a tyrannical majoritarian rule — only later to claim that the speaker’s removal was necessary for his or her own protection. “[U]ncon-trolled official suppression of the privilege [of free speech] cannot be made a substitute for the duty to maintain order in connection with the exercise of th[at] right.” Hague v. Comm. for Indus. Org., 307 U.S. 496, 516, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939). If the speaker, at his or her own risk, chooses to continue exercising the constitutional right to freedom of speech, he or she may do so without fear of retribution from the state, for the speaker is not the one threatening to breach the peace or break the law. However, the Constitution does not require that the officer “go down with the speaker.” 16 If, in protecting the speaker or attempting to quash the lawless behavior, the officer must retreat due to risk of injury, then retreat would be warranted. The rule to be followed is that when the police seek to enforce law and order, they must do so in a way that does not unnecessarily infringe upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. See Gregory, 394 U.S. at 120, 89 S.Ct. 946 (“[A] police officer[’s] ... duty is to enforce laws already enacted and to make arrests ... for conduct already made criminal.”) (Black, J., concurring). The police may go against the hecklers, cordon off the speakers, or attempt to disperse the entire crowd if that becomes necessary. Moreover, they may take any appropriate action to maintain law and order that does not destroy the right to free speech by indefinitely silencing the speaker. Fundamentally, no police action that hinders the speaker’s freedom of speech should be deemed legitimate in the eyes of the Constitution unless it satisfies strict scrutiny, which requires the police to achieve their ends by using only those means that are the least restrictive with respect to the speaker’s First Amendment rights.

“[T]he Constitution demands that content-based restrictions on speech be presumed invalid and that the [g]overnment bear the burden of showing their constitutionality.” Alvarez, 132 S.Ct. at 2544 (citation, internal quotation marks, and ellipses omitted). Wayne County has not come close to meeting that burden in this case. There was a force of approximately fifty officers at the Festival — nineteen of whom were purposely unassigned so that they could respond to changing circumstances. A crowd made up predominantly of adolescents began hurling plastic bottles and other trash at the Bible Believers. Law enforcement officers, despite their numbers, were virtually nowhere to be found, save for a few brief appearances. One of these appearances was solely for the purpose of telling the Bible Believers that they could no longer use their megaphone. At a later encounter, an officer came over not to reprimand the troublemakers, but to inform the Bible Believers that they were free to leave the Festival. Each time that an officer appeared, the adolescents’ lawless behavior relented, despite the lack of official reprimand. Throughout the harassment and violence directed at them, the Bible Believers remained calm and peaceful. While the Deputy Chiefs conferred with Corporation Counsel, and prior to the Bible Believers being forced to leave the Festival, there were approximately a dozen officers milling about in the background. Many of those officers were sufficiently unoccupied to follow the Bible Believers and observe their fellow officer ticket them for driving a vehicle without a license plate. By the *254WCSO’s own admission in its post-operation report, the totality of the officers’ attempt to enforce the law constituted only a few verbal warnings being directed at the lawless adolescents and one individual being cited.

Wayne County disputes the sufficiency of their manpower to quell the crowd, but this contention is specious. The video record evinces next to no attempt made by the officers to protect the Bible Believers or prevent the lawless actions of the audience. The record also indicates a substantial police presence that went virtually unused. Wayne County claimed to have assigned more law enforcement personnel to the Festival than had previously been assigned to crowd control when the President of the United States visited the area. We cannot justifiably set the bar so low for the police officers sworn to protect our communities (and occasionally the President) that there is any debate as to whether it is reasonable that the result of a purportedly sincere effort to maintain peace among a group of rowdy youths is few verbal warnings and a single arrest.17

We do not presume to dictate to law enforcement precisely how it should maintain the public order. But in this case, there were a number of easily identifiable measures that could have been taken short of removing the speaker: e.g., increasing police presence in the immediate vicinity, as was requested; erecting a barricade for free speech, as was requested; arresting or threatening to arrest more of the law breakers, as was also requested; or allowing the Bible Believers to speak from the already constructed barricade to which they were eventually secluded prior to being ejected from the Festival. If none of these measures were feasible or had been deemed unlikely to prevail, the WCSO officers could have called for backup — as they appear to have done when they decided to eject the Bible Believers from the Festival — prior to finding that it was necessary to infringe on the group’s First Amendment rights. We simply cannot accept Defendants’ position that they were compelled to abridge constitutional rights for the sake of public safety, when at the same time the lawless adolescents who caused the risk with their assaultive behavior were left unmolested.18

The Bible Believers attended the Festival to exercise their First Amendment rights and spread their religious message. The way they conveyed their message may *255have been vile and offensive to most every person who believes in the right of their fellow citizens to practice the faith of his or her choosing; nonetheless, they had every right to espouse their views. See Cantwell, 310 U.S. at 309, 60 S.Ct. 900 (“The record played ... would offend not only persons of [the Catholic] persuasion, but all others who respect the honestly held religious faith of their fellows.”). When the message was ill-received, the police did next to nothing to protect the Bible Believers or to contain the lawlessness of the hecklers in the crowd. Instead, the WCSO accused the Bible Believers of being disorderly and removed them from the Festival.19 On this record, there can be no reasonable dispute that the WCSO effectuated a heckler’s veto, thereby violating the Bible Believers’ First Amendment rights.

In his dissent from this part of our holding, Judge Griffin opines that although Cantwell and Terminiello clearly established that police officers may not effectuate a heckler’s veto on behalf of an irate mob, “those precedents left unanswered whether the police effectuate a heckler’s veto when they remove a speaker for his own safety rather than because of the content of the speech or its supposed effect on the crowd.” Griffin Dis. at 46-47. Fortunately, Cantwell and Terminiello were not the last cases to speak on the issue of a heckler’s veto, and later cases have made clear that excluding a speaker from a public forum, under most circumstances, will not constitute the least restrictive means for coping with a crowd’s hostile reaction to her constitutionally protected speech. See supra Part I.G. Such a result comports with the high premium 'this nation places on speech safeguarded by the First Amendment.

Notably, a heckler’s veto effectuated by the police will nearly always be susceptible to being reimagined and repackaged as a means for protecting the public, or the speaker himself, from actual or impending harm. After all, if the audience is sufficiently incensed by the speaker’s message and responds aggressively or even violently thereto, one method of quelling that response would be to cut off the speech and eject the speaker whose words provoked the crowd’s ire. Our point here is that before removing the speaker due to safety concerns, and thereby permanently cutting off his speech, the police must first make bona fide efforts to protect the speaker from the crowd’s hostility by other, less restrictive means. Although Glas-son made that requirement clear, and framed the removal of the speaker for his own protection as a last resort to be used only when defending the speaker “would unreasonably subject [officers] to violent retaliation and physical injury,” 518 F.2d at 909, the WCSO made no discernible efforts to fulfill this obligation.

II. The First Amendment and Free Exercise

We next consider the Bible Believers’ claim that Wayne County violated their right to the free exercise of religion. The right to free exercise of religion in-' eludes the right to engage in .conduct that is motivated by the religious beliefs held *256by the individual asserting the claim. Prater v. City of Burnside, 289 F.3d 417, 427 (6th Cir.2002). The government cannot prohibit an individual from engaging in religious conduct that is protected by the First Amendment. Id.

The Bible Believers’ proselytizing at the 2012 Arab International Festival constituted religious conduct, as well as expressive speech-related activity, that was likewise protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 108-10, 63 S.Ct. 870, 87 L.Ed. 1292 (1943). Plaintiff Israel testified that he was required “to try and convert non-believers, and call sinners to repent” due to his sincerely held religious beliefs. We do not question the sincerity of that claim. Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S. 67, 70, 73 S.Ct. 526, 97 L.Ed. 828 (1953) (“[I]t is no business of courts to say that what is a religious practice or activity for one group is not religion under the protection of the First Amendment.”); cf. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2751, 2778, 189 L.Ed.2d 675 (2014) (“[T]he federal courts have no business addressing whether the religious belief asserted in a RFRA case is reasonable.” (internal parentheses omitted)).

Free exercise claims are often considered in tandem ■ with free speech claims and may rely entirely on the same set of facts. See, e.g., Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of N.Y., Inc. v. Vill. of Stratton, 536 U.S. 150, 122 S.Ct. 2080, 153 L.Ed.2d 205 (2002); Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 841, 115 S.Ct. 2510. Defendants prevented the Bible Believers from proselytizing based exclusively on the crowd’s hostile reaction to the religious views that the Bible Believers were espousing. Therefore, the free exercise claim succeeds on the same basis as the free speech claim. See Watchtower Bible, 536 U.S. at 150, 159 n. 8, 122 S.Ct. 2080.

III. The Fourteenth Amendment and Equal Protection

The next inquiry is with respect to the Bible Believers’ equal protection claim. We have held that:

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment commands that no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. To state an equal protection claim, a plaintiff must adequately plead that the government treated the plaintiff disparately as compared to similarly situated persons and that such disparate treatment ... burdens a fundamental right, targets a suspect class, or has no rational basis.

Ctr. for Bio-Ethical Reform, Inc. v. Napolitano, 648 F.3d 365, 379 (6th Cir.2011) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Freedom of speech is a fundamental right. Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Chippewa Indians v. Mich. Gaming Control Bd., 172 F.3d 397, 410 (6th Cir.1999). Therefore, Wayne County’s actions are subject to strict scrutiny. San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 16, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). “In determining whether individuals are ‘similarly situated,’ a court should not demand exact correlation, but should instead seek relevant similarity.” Bench Billboard Co. v. City of Cincinnati, 675 F.3d 974, 987 (6th Cir.2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Festival included a number of other religious organizations that came to share their faith by spreading a particular message. There are several distinctions between the Bible Believers and these other groups. Mainly, the Bible Believers chose, as was their right, not to register for an assigned table under the informa*257tion tent. Instead, they paraded through the Festival and proselytized, as was also their right, while carrying signs and a severed pig’s head. Although these actions set them apart from the other speakers and religious organizations at the Festival, they do not do so in any relevant respect. Any speaker could have walked the Festival grounds with or without signs if they chose to do so. The Bible Believers, like the other religious organizations at the Festival, sought to spread their faith and religious message. Although they declined to utilize the tent set aside for outside groups, their conduct was at all times peaceful while they passionately advocated for their cause, much like any other religious group. Wayne County did not threaten the Bible Believers based on their decision to march with signs and banners, but based on the content of the messages displayed on the signs and banners. The county’s disparate treatment of the Bible Believers was based explicitly on the fact that the Bible Believers’ speech was found to be objectionable by a number of people attending the Festival. Wayne County therefore violated the Bible Believers’ right to equal protection by treating them in a manner different from other speakers, whose messages were not objectionable to Festival-goers, by burdening their First Amendment rights. See Napolitano, 648 F.8d at 379.

IV. Qualified Immunity

Whether Deputy Chiefs Richardson and Jaafar can be held liable for civil damages is a separate question from whether their actions violated the Constitution.20 Although Glasson spoke about a good-faith defense, qualified immunity — announced seven years after Glasson in Harlow v. Fitzgerald — is the presently available affirmative defense for government officials subject to liability under § 1983. In Harlow, the Supreme Court removed the subjective element from the then-existing affirmative defense for government actors— the good faith inquiry. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727 (“By defining the limits of qualified immunity essentially in objective terms, we provide no license to lawless conduct.”); see also Ohio Civil Serv. Emps. Assoc. v. Setter, 858 F.2d 1171, 1173 (6th Cir.1988) (“The law of qualified immunity was dramatically changed by the Court in Harlow v. Fitzgerald.”).

Pursuant to Harlow, “government officials performing discretionary functions generally are' shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727. This standard presupposes two things: first, that the facts alleged by the plaintiff are sufficient to state a constitutional claim; and second, that the constitutional right which the officer has purportedly violated was clearly established at the time of the harm giving rise to the action. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201-02, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), abrogated by *258Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (holding that although the two-step inquiry-set out in Saucier “is often beneficial,” courts may “exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first”). Having already found that the Deputy Chiefs effectuated an unconstitutional heckler’s veto, we need only decide whether their actions violated law that was clearly established at the time of the 2012 Festival. Whether a point of law is clearly established necessarily turns on its breadth — i.e., the level of specificity at which it is defined. See Reichle v. Howards, - U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 2088, 2094, 182 L.Ed.2d 985 (2012) (“[T]he right allegedly violated must be established not as a broad general proposition, but in a particularized sense so that the contours of the right are clear to a reasonable official.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). Although “existing precedent must have placed the ... constitutional question beyond debate,” “[a] case directly on point,” is not a prerequisite to finding that a law is clearly established. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011).

Deputy Chief Defendants Richardson and Jaafar contend that, “no ‘clearly established’ law existed on the subject of correct law enforcement .response to a situation where speakers may or may not be engaged in protected speech, the audience in proximity to the speech reacts violently, and the deputies do not have sufficient manpower to restrain the audience, to protect the speakers, and to ensure their own safety.” See Appellee Supp. Br. at 21-23. The Deputy Chiefs’ position is untenable and unsupported by the record. As is evident from the Supreme Court opinions detailed above, and as explicitly stated in Glasson, “[a] police officer has the duty not to ratify and effectuate a heckler’s veto.... Instead, he must take reasonable action to protect from violence persons exercising their constitutional rights.” 518 F.2d at 906. Defendants were specifically put on notice of this requirement, insofar as the Bible Believers quoted this precise language in a letter that was sent to Wayne County.

To the extent that Glasson’s discussion of a good-faith defense confused the issue of whether a heckler’s veto constitutes a constitutional violation, the facts and analysis in Glasson nonetheless alerted Defendants that removing a peaceful speaker, when the police have made no serious attempt to quell the lawless agitators, could subject them to liability. In Glasson, the Court rejected the officers’ claims that the size of their force was insufficient to quell the hecklers that were purportedly “near to riot.” Id. at 910. The Court explicitly stated the requirement that the police “take reasonable action to protect from violence persons exercising their constitutional rights,” id. at 906 (emphasis added), and found the officers’ actions unreasonable because they failed to call for reinforcements and failed to recognize the speaker’s right to be protected from violence. Id. at 910. These facts are substantially the same as those before us today.

Defendants emphasize the fact that Glasson involved an officer tearing up a sign in response to agitated hecklers, as opposed to officers removing a speaker in an attempt to quell an angry crowd that was actually engaged in violent retaliation. These distinctions are immaterial. The violence here was not substantial, much less overwhelming, and speech, whether it be oration or words written on a poster, is speech nonetheless. Moreover, this case was also about removing from view signs that were considered offensive by a group *259of hecklers — as Israel informed the Deputy Chiefs, his group was no longer preaching during the latter portion of the onslaught against them. Finally, it should be noted that Glasson involved a more compelling state interest — protection of the President — yet the officers’ actions were still deemed to be unreasonable. See Wood v. Moss, — U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2056, 2061, 188 L.Ed.2d 1039 (2014) (citing Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 707, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969)) (“[Safeguarding the President is ... of overwhelming importance in our constitutional system.”).

Had the Bible Believers refused to leave, and consequently been arrested, charged, and convicted of disorderly conduct, the convictions could certainly be held invalid pursuant to Gregory.21 The Bible Believers’ decision to comply with the police officers’ demands, under threat of arrest for disorderly conduct — as opposed to the speaker’s decision in Gregory to disregard the officer’s command — cannot stand for the proposition that there was no clearly established law as to whether the police may threaten to arrest a peaceful speaker in order to calm a hostile crowd of hecklers.22 Gregory, like this *260case, involved protestors who used offensive language and, in response, were assaulted with debris by a violent crowd of .hecklers. On facts such as these, state-sanctioned penalties for alleged breaches of the peace cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.

V. Monell: Municipal Liability

Finally, we address municipal liability.' Municipalities are not vicariously liable for the actions of their employees. However, a municipality may be found responsible for § 1983 violations, and held liable for damages pursuant to Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, if the plaintiff demonstrates that the constitutional harm suffered was a result of the municipality’s policy or custom. 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978); see also Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 403, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997).

A plaintiff may demonstrate the existence of a policy, custom, or usage in a variety of ways, two of which are relevant to this appeal. First, she may provide evidence of a formal policy officially adopted by the county. Monell, 436 U.S. at 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018. Second, a single unconstitutional act or decision, when taken by an authorized decisionmaker, may be considered a policy and thus subject a county to liability. Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 480, 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986).

We conclude that Wayne County Corporation Counsel’s involvement in drafting a letter to the Bible Believers, and in sanctioning the Deputy Chiefs’ decision to remove the Bible Believers from the Festival, easily resolves the matter of municipal liability. “Monell is a case about responsibility.” Id. at 478, 106 S.Ct. 1292. Therefore, with respect to a single decision, municipal liability is appropriate “where the decisionmaker possesses final authority to establish policy with respect to the action ordered.” Id. at 481, 106 S.Ct. 1292 (footnote omitted). Corporation Counsel informed the Bible Believers by way of letter that “under state law and local ordinances, individuals can be held criminally accountable for conduct which has the tendency to incite riotous behavior or otherwise disturb the peace.” Then the Deputy Chiefs consulted Corporation Counsel at the Festival to confirm that they could threaten the Bible Believers with arrest for disorderly conduct because the Bible Believers speech had attracted an unruly crowd of teenagers. As discussed at length, speech cannot be proscribed simply because it has a “tendency” to cause unrest or because people reacted violently in response to the speech. Ashcroft, 535 U.S. at 253, 122 S.Ct. 1389 (“[T]he mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it.”). Corporation Counsel’s misstatement of the law in a letter may not constitute an official policy, but her direction and authorization for the Deputy Chiefs to threaten the Bible Believers with arrest based on the prevailing circumstances is certainly an action for which she “possessed] final authority to establish municipal policy.” See Wayne Cty. Muni. Code § .4.312 (Corporation counsel is the chief legal advisor to the County CEO and “all County agencies,” including the Sheriffs Office). The relevant facts in this case bearing on municipal liability are substantially similar to the facts of Pembaur. See 475 U.S. at 484, 106 S.Ct. 1292 (“The Deputy Sheriffs who attempted to serve the capiases at petitioner’s clinic found themselves in a difficult situation. Unsure of the proper course of action to follow, they sought instructions from their supervisors. The instructions they received were to follow the orders of *261the County Prosecutor. The Prosecutor made a considered decision based on his understanding of the law and commanded the officers forcibly to enter petitioner’s clinic. That decision directly caused the violation of Petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights.”). Therefore, Wayne County is liable.

Summary

From a constitutional standpoint, this should be an easy case to resolve. However, it is also easy to understand Dearborn’s desire to host a joyous Festival celebrating the city’s Arab heritage in an atmosphere that is free of hate and negative influences. But the answer to disagreeable speech is not violent retaliation by offended listeners or ratification of the heckler’s veto through threat of arrest by the police. The adults who did not join in the assault on the Bible Believers knew that violence was not the answer; the parents who pulled their children away likewise recognized that the Bible Believers could simply be ignored; and a few adolescents, instead of hurling bottles, engaged in debate regarding the validity of the Bible Believers’ message. Wayne County, however, through its Deputy Chiefs and Corporation Counsel, effectuated a constitutionally impermissible heckler’s veto by allowing an angry mob of riotous adolescents to dictate what religious beliefs and opinions could and could not be expressed. This, the Constitution simply does not allow.

The chief flaw affecting the dissents of Judges Rogers and Gibbons is that they acknowledge law enforcement’s obligation to protect the public in general, and speakers exercising their First Amendment rights in particular, Rogers Dis. 64; Gibbons Dis. 53-55, but seek to avoid holding the WCSO accountable to this standard by distorting the factual record to reflect an out-of-control situation in which the officers were powerless to quell the violence or reign in the mob. The “mob” in this case was comprised mostly of children and teenagers. The “violence,” though not imaginary, involved little more than plastie bottle and garbage throwing. As evidenced in the video record, the WCSO’s efforts to prevent this behavior were virtually non-existent. Instead, the officers largely ignored the lawless conduct of the crowd and directed what little attention they paid to the Bible Believers’ situation — prior to ejecting the group — to quieting and then silencing their speech.

“Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.” Terminiello, 337 U.S. at 4, 69 S.Ct. 894. Excluding viewpoints and ideas from the marketplace damages us by occasioning the risk that we might subject ourselves to “tyrannies of governing majorities,” Whitney, 274 U.S. at 376, 47 S.Ct. 641 (Brandeis, J., concurring), and thereby forestall “the advancement of truth, science, morality, and [the] arts,” 1 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, Letter to the Inhabitants of Quebec, 108 (Aug. 26, 1774). These are but a few of the reasons that the First Amendment is integral to the vitality and longevity of a free society. These are the reasons why we must accept our differences and allow our fellow citizens to express their views regardless of our distaste for what they have to say.

CONCLUSION

Because the Wayne County Defendants impermissibly cut off the Bible Believers’ protected speech, placed an undue burden on their exercise of religion, and treated them disparately from other speakers at the 2012 Arab International Festival, solely on the basis of the views that they *262espoused, Wayne County Defendants violated the Bible Believers’ constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Deputy Chief Defendants are civilly liable to the Bible Believers for having violated law that is clearly established by the Supreme Court precedent set forth in Gregory v. City of Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 89 S.Ct. 946, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969). Wayne County is civilly liable because one of its chief legal policymakers counseled and authorized the Deputy Chiefs’ actions. Therefore, we REVERSE the grant of summary judgment by the district court in favor of Defendants, and REMAND this case for entry of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs, for the calculation of damages, and any other appropriate relief, consistent with this opinion.