Dearborn Mayor Tells Christian Minister: “You are not Welcome Here”

The city of Dearborn, Michigan, just put up new road signs named after Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, along Warren Avenue. Not all residents appreciated the gesture.

This was made evident during a September 9th city council meeting when one resident, Ted Barham, rose in protest of honoring Siblani. He objected to Siblani’s past statements of sympathy made for terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. Barham equated the honor to naming a street “Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street.”

Mayor Hammoud, present at the meeting, did not mince words in his response. He told Barham, a Christian minister, that “the best advice I can give you is not to drive on Warren Avenue or to close your eyes while you’re doing it.”

Mayor Hammoud then called the individual “a bigot,” “racist,” and an “Islamophobe.” Most astonishingly, Hammoud called for the resident to leave his city.

The mayor’s strong response raises some serious questions.

Holding the authority of a mayor, was Hammoud essentially speaking on behalf of the city government, or was he acting in his own individual capacity? Can his statements potentially subject him to a lawsuit? And what does this say about the boundaries of free speech for public figures?

First, observe that the government itself does not possess First Amendment rights. Supreme Court rulings, including in City of Pleasant Grove v. Summum (2009), held that “government speech” is not subject to the same free-speech protection as that of private individuals’ speech. The government is free to make its own statements without being accused of a First Amendment breach.

The harder question is whether the mayor’s outraged retort was official government speech or personal speech.

Hammoud’s very choice of words—”as a mayor”—unequivocally establishes that he was speaking as an official. The Supreme Court has just made explicit in Lindke v. Freed (2024) that the public official’s action is state action if they have authority to speak for the state and are claiming use of that authority. In delivering his official welcome or “not welcome” to a resident, Mayor Hammoud is likely to be interpreted as a government employee speaking on official business and not as a private individual.

This matters because when government employees speak in the scope of official business, their speech is not protected from employer corrective action under the guidelines established in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006). Holding a city council meeting is a crucial official duty.

But Michigan law protects higher officials to a greater degree. State code MCL 691.1407 provides that high-level executives like mayors have wide immunity from suit for behavior in pursuit of their official duties. The Michigan courts have upheld this as well in cases like Donald Estill v Robert Davis (2012) and Timmis v. Bennett (1958).

So, while the mayor’s statement was likely government speech, Michigan immunity laws would presumably protect him from successful suit for, e.g., defamation or emotional distress.

Ultimately, it’s a stern lesson in the great responsibility and authority that go hand-in-hand with public service. A mayor’s voice is the voice of the city, and using that authority to personally denounce and exile a constituent, however objectionable their comments, is a bad precedent.

It illustrates how easily personal outrage can become government action.

About the Author

Peter Hnin is a contributing writer for the legal section. He is an undergraduate at the University of Michigan interested in constitutional law.