The 2026 New England Muzzle Awards: Spotlighting the enemies of free speech and expression

For First Amendment and civil liberties fans, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s time for the New England Muzzle Awards, that Fourth of July tradition in which I highlight outrages against the First Amendment that took place in the six-state region during the previous 12 months.

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It’s something I started doing in 1998 for The Boston Phoenix and then later moved to GBH News after the Phoenix folded in 2013. (Here’s the complete archive.) After leaving GBH, I skipped 2023, but since then have been writing up individual Muzzles throughout the year rather than waiting for an annual roundup. So welcome to the 27th annual edition.

This year I thought I would try something different. Rather than simply listing the Muzzles I’ve awarded since July 2025 (although I’m still doing that), I asked Claude AI for some additional candidates. I did not ask Claude to write them for me, and I’m relying on citations from reliable news sources. I simply used Claude as a more sophisticated way of searching than what DuckDuckGo or Google offers these days. So I’ll start with a few that I’m presenting here for the first time.

Kudos, as always, to my friends Harvey Silverglate, who conceived of this annual feature all these years ago, and Peter Kadzis, who edited all 25 editions that appeared in the Phoenix and at GBH News. They were inspired by the Jefferson Muzzles, which no longer are awarded. Here in New England, though, their spirit lives on.

We are living through an authoritarian moment. At times like this, it is crucial that we call out repression wherever we see it.

Go tell it on the highway

Anyone who drives on highways frequently encounters overpasses that are festooned with American flags, sometimes accompanied by a message to support our troops. Occasionally you’ll see a more pointed political message as well.

But apparently they don’t like that sort of thing in Connecticut. Because that state’s ACLU Foundation has charged in a lawsuit brought last September against the state that it is ordering signs to be taken down and that protesters leave. According to Viktoria Sundqvist of the news site CT News Junkie:

Police have issued tickets and made arrests based on claims that signs “distract” drivers on highway overpasses in the Greater New Haven area, the ACLU said.

The lawsuit asks the court to immediately halt “the state’s ongoing suppression of speech,” claiming it is violating the plaintiff’s constitutional rights.

An ACLU photo of a sign accompanies the News Junkie story. It reads: “Due Process Is the Law.” Well, now. We wouldn’t want passing motorists to develop any subversive ideas.

The protesters are members of a group called the Connecticut Visibility Brigade. Reeti Malhotra and Adele Haeg reported in the Yale Daily News that among those arrested was Katherine Hinds, a 71-year-old activist who was taken into custody twice and charged with second-degree criminal trespassing and second-degree breach of the peace.

The Muzzles go to the two defendants named in the suit, Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, and Ronnell Higgins, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection commissioner.

As Dan Barrett, legal director of the Connecticut ACLU, said in a statement: “If you’ve driven our interstates, you know how ridiculous it is for the state to permit massive electronic billboards along the highway while claiming that overpass pedestrians cannot display small, homemade signs.”

Silence in the rotunda

No discouraging words were heard during Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee’s state of the state address in January 2025. The reason: Protesters were barred from the rotunda, which they discovered had been roped off just 30 minutes before McKee’s speech. Christopher Shea reported for the Rhode Island Current:

Advocates organized by the now-dissolved Black Lives Matter RI PAC had intended to gather in the rotunda to call on McKee to declare a public health emergency to shelter the state’s growing homeless population over the winter.

But when people started to arrive around 5 p.m., they were met by State and Capitol Police, along with stanchions cordoning off the rotunda stating the space was “reserved for the State of the State through the Department of Administration” from 4:30 to 10 p.m.

Eric Hirsch, executive director of the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project and one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought last October by the ACLU of Rhode Island, said in a statement: “This is unacceptable. We have a right to express our view of the governor’s policies toward people experiencing homelessness.”

A year later, McKee agreed to keep the rotunda mostly open for his 2026 state of the state, according to Steph Machado (sub. req.) of The Boston Globe. But that hasn’t stopped me from awarding him a Muzzle for an unconstitutional crackdown on free speech in a public setting.

Why anonymity matters

You’ll have to ask Simon Amaya Price, an anti-transgender activist, why he felt the need to travel from Massachusetts, where he lives, to Nashua, New Hampshire, so that he could criticize local officials for flying a Pride flag on city property. But he shouldn’t have had to divulge his address in order to speak.

Here’s how Todd Bookman of New Hampshire Public Radio described what happened at a board of aldermen meeting in February of this year:

Lori Wilshire, president of the city’s Board of Aldermen, initially gave Price permission to speak, but then quickly changed course, citing a longstanding Nashua ordinance that requires speakers to state their name and address.

Price’s attorneys say that ordinance is unconstitutional and should be overturned.

“Nashua’s address rule unreasonably deters speakers who want to discuss controversial topics or take unpopular positions — preventing the board from hearing a particular set of viewpoints and input prior to making decisions on resolutions and other matters,” lawyers for the Institute for Free Speech, a Washington-based advocacy group, said in a newly filed civil suit.

The Muzzle goes to Wilshire. That might be a little unfair given that she was merely enforcing a rule that was already on the books. Sometimes, though, life is unfair.

Price, who describes himself as “formerly trans,” says he’s received death threats because of his activism. Because Nashua’s municipal meetings are carried on YouTube, he argued, he would be an easy target for doxxing or worse.

Greg Sullivan, a lawyer with the New England First Amendment Coalition, told NHPR, “To me, there’s no reason that an individual who wants to exercise their free speech rights has to even give a name, never mind an address,” noting that anonymous speech has been “critical to building this country from Day One.”

Just ask Publius.

Two killings and a cover-up

Was the police department in Bath, Maine, negligent in failing to prevent the 2024 killings of Lisa Bailey and her daughter, Jennifer Bailey? That’s a question that could be answered if public records related to the case were released. The police have refused so far, thus earning themselves a New England Muzzle Award.

In April of this year, The Times Record and the nonprofit organization of which it is a part, the Maine Trust for Local News, sued the Bath police department for documents that would show how law enforcement handled domestic calls in the days before their deaths. Joining the suit was WMTW of Portland, Maine. Nick McCrea, editor of The Times Record, said in an account of the suit (sub. req.) published by his newspaper:

The public has a right to know how police responded to domestic calls at the Bailey home. Those details could reveal whether anything could or should have been done differently to protect Lisa and Jennifer Bailey.

The women were killed by Lisa Bailey’s estranged husband, Michael Bailey, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound before police could arrive. The documents and police reports that have been withheld presumably detail how law enforcement responded to a series of domestic dispute calls in the days leading up to their deaths. According to The Times Record’s account:

On Oct. 2, 2024, Lisa and Jennifer Bailey went to the Bath Police Department asking to fill out statements related to the recent incidents involving Michael Bailey. An officer told them that wasn’t necessary, since they had given statements at the scene, but the women chose to write additional statements anyway. Jennifer Bailey asked to see the police report from Sept. 24, but was told they would have to fill out a public records request form. The women left without seeing the report. Michael Bailey killed them four days later….

The department initially refused to release any records, citing an exception to the public records law intended to protect personal privacy. After the Maine Trust for Local News’ attorney sent a letter challenging the refusal, the department released some records, but they were so heavily redacted that the vast majority of the documents were blacked out.

The lawsuit is being funded by the New England First Amendment Coalition.

A Muzzle Award revisited

Back in March, I awarded a Muzzle to Northwestern District Attorney Dan Sullivan for dragging his feet for several years before turning over the names of police officers who had been charged with violating the law. Spurred by a lawsuit filed by independent journalist Andrew Quemere, Superior Court Judge Julie Green ordered Sullivan to release those records. He finally did, and it looked like the case was over.

Well, Sullivan continues to scuff up his Thom McAns, as Quemere reports in his newsletter, The Mass Dump, that the DA is now “refusing to release communications with its private legal counsel that could shed light on prosecutors’ decision to keep the public in the dark.” Quemere writes:

Sullivan’s office responded by hiding the communications behind attorney-client privilege.

Although a government agency can invoke attorney-client privilege to shield legal advice from the public, it is not required to do so. And because the lawsuit was settled, there is no longer any strategic reason for the district attorney’s office to keep the communications private.

Quemere has filed an appeal with the secretary of state’s office