Ordinance Prohibiting Yoga Instruction in City Parks Struck Down
In an interesting twist (pun intended), a federal court of appeals determined that yoga is a protected free speech activity under the First Amendment in a challenge to a municipality's ordinance that prohibited teaching yoga to four or more persons at City parks and beaches. Hubbard v. City of San Diego, (9th Cir. June 4, 2025)
The City had enacted an ordinance restricting the teaching of yoga on City parks and beaches. After two yoga instructors were informed by park rangers that they could no longer each yoga at City parks, they filed a lawsuit, challenging the ordinance as unconstitutional. The district court ruled in favor of the City, and the yoga instructors appealed.
On appeal, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals first determined that yoga is protected by the First Amendment because yoga teachers communicate and disseminate information about yoga’s philosophy and practice through speech and expressive movements. Second, the Court held that the City’s shoreline parks are traditional public forums. Third, the Court determiend that the City’s prohibition on teaching yoga at those parks was content-based, and, therefore, did not qualify as a valid time, place, and manner regulation. As a result, the ordinance was subject to "strict scrutiny" under the First Amendment and, since the City could not demonstrate any plausible connection between the instructors teaching yoga and any threat to public safety and enjoyment in the City’s shoreline parks, the ordinance was an unconstitutional restriction on speech.
Note that this decision was decided in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, so it is not binding on Illinois, which is in the Seventh Circuit.
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