Professor Tabatha Abu El-Haj, a leading scholar on the right to assemble, was interviewed by NPR’s Eli Newman for Morning Edition, who reported that a countersuit filed by the City of Detroit against individuals suing the City for its response to last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests might “chill free speech.” The City’s lawsuit, which holds that the protesters are liable for civil conspiracy, “seems retaliatory” to Abu El-Haj, Newman said.

The political question at the heart of the matter, Abu El-Haj said, is “How tolerant are we in the United States going to be of certain kinds of lawbreaking which are inevitably going to happen, like people being out on the streets?”

Listen to the full interview here.