A lawsuit against a Black Lives Matter activist could chill all of our speech

If democracy is our nation’s engine, then political protest is its gas pedal — and it has been since our founding. Early Americans rose up to protest the tyranny of the Stamp Act and the Tea Act, fighting taxation without representation and planting the seeds of independence. Two decades later, they enshrined the freedom to protest in the First Amendment.

All throughout America’s 250 years, that freedom has given millions the voice to demand change. It spearheaded the fight against segregation. It secured voting rights for women. And today, Americans gather in public parks and city streets for No Kings rallies, the March for Life and countless other political and social causes.

But a lawsuit that has snaked through the courts for eight years threatens our prized freedom to protest, exposing protesters to vast damages for acts they didn’t commit and chilling Americans from making their voices heard.

That should trouble any freedom-loving American.

In 2016, DeRay McKesson joined a protest against the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling, during which a police officer was hit with a rock. But DeRay did not throw the rock. Nor did he ask anybody to throw rocks or engage in any other violence.

Yet the officer sued McKesson, instead of the rock-thrower. On what basis, you ask? The officer claims he was responsible for organizing the........

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