The Gulf of America Act goes into effect Thursday. In most instances, it bans the use of “Gulf of Mexico,” requiring all state employees, including those at WBHM, to instead use the "Gulf of America" terminology in all documents, websites and official communications.
At first glance, it seems a law with limited focus. But free-speech advocates say it’s quite the opposite.
The law was passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor Kay Ivey this spring. Rep. David Standridge from Hayden, just north of Birmingham, was the sponsor.
He and multiple other Republicans in the legislature declined to be interviewed for this story, but Standridge did comment on why he supports the measure during legislative hearings earlier this year.
“I think this is an opportunity to make a patriotic statement,” he said in January, in a recorded video of his remarks on the State House floor. “I think that the president would embrace it … And I think it's more fitting for the body of water that it is.”
Other Republican legislators echoed those sentiments of patriotism on the House floor. Some also spoke of the need to align with an executive order from President Donald Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The bill's supporters, however, tended to avoid discussions of the legislation's potential far reaching consequences.
Aaron Terr is the director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a civil liberties organization. He said, on first glance, a name change for a body of water may seem like no big deal.
“It might seem minor,” he said. “But compelled speech is actually a very serious violation of the First Amendment.”
Granted, the government can exercise some control over state employees in the performance of their jobs, Terr said, but there are limits.
“The First Amendment doesn't allow the state to censor faculty teaching or research to suppress ideas that the government doesn't like,” he said.
Terr said those limits to the law also apply to media outlets, like WBHM.
David Cuillier agrees. He’s the director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida. That state has a similar Gulf of America law.
“Clearly, if the government has established a public forum – public radio, public television, public media – then the government can't dictate its content,” he said.
Like Terr, Cullier went on to say the First Amendment protects those media outlets.
“In this country journalists are given the freedom to report what they think the public should know, and the government does not have a right to abridge that freedom,” Cuillier said.
Terr added a little more detail. The government doesn't always have unlimited control over speech, just because it created or owns the platform where the speech occurs,” he said.
“I think particularly where a station is set up to be editorially independent, and there's a long tradition of that, there's a stronger case that the content that it broadcasts is not the government's own speech. The government is simply providing a platform where that speech occurs.”
Critics of the Gulf of America law also said it’s misguided. State Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison is a Democrat, who represents part of the Birmingham area.
“I don't see this advancing the cause of making America great or addressing all of the issues that we have in America, the cost of living, energy, food, rising costs of everything,” Coleman-Madison said. “This does nothing.”
A’Niya Robinson, director of policy and organizing at the ACLU of Alabama, said efforts could be better spent elsewhere.
“The question goes back to why are we even doing this,” she said. “There are so many things that keep Alabamians up at night, and the name of a body of water, I can assure you, is not one of them.”
One of the main concerns the law’s opponents have is its lack of guidance. For instance, both Robinson and Coleman-Madison noted there’s no allowance for how to cover the cost of what the law requires.
“There's no mention of funding,” Robinson said, in reference to the law’s language. “I think that's another significant question here.”
Aaron Terr of FIRE, as have other attorneys who’ve reviewed the legislation, pointed out the measure's language doesn’t say its ban on using the "Gulf of Mexico" only applies to state employees while they’re on the job.
“The first problem that jumped out at me is that it requires all state and local employees to use the term “Gulf of America,” Terr said. “But it doesn't specify that the directive only applies when they're speaking as part of their job.
“If the law compels public employees to use a particular term for a body of water, even when they're off the clock — speaking as a private citizen — that would violate the First Amendment.”
There’s also no mention in the law of penalties for not following the measure or provision for enforcement. Terr said all this ambiguity may be purposeful.
“Vague laws are a problem and are sometimes used by governments intentionally to give them this wide discretion to punish people for their speech or other conduct,” he said.
Terr continued, saying implementation of one such law, no matter how seemingly minor, makes way for other similar legislation that limits freedoms.
“There is a real risk that the state will decide, 'Okay, if we can make them say Gulf of America, what else can we force people to say?'
“What else can we force them to say to make their language align with our political and ideological preferences? And that’s the type of thing that the First Amendment is absolutely designed to prevent from happening,” Terr said.
Robinson of the ACLU added, “The sign of a good piece of legislation is when an average person can read it and they know what changes are attempting to be made in the law.
“People just have to understand what they're expected to do, what they are required to do and what they're not required to do. What they can be criminalized for,” she continued.
“And when that is unclear, then you have a society that starts censoring themselves. People stop living full lives, because they're overly cautious of getting something wrong or facing a penalty or a negative consequence.”
Further guidance concerning the bill is expected to be issued in the coming days, including whether content that includes mentions of Gulf of Mexico created by sources other than WBHM staff, such as NPR programming, will be allowed on the station’s platforms.
WBHM reached out to UAB officials to ask for comment. None has come as of this writing.
Per protocol, no members of WBHM’s senior leadership or executives at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which holds WBHM’s license, reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.
