Alley Mills Bean approached the podium at a Los Angeles city council meeting alongside Council member Traci Park on a June day in 2024 with her recently awarded Emmy in hand.
She'dwon it the previous yearfor her role as the hook-wielding serial killer Heather Webber on "General Hospital."
Park acknowledged both Mills Bean's "incredible professional accomplishments" and her "selfless voluntarism and selfless duty" to the Venice community. Mills Beanserves as chairof the Venice Neighborhood Council's Homelessness and Housing Committee.
The actress, known for playing Norma Arnold on "The Wonder Years," told USA TODAY the recognition was a "huge honor."
But what she equally remembered were the others being recognized that day−including an area high school academic decathlon team−and how the offensive language used by some at the meeting could taint their memories of the celebratory occasion.
At the same meeting, a speaker addressing the council used the N-word twice in his remarks.
It bothered Mills Bean so much so thatshe wrote the council in support of a motionto ban the use of the N-word and the C-word at its meetings – a proposal that wasultimately passed in late July. She wrote that young people being exposed to "this kind of vitriolic and hate filled language is not only sad, it's just plain unacceptable."
"It hurt my heart. It was weirdly like walking Skid Row," she told USA TODAY, referring to the stretch of downtown Los Angeles that became a homeless encampment. "It was like, why are we like this?"
The ban sparked a First Amendment debate over whether one's right to use offensive and hateful language at city council meetings impedes on others' rights to be heard on issues affecting them at governmental meetings.
But the debate extends far beyond Los Angeles.
In recent months, there have been reports on similar actions taken by government entities across the country, includinga ban on "language of a personal nature"about public officials in Richmond, Virginia, arule barring complaints or accusations against town officialsin Houlton, Maine, or a proposal topermanently end public commentin Fountain Hills, Arizona.
For Mills Bean, she moved to the area for acting around 40 years ago and watched Skid Row expand exponentially in the years since.
At one point more than three decades ago, she was invited to wash the feet of people experiencing homelessness as part of a street practice set up by a group of young doctors in collaboration with theUnion Rescue Mission. As they did so, she said they asked about their housing and medical needs and connected them with resources.
It seemed to be a welcome departure from how people usually interact with them, Mills Bean said.
"It's amazing how quickly you can lose your dignity and your hope and everything – it's why people want to get high," she said. "You can just look in their eyes and you feel this incredible sadness. It's devastating."
Those types of experiences stayed with her, inspiring her current work on the neighborhood council.
But in the dozens of times she's gone to city council meetings to address homelessness and other issues, there have regularly been others there using "nasty" language including the N-word.
She acknowledged it's a "difficult question" to consider if and to what extent such language can be punished in a governmental meeting, one that she believesher late husband, comedian Orson Bean, would disagree with her on.
Though he wasn't a communist, Beanin a 2014 interviewdescribed being "blacklisted" for years after showing up to Communist Party meetings to woo a woman in the early 1950s.
Ina posthumously published Newsweek interview, Bean said he received flak from the other end of the political spectrum over time as others in the industry learned of his conservative politics and that Breitbart News founder Andrew Breitbart, whodied in 2012,was his son-in-law.
"I smell a blacklist today the same way I smelled it back then," Bean said. "You just can't get it on paper."
Though Mills Bean said her late husband would be similarly disturbed by the way in which some people express themselves as city council meetings, he was ultimately against censorship.
"We have the freedom to be unkind," she said. "We have the freedom to do whatever the (expletive) we want, and it includes being nasty – that's the weird thing about freedom."
Free speech groups warn of potential litigation against the city
The council passed the measure despitewarnings from First Amendment groups, whichsaid the ban would be unconstitutional.
Wayne Spindler, an attorney witha long history of disruptingcity and neighborhood council meetings with the N-word and other inflammatory language, told USA TODAY his efforts to protect his right to use offensive language is "for the young people."
"If people don't start standing up right now, there isn't going to be anything left of this country," Spindler said.
Spindler previously pledged to sue the city over the council's word ban. Though he said he may still do so, he thinks the organizations who publicly opposed the ban should take on that burden.
Stephanie Jablonsky, senior program counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said the organization "absolutely can get involved" in the matter but added that FIRE takes on legal cases based onsubmissions through their website.
David Snyder,executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the organization is "monitoring" the situation "for now."
"I will say the city is very exposed to liability as a general matter," he said. "This ordinance is just blatantly unconstitutional."
The city council previously told USA TODAY the motion was not meant to suppress free speech.
"This motion is about preserving access and safety for everyone, not censoring ideas, but safeguarding the ability of all residents to speak and be heard without intimidation or verbal abuse," a council spokesperson said.
The spokesperson reiterated that sentiment in an email to USA TODAY on Sept. 16, saying council chambers are limited public forums "where reasonable rules of decorum apply."
"This motion preserves public access by ensuring all residents can safely engage with their government," they said.
Interruptions contribute to 'very discouraging' process of attending meetings
Going to city council meetings involves a three-hour roundtrip commute for Norma Chavez. Even after getting to city hall in downtown Los Angeles, she told USA TODAY it can be an additional ordeal to find parking, get her name on the list to speak during public comments and wait potentially hours to be given her 3-minute block to address the council.
She once made it to the meeting but had to leave before her turn to speak because she had to make the long drive back home to pick up her daughter from school.
It can be a "very discouraging" process made even more difficult by people who disrupt the meetings with foul language, she said.
The ban was a welcome development for Chavez, who said such epithets do nothing to meaningfully address local issues but are instead "almost like an assault on a person."
Regardless of how one feels about the council members or city policies, she said, "we all deserve respect."
It's also a personal issue for Chavez, who currently serves asvice president of the Sun Valley Area Neighborhood Council.
She's received hateful emails and said, similar to the city council meetings, the neighborhood council meetings can be disrupted by people using offensive language. It even prompted a member to step down from their position on the council, she said.
There's a time and place for indecent language, she said.
"That would maybe be okay at a bar or party with your friends, but I don't think it's okay at a city council meeting," Chavez said.
'There is no real easy answer to this'
The language and manner of some speakers has turned the city council chamber into a "political theater," saidShakeel Syed, executive director of the Los Angeles-area organization South Asian Network.
"It's a struggle for all of us," he said. "There is no real easy answer to this."
Syed submitteda statement in support of the banon behalf of his organization. He said the group "relies on being able to provide public comment or advocate" during city council meetings and that its members are "exposed to hateful language" in that pursuit.
He estimated that members of his organization attend city council meetings between four and six times each year. The topics they wish to address are typically related to immigrant rights, health and public benefits and tenants' rights, though he recently showed up to address themilitary and federal law enforcement presence in the cityas part of PresidentDonald Trump's response to protests over immigration raids.
He takes no issue with people angrily addressing, even screaming, at city council members because "that's what they signed up for," he said.
He acknowledged that it can, however, create a "feeling of discomfort and uneasiness" among audience members.
"I believe as a society it behooves us to really struggle with these types of challenges, where there is either no clear answer or multiple answers," Syed said, adding that he hoped such efforts would result in solutions that both protect free speech and promote "civility and mutual respect."
BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her atbjfrank@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners.Funders do not provide editorial input.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:How Los Angeles is debating the banning of the N-word from meetings