Stadium security guards allow public nudity, dress themselves in 1st Amendment

Janet Jackson may no longer possess the most famous breasts in professional football history.…

The New York Times reports that Gate D’s pedestrian ramp at Giants Stadium has become the home of impromptu strip shows and wardrobe malfunctions during Jets halftimes, largely at the urging of the raucous crowd that gathers there each game.

At halftime of the Jets’ home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, several hundred men lined one of Giants Stadium’s two pedestrian ramps at Gate D. Three deep in some areas, they whistled and jumped up and down. Then they began an obscenity-laced chant, demanding that the few women in the gathering expose their breasts…

The mood of previous Gate D crowds – captured on video clips posted on YouTube – sometimes bordered on hostile, not unlike the spirit of infamously aggressive European soccer hooligans. One clip online shows a woman being groped by a man standing next to her. 

One stadium security guard noted that they could not  “do anything about the chants at Gate D because of free speech laws,” which would be all good and well… if it were true.

Most notably, the stadium is a privately owned facility and the owners retain the right to set ground rules regarding fans’ behavior at the venue, regardless of the First Amendment.  The First Amendment only protects individuals from state action, not private.  And, according to the stadium’s Web site, the ownership has done just that: “foul/abusive language and/or rowdy behavior will not be tolerated and will be cause for ejection and/or arrest.”