Since coming to Iowa City in 1995 to attend the University of Iowa, Tara McGovern has made a name in the arts: a professional musician, well known as an accomplished fiddler, a music therapist, an arts instructor. At the same time, McGovern has also carved out a place as an activist for social justice causes, a participant in countless protests over the years and a volunteer for community and progressive political causes.
And on March 12, McGovern will play a new role: defendant on trial for two charges that could result in more than a year of jail time and almost $3,500 in fines.
McGovern is one of seven people charged with breaking the law during a Oct. 16 protest in front of the Iowa Memorial Union. The protest was in response to the second anti-transgender event of the year at the IMU hosted by the university’s chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).
The University of Iowa Police Department (UIPD) expected protesters that night. The YAF event in March featuring Matt Walsh, a self-described theocratic fascist and one of the country’s leading anti-trans activists, attracted a large and vocal protest. Ahead of the YAF’s Oct. 16 event, UIPD and deputies from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department were deployed to the IMU.
The police estimated about 100 people attended the YAF event, and between 200-250 showed up outside the IMU to protest.
As both protesters and police agreed, after the event hundreds of protesters began marching in a loop, with a constant stream of people using the crosswalk in front of the IMU, delaying traffic.
After about 20 minutes, officers moved in to clear the street.
“There was no dispersal order, there was just some general shoving and pushing by law enforcement officers wanting people to move out of the walkway to create a lane for cars that were trying to leave the IMU [parking] ramp,” McGovern recalled.
“I didn’t leave because there was no dispersal order.”
McGovern was far from alone in continuing to protest.
Only “tens of those [200 protesters] abided by police requests and instructions to leave the roadway and were non-confrontational,” UIPD Detective Ian Mallory wrote in his investigative report on the protest.
Mallory’s report states UIPD decided to arrest McGovern and five other protesters “for their aggressive actions” that night. But reports prepared by UIPD officers on the scene only refer to McGovern as part of a group of three marchers who argued with an officer “and claimed they had rights.”
In his review of police body-camera footage, Mallory said McGovern argued with a second officer and yelled at that officer for touching them. According to Mallory, it was McGovern who walked into the officer’s “outstretched arm” when refusing to obey “the command to get out of the street.” (McGovern says the officer touched them. McGovern also said they plan to present video footage showing this at trial.)
Those are the “aggressive actions” that got them singled out from 200 other protesters for arrest.
“It was a matter of wanting to be there to show people that there’s a trans community here, that we exist and that we deserve to have rights,” McGovern told Little Village. “A lot of us were frustrated that the university continues to platform this anti-trans propaganda, especially given how under attack we are in Iowa.”
The Oct. 16 event came after years of Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate pushing through bills imposing new restrictions on transgender people, while state and national Republicans embrace transphobic ideologues like Matt Walsh, who calls trans people “the greatest evil our country faces.” Two days before the protest at the IMU, Gov. Reynolds had a professional anti-trans activist as the featured speaker at her big annual fundraiser.
It’s clear from the UIPD reports the police didn’t like McGovern’s attitude.
The report from an officer on the scene that mentions McGovern — “an older lady, wearing a blue stocking cap” — says that after asserting that protesters have rights, “the older lady hissed back at me to not misgender her nor talk to her and walked away from me.”
In his summary of the body cam footage of McGovern’s encounter with a different officer, Mallory says it’s McGovern’s fault there was bodily contact, because they “wanted to disobey [the officer’s] commands and was walking into [his] outstretched arm. [McGovern] could have followed the command to get out of the street by turning around and leaving, rather she opted to be confrontational.”
It wasn’t until mid-November, 29 days later, that the arrests began. (A seventh would be arrested in December.) Mallory reached out to McGovern by phone, but McGovern was driving when he called, and the call went to voicemail.
“I’d like to discuss some things with you,” Mallory said in the voicemail McGovern played for Little Village. “I have some paperwork that I need to turn over to you.”
After a brief round of phone tag, McGovern learned the paperwork was an arrest warrant and turned themself in the following morning. McGovern was released on their own recognizance.
McGovern is charged with disorderly conduct — obstructing street/sidewalk/highway, a serious misdemeanor, and interference with official acts, a simple misdemeanor. The first carries a maximum penalty of one year’s imprisonment and a $2,560 fine, the second has a maximum penalty of 30 days imprisonment and an $850 fine.
“I’m 45, I’ve been protesting for a long time, so I have a general knowledge of my rights, which comes from information provided by the ACLU protesters’ rights,” McGovern said. “But it turns out the 2021 Back the Blue bill cast a shadow over what I thought I knew about my constitutional rights.”
That bill was passed in response to protests in 2020 that followed the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The bill created new protest-related crimes, increased penalties for some already on the books, expanded qualified immunity for police officers and even granted some immunity for drivers who run over protesters in the street. Even before Gov. Reynolds signed it into law, critics were warning it would have a chilling effect on peaceful protests and might lead to harsher treatment of protesters.
Based on decades of experience, McGovern was expecting police to issue an official dispersal order to protesters. But under current Iowa law that isn’t necessary. Anyone “who obstructs any street” without “authority or justification” can be charged with disorderly conduct.
In December, Johnson County Attorney Rachel Zimmermann-Smith offered plea deals to those who were arrested for the Oct. 16 protest. In exchange for pleading guilty to the lesser charge of interference with official acts, the more serious disorderly conduct charge would be dropped.
McGovern is the only one who didn’t take the deal.
“I don’t want to plead guilty, because I feel I was within my constitutional rights to protest,” they said.
The decision to reject a plea deal was reinforced by the rough treatment law enforcement officers used on pro-Palestinian protesters at Kinnick Stadium on Dec. 9.
“I don’t think people realize that even here in Iowa City, peaceful protesters are being denied their First Amendment rights, and that peaceful protesters, in my opinion, are being targeted because of the marginalized groups that they belong to.”
McGovern’s never been arrested before, and is apprehensive as the March 12 trial date approaches, but still rejects the idea of taking a deal.
“It’s a matter of principle,” McGovern said.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s February 2024 issue.
