It’s a sad day for Juggalos. According to the Washington Post, Detroit hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse lost an appeal to remove their fanbase from the FBI's list of organized gangs. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a lower court's decision dismissing the lawsuit, ruling that the classification cannot be challenged because it doesn’t carry direct legal consequences.
Fans of ICP, aka Juggalos, have called for their group to be scrubbed from the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment, which describes them as a “loosely-organized hybrid gang.” Juggalos claim the classification is baseless and has resulted in discrimination as well as harassment from law enforcement across the country. ICP’s Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope filed a lawsuit in 2014, arguing the gang designation violated their fans’ First and Fifth Amendment rights.
The court acknowledged the gang label might have resulted in personal complications, like discrimination at the workplace or in the military; however, it insisted the FBI is not responsible for the ways in which local governments interpret or use the annual report.
“The various reputational and personal harms suffered by Appellants in the present case may be the practical consequences of the Juggalo gang designation,” the court wrote, “but they are not a direct or appreciable legal consequence of the Juggalo gang designation.”
It added: “No government officials are required to consider or abide by the gang designation.”
Unless ICP and the Juggalos decide to appeal this ruling and take it to the Supreme Court, the fans will remain on the list of national gangs.
About three months ago, more than 1,000 facepaint-wearing Juggalos marched in Washington, D.C., to protest their gang classification.
“What would anybody do? How would anybody fight the gang label? Obviously, the FBI don't give a fuck. They're not gonna cave in as they see it,” Violent J told Rolling Stone back in September. “All we can do is hopefully reach the people of the country. How are we gonna legally, peacefully, reach these people? The way it's always been, is you do a March on Washington that makes as much noise as you can.”
