The anti-war, anti-Israel, anti-Bush group United for Peace and Justice is scheduled to meet today with representatives of the New York City Police Department. Police call the meeting a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement on a venue for a protest scheduled for the week of the Republican National Convention.

United for Peace and Justice wants to have the protest in Central Park. At a press conference Wednesday, the city’s parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said that the Great Lawn “simply cannot fit” the 250,000 people that organizers expect at the protest. He said that it would be “impossible to maintain security” at such an event. The city also has an obligation, Mr. Benepe said, to preserve the lawn and its surroundings — which have undergone a $21 million restoration funded by the city and the Central Park Conservancy. Two trustees of the Central Park Conservancy, Evelyn Lauder and Thomas L. Kempner Jr., and a former parks commissioner, Henry Stern, have written in The New York Sun against having the demonstration in Central Park.

The parks commissioner, Mr. Benepe, said that such a large demonstration would result in extensive damage to the park. For an idea of the damage, please regard the photo above left of the Mall in Washington, often the site of political demonstrations, with its large barren swathes of dirt, and compare it with the photo above right of Central Park’s lush lawn. Plenty of non-protesting people are likely to use Central Park on a busy summer day, and the commissioner says the city has an obligation to them, too. The city has offered the protesters an alternative proposal that includes a march past the convention site at Madison Square Garden and then a rally on the West Side Highway.

With the lines so clearly drawn, one wonders why United for Peace and Justice — represented by our capable friends at the New York Civil Liberties Union — hasn’t rushed into court for an order protecting its right to assemble peaceably in Central Park. We put that question yesterday to the national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, Leslie Cagan, as a crowd of her peaceniks in the background chanted “One, two, three, four. Let us protest against the war.” She said that she is keeping the legal option open. On what basis would she sue? “That’s the thing, you’ve got to have good grounds,” she said.

There’s the catch. It turns out that, for better or worse, there’s First Amendment case law establishing that “Congress shall make no law…abridging …the right of the people peaceably to assemble” provides quite a bit of room for government regulation of the time, place, and manner of the assembling. As far as legal grounds are concerned, this case law leaves United for Peace and Justice with hardly a blade of grass on which to stand.

In a 1984 case, Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, the United States Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that the National Park Service could bar a group that wanted to call attention to the homeless from erecting symbolic tent cities in Lafayette Park in Washington and on the National Mall. The court’s majority, which included such liberals as Justices Stevens and Blackmun, recognized “the Government’s substantial interest in maintaining the parks…in an attractive and intact condition, readily available to the millions of people who wish to see and enjoy them by their presence.”

In a 1989 case, Ward v. Rock Against Racism, the high court ruled 6 to 3 upholding New York City’s guidelines requiring the use of a city-owned sound system and a city sound technician for an anti-racist event at Central Park’s Naumberg Bandshell. William Kuntsler, who represented Rock Against Racism, argued that the Parks Department Use Guidelines violated the activist group’s First Amendment rights. “Our cases make clear,” the court’s majority replied, “that even in a public forum the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech.” The city doesn’t violate the First Amendment as long as its restrictions are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a government interest, and allow a group to communicate its message in other forms or places.

Even Ms. Cagan conceded yesterday that her organization presents special “logistical challenges to the city”that are “legitimate concerns” and that the city must “balance those concerns against the needs of us who are organizing the demonstration.” In other words, this dispute isn’t at bottom a constitutional one, but a policy question that Mayor Bloomberg and his police and parks commissioners have so far been handling appropriately. If Ms. Cagan and company don’t like it, they can vote against Mr. Bloomberg in the next election, but they may have a tough time getting a court to overturn the mayor’s policy in a ruling grounded in the current First Amendment jurisprudence.

The city isn’t saying that Central Park, or any area of the city, is off limits to public demonstrations. Protesters don’t need permits if their demonstration doesn’t disrupt traffic or cause excessive noise. The city has granted permits for smaller protests during Republican convention week by the Green Party, the Middle East Peace Coalition, and People for the American Way in Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, and, yes, Central Park.

The city doesn’t have to choose between preserving the park and respecting the First Amendment. It can do both, and has, by offering United for Peace and Justice another venue that allows the group to assemble peaceably and make its point without wrecking Central Park.