Pilates studio ramps up privacy after men film women’s exercising class through glass

A group of men stood outside a St. Louis Park Pilates studio last week and filmed women who were working out through the window.

The presence of the men created an unease that’s been felt elsewhere across the country as “auditors,” as they are known, test their First Amendment rights to record in public. The incident was captured in a TikTok video and has gone viral since it was posted Sunday.

More than 6.3 million people have watched the video posted by one of the women in the class. It shows the women inside stacking boxes to block the windows in an attempt to dissuade the unidentified men from filming. The women went on to use their cellphones to film the men who were outside.

The practice of filming in public spaces, known as a First Amendment audit, is becoming a more common social and political movement, according to University of Minnesota professor Jeff Kosseff. The episode rattled the women in the class that day.

“This is not okay,” one of the women says in the video on Sunday. “This is extremely inappropriate.”

“This is so gross,” says another voice.

The incident happened Friday morning at the women’s-only Pilates studio Atelier on Hwy. 7 near Minnetonka Boulevard. Three men with cellphone cameras set up on the public grassy median outside the front door. At least one of the men appeared to be wearing a sweatshirt saying “the people’s bicep,” a phrase associated with the First Amendment Protection Agency, a network of First Amendment auditors.

They were filming through the windows “and trying to get reactions from the women inside, and disrupted the class,” the studio’s owner, Hodan Malim, said in an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune

Reza Moreno was one of the class participants and said “it basically felt weird” as the men got closer to the front door with their cameras. At that point, Moreno said she and others started to cover up and halted the workout class for 15 minutes.

“The instructor asked if we felt comfortable, and we said it feels not good,” Moreno recalled. “I was shaken up.”

The instructor called police, but the men had left the studio before officers arrived, Malim said.

“The St. Louis Park Police Department is aware of this incident,” said city spokeswoman Jacque Smith. “No police report has been filed by either the business referenced or any individuals involved.”

The women seemed to view the men as peeping toms.

“These two were really out here thinking it’s a flex to record + violate women,” a caption on the video read.

In the video, another woman could be heard saying, “No means no.”

Atelier’s owner said no one has been physically threatened or harmed. In recent days, the studio has taken steps to increase privacy, including adding window film.

“This isn’t because we believe our members are in danger, but because we want the women who choose Atelier to continue feeling comfortable and protected in the space,” Malim said.

The gambit is legal, said Kosseff, who is also the director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota.

“They have the right to do that,” Kosseff said. “People might say this is harassment, but the bar for that is very high. It can’t be just because somebody didn’t like it.”

Typically, so-called auditors enter government buildings and record their interactions with government employees and officials and post them online. The auditors’ goal is to provoke a reaction, see if they are told to stop recording or have the police called.

“The person is making the point they have the First Amendment rights to film on public property,” Kosseff said.

But the First Amendment does not allow auditors to record interactions that occur in private offices or in areas of government buildings not accessible to the public. The law also does not allow auditors to record inside private businesses, “which have every right to tell them to leave,” Kosseff said.