Made in Canada (TV series)

Made in Canada is a Canadian television comedy which aired on CBC Television from 1998 to 2003. Rick Mercer starred as Richard Strong, an ambitious and amoral television producer working for a company which makes bad (but profitable) television shows. A dark satire about the Canadian television industry, the programme shifted into an episodic situation comedy format after its first season.

It was created by Mercer, Gerald Lunz and Michael Donovan, produced by Salter Street Films and Island Edge, and filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The programme was broadcast with Salter Street's satirical newsmagazine, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and drew its creators, writing staff, and much of its production staff from that programme; Made in Canada was filmed during the summer, and 22 Minutes during the fall. Mercer starred on both until he left 22 Minutes in 2001.

The programme received critical and popular recognition. It was particularly well-received by the industry it lampooned, attracting many guest stars. The programme received 23 national awards during its five-season run, including multiple Gemini, Writers Guild of Canada, and Canadian Comedy Awards. In the United States, Australia and Latin America, the show was syndicated as The Industry. In France, it was syndicated as La loi du Show-Biz.

## Plot

A satire of film and television production, the series revolves around fictional Pyramid Productions – a company where greed and backstabbing thrive. Pyramid produces lucrative (but terrible) television and films for the domestic and international markets, with creative decisions made by non-creative people.

Company head Alan Roy is obsessed with appearances and staying ahead of trends, whether this means owning his own cable channel or having the largest yacht at Cannes. His often-idiotic decisions lead to extra work for his employees, who must fulfill his wishes or deal with the consequences. The employees – Richard, Victor, Veronica and Wanda – manipulate each other and sabotage each other's projects to earn more money, gain promotions or work on better projects. None of them appear to have issues with breaking the law, and they seem to have no sense of morality. They generally only cooperate when they have an opportunity to destroy another company or a mutual enemy. Each episode deals with one major problem (or event), which normally does not carry over to the next episode.

Pyramid projects also provide storylines for the series, as the company's staff try to manage the inevitable complications created by the casts and crews of their film and television productions. Its cash cows are two series: The Sword of Damacles  [sic], a parody of mythological adventure series such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Beaver Creek, a parody of Canadian period dramas such as Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea. The staff also face complications with their low-budget, poorly-made films, such as Vigilante's Vengeance. Many of their movies fail; they are not produced, or go direct-to-video in foreign countries.

## Characters

- Richard Strong (Rick Mercer), the central character, is an ambitious, machiavellian employee trying to navigate, scheme and backstab his way to the CEO's chair; in the first episode, he makes his way from junior script reader to television producer by having his boss (and brother-in-law) Ray Drodge fired. Ruthless and amoral, he is better at his job than most of his colleagues. Richard has had relationships with Veronica Miller, Lisa Sutton and Siobhan Roy, but generally as an opportunity to manipulate rather than out of love. The character was partially inspired by Ian McKellen's performance in the 1995 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III. He personifies human vice, unfettered by ethics.
- Alan Roy (Peter Keleghan), the firm's CEO, is a charismatic but intellectually-questionable womanizer who often succeeds more by accident than skill and, much more often, fails miserably. He is frequently mystified that his management style – a combination of bad production ideas, offbeat health fads and half-understood slogans from management books – does not rouse office morale. Alan's career was launched with his first film, Prom Night at Horny High, which was a commercial success despite being lowbrow and indecent. (Keleghan had an early starring role in the 1983 sex comedy, Screwballs.) Keleghan described the character as a cross between Alliance Communications head Robert Lantos and The Simpsons' Mr. Burns. Producer Michael Donovan joked that Alan reflected the showrunners' impression of him.
- Veronica Miller (Leah Pinsent) is the firm's chief operating officer. Although she is generally overworked, doing the jobs of several other employees, she is still forced to do idiotic and degrading tasks for Alan. Veronica occasionally becomes fed up with her poor treatment and sabotages a project or event, which usually spurs Alan to improve her working conditions and meet her demands. The office problem-solver, she is generally an ally of Richard's in making the best of Alan's decisions but will double-cross him if necessary.
- Victor Sela (Dan Lett) is head of Pyramid's film division and a general office sycophant, willing to do almost anything Alan asks of him (no matter how demeaning). He is usually very positive about Alan's schemes. In a test, however, Victor is the least loyal.
- Wanda Mattice (Jackie Torrens), Alan's assistant, uses her influence in the day-to-day workings of the office to obtain power beyond her role in the corporate hierarchy and knows when it is to her advantage to act less intelligent. Although she frequently dresses strangely and appears frumpy, Alan is attracted to her and they frequently have sex in the office.
- Lisa Sutton (Janet Kidder) is a producer and Victor's girlfriend. Richard considers her a threat to his power, and Alan dislikes her for ignoring (or spurning) his attempts to seduce her.
- Raymond Drodge (Ron James) is a producer. Formerly the head of television development, he is fired in the pilot after Richard and Siobhan frame him for sexually harassing Siobhan. He is later rehired in a much lower position after Richard gets his old job. Due to Richard's manipulation, Raymond's marriage falls apart and he begins to believe that he is an alcoholic.
- Michael Rushton (Alex Carter) is the dimwitted, egotistical star of The Sword of Damacles.
- Siobhan Roy (Emily Hampshire), Alan's daughter, is one of the stars of Beaver Creek. Fully aware that being the boss's daughter gives her job security, she freely schemes and manipulates to get whatever she wants.
- Brian Switzer (Chas Lawther), nicknamed "Network Brian", is an executive with the television network which airs Beaver Creek and its main liaison with Pyramid.

### Notable guest stars

Most people employed in Canadian television enjoyed the programme, which created a stir in the industry and attracted a number of guest stars:

- Gordon Pinsent as Walter Franklyn, star of Beaver Creek and "Canada's most beloved actor". Pinsent returns in the last episode as a dairy mogul who buys the company. Mercer considered Pinsent's work to be a major influence on his career, and was extremely pleased to have him in the cast; during the series' production, Mercer narrated a biography of Pinsent.
- Peter Blais as Geoff, an actor who comes out and subsequently wants Parson Hubbard (his character on Beaver Creek) to be gay
- Andrew Bush as a young method actor who plays Blind Jimmy on Beaver Creek
- Mary-Colin Chisholm as an actor who plays Nurse Melissa on Beaver Creek
- Maury Chaykin as Captain McGee, a kiddie entertainer who is caught in a sex scandal
- Andy Jones as Fritz Hoffman, a German TV executive who believes that Beaver Creek is a sexier version of Dawson's Creek
- Sarah Polley as the head of the Church of Spirentology [sic] cult
- Shirley Douglas and Margot Kidder appeared as fading Hollywood actresses making guest appearances on Beaver Creek.
- Megan Follows (the real-life star of Anne of Green Gables) as Mandy Forward, the former "Adele of Beaver Creek", who returned for a reunion movie and discovered that after her previous Beaver Creek movie, Alan kept the sets up to produce a pornographic knockoff.
- Mark McKinney as Dean Sutherland, a released convict who wants to sell his story
- Don McKellar as Adam Kalilieh, an independent art film director
- Joe Flaherty as a mayoral candidate who hires Pyramid to smear his opponent
- Cynthia Dale and C. David Johnson as a husband-and-wife motivational team
- Colin Mochrie as Frank Roy: Alan's mentally-handicapped brother who, as part of an elaborate tax dodge orchestrated by Alan, is revealed as the actual Pyramid CEO.

Several Canadian media personalities made cameos as fictionalized versions of themselves, including Nicholas Campbell, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Moses Znaimer, Keifer Sutherland, Evan Solomon, Peter Gzowski, Ann Medina and Gino Empry.

## Development and writing

The series was conceived by Mercer, executive producer Gerald Lunz and Salter Street Films co-chair Michael Donovan in 1994. Lunz had launched Mercer's career, producing his one-man shows and This Hour Has 22 Minutes (the latter of which was made by Salter Street). Mercer and Lunz formed Island Edge to co-produce Made in Canada and develop other projects for Mercer.

Donovon, Lunz and Mercer wanted to satirize office politics, starring Mercer as an ambitious man manipulating his way to the top in a parody of Shakespeare's Richard III. Instead of killing his rivals, the programme's Richard would kill their careers by ruining their reputations and seizing their power. Richard would address the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall to share his plans and ambitions. Although they realized this was a risk, they felt that Mercer could connect with the audience as he had in his monologues. Mercer had established himself as the first mainstream Canadian satirist to make scathing criticisms directly, without a comedic mask.

They had considered setting the satire in the federal bureaucracy in line with Mercer's political criticism (known as the country's "unofficial opposition party"), but Mercer was not sufficiently knowledgeable about the government's inner workings. Believing that satire required a firm understanding of its targets, they set the programme in a television and film production office; this would be understood by the audience and provide many egos to lampoon. Mercer described the programme in a later interview as having a "Dilbert reality" of an office, in which some have a "suck-up kick-down philosophy". In April 1998, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) approved a six-part series without seeing a script.

The first season was cowritten by Mercer and Mark Farrell over a two-month period. They had both written for 22 Minutes and had written sketches for several years, but neither had written episodic television before. Lunz, a self-described "Shakespeare nut", guided the theme and style. Farrell, Lunz and Mercer remained the show's creative force throughout its five seasons. Other writers for the series included Paul Bellini, Alex Ganetakos and Edward Riche.

The programme shifted from a dark satire to an episodic sitcom after its first season, and addressed the audience less frequently. This was often limited to the closing line – "I think that went well" or "This is not good" – which might be given to a character other than Richard, depending on who was behind that episode's schemes. The series' working title was The Industry, which was changed to The Casting Couch and then Made in Canada.

## Production

CBC executive George Anthony, who had convinced Lunz and Mercer to come to the network years previously, recognized their talent and was firmly supportive of the production. The programme went from network approval to broadcast in a record six months. Executives ordered a thirteen-episode second season after viewing the first episode, which was unprecedented for the public broadcaster. Casting was done while scripts were still being written, and episodes were filmed out of sequence to accommodate the actors' schedules.

Filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the programme was produced by (and a parody of) Salter Street Films. It used Salter Street's real offices as its main office set during the first season, shooting primarily on evenings and weekends from 17 July to 24 August 1998. The first season was directed by Henry Sarwer-Foner (also of 22 Minutes), who had his hand in the programme's editing, scripting, and overall design. He shot with a long lens to achieve a film-like quality, and sought to give it a distinctive look. Sarwer-Foner directed 22 of the series' 65 episodes. Other directors included Michael Kennedy and Stephen Reynolds.

The programme used The Tragically Hip's "Blow at High Dough", one of Mercer's favourite songs, as its theme. The iconic Canadian band's first hit single, its title was taken from a Scottish phrase about being overambitious and taking on more than one could handle. The lyrics refer to a movie production (Speedway, starring Elvis Presley) which sweeps up a small town. Other Tragically Hip songs were featured including "Poets", "Courage", "New Orleans Is Sinking", "My Music at Work", and "Tiger the Lion".

Although Mercer took time off from 22 Minutes in January 1999 to concentrate on the second season of Made in Canada, he continued to appear in most episodes until he retired from 22 Minutes in 2001. The programme continued to film during the summer, with 22 Minutes filming in the fall. The second season began filming in June 1999 at Electropolis Studios in Halifax. CHUM Limited vice-president Moses Znaimer allowed scenes for the second-season finale to be filmed at the CHUM-City Building in Toronto for authenticity. Season four began filming on 18 June 2001.

While the first season of the series was in production, two Canadian film and television studios (Alliance Communications and Atlantis Communications) merged to create Alliance Atlantis. This merger was parodied in Made in Canada's second-season premiere, when Pyramid merges with a company called Prodigy and becomes Pyramid Prodigy. Two years later, Alliance Atlantis purchased Salter Street Films.

## Broadcast and home video

Made in Canada premiered on CBC Television on 5 October 1998, amidst Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearings on the country's broadcasting policy and Canadian content. The series aired on Monday nights at 8:30 pm, after This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Both programmes were moved to Friday in fall 2001, leading into Royal Canadian Air Farce and The Red Green Show in a CBC move to create a comedy-programming block and boost already-strong ratings.

The first two seasons were sold to PBS in 1999 for distribution in the United States as The Industry. The series was also syndicated in France, Australia and Latin America; the French name was La loi du Show-Biz.

In 2000, DVD and home-video rights to seasons one and two were acquired by Koch International. Entertainment One released the first season on DVD in Region 1 in 2002; it is currently out of print. The series was telecast on the Canadian cable channel BiteTV from 2010 to 2015.

The first and second seasons began streaming on the CBC Gem platform on 12 March 2020. In October 2022, it was announced that additional seasons would become available, with all five seasons streaming on Gem as of 2023.

## Reception

The series was popular and critically praised in Canada and the United States. The programme's 5 October 1998 premiere had 1,002,000 viewers, holding 75 percent of the audience from the lead-in This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

### Critical response

Shannon Hawkins of the Ottawa Sun wrote during its first season that Made in Canada had "all the makings of a hit", with clever dialogue, plausible characters and a storyline for anyone who fantasized about ruining their boss. Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star described the programme as "scary, cynical and biting", and felt that the production took huge risks in satirizing its producers and industry moguls and its choice of title in a country which looked down on domestic productions. According to Stephen Cole of The National Post, the first season was well-scripted, funny and clever with solid performances but never found a target worthy of its "savage and cutting" satire. Cole was disappointed that the series remained a sitcom instead of taking on more compelling issues specific to the Canadian industry. Rating the first episode 9 out of 10, a TV Guide reviewer said that the programme centred on Mercer's fresh and deeply-biting "satire with a smirk" complemented with an able cast; although the audience might miss some inside jokes, it was felt that the show should hold the 22 Minutes audience. For Saturday Night, comedy critic Andrew Clark wrote that the programme created an eerily-believable universe with its casting, filming location and fictitious shows, and appreciated Mercer's ability to find a satirical line and hone it to a cutting edge.

At the beginning of its fourth season, John Doyle of The Globe and Mail called the show "addictive", switching from absurdity to brutal satire accessible to every viewer. At the end of the series, Doyle wrote that most in the industry had enjoyed its "twisted, vague versions" of real stories and scandals.

Made in Canada has been compared to Ken Finkleman's satire, The Newsroom, in which Farrell, Keleghan, and Pinsent had roles. Although they share a documentary feel and were shot in real offices, Clark noted that their lead characters are distinctly different; Richard's ambition is all-consuming, and he wages "intergenerational warfare" against the likes of Finkleman's ineffective George Findlay.

### Awards

The series was nominated for more than three dozen Gemini Awards during its five-season run, winning ten. Made in Canada was nominated for fourteen awards at the 2002 Geminis, the first time a sitcom led dramatic programmes and miniseries in nominations. Its wins included two for Best Comedy Series and three for Best Ensemble Performance in a Comedy.

The show won nine Canadian Comedy Awards out of twenty-six nominations, leading the nominations in 2000, 2002 and 2003. It received four Writers Guild of Canada Awards and a Directors Guild of Canada Award. After the series ended, Mercer won the 2003 Sir Peter Ustinov Comedy Award at the Banff Television Festival, and a 2004 National Arts Centre Award for outstanding work of the previous year.

### Reunion

A 15th-anniversary Made in Canada reunion, attended by Mercer, Keleghan, Pinsent, Lett, Torrens, Lunz, Sarwer-Foner, Riche and Farrell, was held at the Canadian International Television Festival (CITF) on 16 November 2013. The reunion included a screening, followed by a question-and-answer session.

Television series

1990s Canadian satirical television series

1990s Canadian workplace comedy television series

2000s Canadian satirical television series

2000s Canadian workplace comedy television series

Gemini and Canadian Screen Award for Best Comedy Series winners

Television shows filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia


Hart Island

Hart Island, sometimes referred to as Hart's Island, is located at the western end of Long Island Sound, in the northeastern Bronx in New York City. Measuring approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) long by 0.33 miles (0.53 km) wide, Hart Island is part of the Pelham Islands archipelago, to the east of City Island.

The island's first public use was as a training ground for the United States Colored Troops in 1864. Since then, Hart Island has been the location of a Union Civil War prison camp, a psychiatric institution, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a potter's field with mass burials, a homeless shelter, a boys' reformatory, a jail, and a drug rehabilitation center. Several other structures, such as an amusement park, were planned for Hart Island but not built. During the Cold War, Nike defense missiles were stationed on Hart Island. The island was intermittently used as a prison and a homeless shelter until 1967; the last inhabited structures were abandoned in 1977. The potter's field on Hart Island was run by the New York City Department of Correction until 2019, when the New York City Council voted to transfer jurisdiction to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

The remains of more than one million people are buried on Hart Island, though since the first decade of the 21st century, there are fewer than 1,500 burials a year. Burials on Hart Island include individuals who were not claimed by their families or did not have private funerals; the homeless and the indigent; and mass burials of disease victims.

Access to the island was restricted by the Department of Correction, which operated an infrequent ferryboat service and imposed strict visitation quotas. Burials were conducted by inmates from the nearby Rikers Island jail. The Hart Island Project, a public charity founded by visual artist Melinda Hunt, worked to improve access to the island and make burial records more easily available. Transfer to the Parks Department in 2019 had been sought for over twenty years and was hoped to ease public access to the Island. Burials in the island's Potters' Field continued after the transfer.

## Toponymy

There are numerous theories about the origins of the island's place name. One theory posits that British cartographers named it "Heart Island" in 1775 due to its organ-like shape but the 'e' was dropped shortly after. A map drawn in 1777 and subsequent maps refer to the island as "Hart Island". Other names given to the island during the late 18th century were "Little Minneford Island" and "Spectacle Island", the latter because the island's shape was thought to resemble spectacles.

Another theory, based on the meaning of the English word "hart", which means "stag", is that the island was named when it was used as a game reserve. Another version holds that it was named in reference to deer that migrated from the mainland during periods when ice covered that part of Long Island Sound.

## Geography

Hart Island is approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) long by 0.33 miles (0.53 km) wide at its widest point. It lies about 0.33 miles (0.53 km) off the eastern shore of City Island. The island's area is disputed; according to some sources, it is 101 acres (41 ha), while others state that it is 131 acres (53 ha). Hart Island is isolated from the rest of the city: there is no electricity and the only means of access is via ferryboat.

## History

### Early history

Before European colonization, Hart Island was occupied by the Siwanoy tribe of Native Americans, who were indigenous to the area. In 1654, English physician Thomas Pell purchased the island from the Siwanoy as part of a 9,166-acre (37.09 km2) property. Pell died in 1669 and ownership passed to his nephew Sir John Pell, the son of British mathematician John Pell. The island remained in the Pell family until 1774, when it was sold to Oliver De Lancey. It was later sold to the Rodman, Haight, and Hunter families, in that order. According to Elliott Gorn, Hart Island had become "a favorite pugilistic hideaway" by the early 19th century. Bouts of bare-knuckle boxing held on the island could draw thousands of spectators.

The first public use of Hart Island was training the 31st Infantry Regiment of the United States Colored Troops beginning in 1864. A steamboat called John Romer shuttled recruits to the island from the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. A commander's house and a recruits' barracks were built; the barracks included a library and a concert room; it could house 2,000 to 3,000 recruits at a time, and over 50,000 men were ultimately trained there.

In November 1864, construction of a prisoner-of-war camp on Hart Island with room for 5,000 prisoners started. The camp was used for four months in 1865 during the American Civil War. The island housed 3,413 captured Confederate Army soldiers. Of these, 235 died in the camp and were buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery. Following the Civil War, indigent veterans were buried on the island in soldier's plots, which were separate from the potter's field and at the same location. Some of these soldiers were moved to West Farms Soldiers Cemetery in 1916 and others were removed to Cypress Hills Cemetery in 1941.

### Addition of cemetery

The first burials on Hart Island were those of 20 Union Army soldiers during the American Civil War. On May 27, 1868, New York City purchased the island from Edward Hunter, who also owned nearby Hunter Island, for \$75,000. City burials started shortly afterward. In 1869, a 24-year-old woman named Louisa Van Slyke, who died in Charity Hospital, was the first person to be buried in the island's 45-acre (180,000 m2) public graveyard. The cemetery then became known as "City Cemetery" and "Potter's Field".

By 1880, The New York Times described the island as "the Green-Wood of Five Points", comparing an expansive cemetery in Brooklyn with a historically poor neighborhood in Manhattan. The newspaper also said of Hart Island, "This is where the rough pine boxes go that come from Blackwell's Island", in reference to the influx of corpses being transported from the hospitals on modern-day Roosevelt Island. The potter's field on Hart Island replaced two previous potter's fields on the current sites of Washington Square Park and New York Public Library Main Branch in Manhattan. The number of burials on Hart Island exceeded 500,000 by 1958.

### Juxtaposition of uses

Hart Island was used as a quarantine station during the 1870 yellow fever epidemic. In that period, the island contained a women's psychiatric hospital called The Pavilion, which was built 1885, as well as a tubercularium. There was also an industrial school with 300 students on the island. After an 1892 investigation found the city's asylums were overcrowded, it was proposed to expand those on Hart Island from 1,100 to 1,500 beds.

In the late 19th century, Hart Island became the location of a boys' workhouse, which was an extension of the prison and almshouse on Blackwell Island. A workhouse for men was established in 1895, and was followed by a workhouse for young boys ten years later. By the early 20th century, Hart Island housed about 2,000 delinquent boys as well as elderly male prisoners from Blackwell's penitentiary. The prison on Hart Island grew; it had its own band and a Catholic prison chapel. The cornerstone for the \$60,000 chapel was laid in 1931 and it was opened the following year.

In 1924, John Hunter sold his 4-acre (1.6 ha) tract of land on Hart Island's west side to Solomon Riley, a millionaire real estate speculator from Barbados. Riley subsequently proposed to build an amusement park on Hart Island, which would have served the primarily black community of Harlem in Manhattan. It was referred to as the "Negro Coney Island" because at the time, African Americans were banned from the Rye Playland and Dobbs Ferry amusement parks in the New York City area. Riley had started building a dance hall, boardinghouses, and a boardwalk, and purchased sixty steamboats for the operation. The state government raised concerns about the proposed park's proximity to a jail and hospital, and the city condemned the land in 1925. Riley was later paid \$144,000 for the seizure.

### After World War II

The prison population of Hart Island was moved to Rikers Island during World War II, and Hart Island's former workhouse was used as a disciplinary barracks by the United States Armed Forces. Rikers Island soon became overcrowded with prisoners. The New York City Department of Correction reopened Hart Island as a prison following the war, but the facilities were considered inadequate. The New York City Board of Estimate approved the construction of a homeless shelter on the island in 1950; it was intended to serve 2,000 people. The homeless shelter operated from 1951 to 1954; it was also used to house alcoholics. Residents of nearby City Island opposed the inclusion of the homeless shelter. The New York City Welfare Department closed the homeless shelter and the Department of Correction regained control of the island. The Department of Correction opened an alcoholism treatment center on Hart Island in 1955. A courthouse, which ruled on cases involving the homeless, was opened on Hart Island. The island housed between 1,200 and 1,800 prisoners serving short sentences of between 10 days and two years.

In 1956, the island was retrofitted with Nike Ajax missile silos. Battery NY-15, as the silos were known, were part of the United States Army base Fort Slocum from 1956 to 1961 and were operated by the army's 66th Antiaircraft Artillery Missile Battalion. The silos were underground and were powered by large generators. Some silos were also built on Davids Island. The integrated fire control system that tracked the targets and directed missiles was at Fort Slocum. The last components of the missile system were closed in 1974.

Construction of a new \$7 million workhouse on Hart Island to replace the existing facility was announced in 1959. A baseball field was dedicated at the Hart Island prison the following year. It was named Kratter Field, after Marvin Kratter, a businessman who had donated 2,200 seats saved from the demolished Ebbets Field stadium. The seats deteriorated after being outdoors for several years, and by 2000, had been donated to various people and organizations.

The island continued to be used as a prison until 1966, when the prison was closed due to changes in the penal code. After it closed, a drug rehabilitation center was proposed for Hart Island. The center became Phoenix House, which opened in 1967; it quickly grew into a settlement with 350 residents and a vegetable garden. Phoenix House hosted festivals that sometimes attracted crowds of more than 10,000 people. Phoenix House published a newsletter known as The Hart Beat and organized baseball games against other organizations such as City Island's and NBC's teams. In 1977, after regular ferry service to Hart Island ended, Phoenix House moved from the island to a building in Manhattan.

Since then, proposals to re-inhabit the island have failed. In 1972, the city considered converting it into a residential resort but the plan was abandoned. New York City mayor Ed Koch created a workhouse on the island for persons charged with misdemeanors in 1982 but not enough prisoners were sent there. Six years later, another proposal called for a homeless shelter and a workhouse to be built on Hart Island, but this plan was abandoned because of opposition from residents of City Island.

### Abandonment of structures and use as cemetery

Originally, City Cemetery occupied 45 acres (18 ha) on the northern and southern tips of Hart Island, while the center two-thirds of the island was habitable. In 1985, sixteen bodies of people who died from AIDS were buried in deep graves on a remote section of the southern tip of the island because at the time it was feared that their remains may be contagious. The first child to die of AIDS in New York City is buried in the only single grave on Hart Island with a concrete marker that reads SC (special child) B1 (Baby 1) 1985. Since then, thousands of people who have died of AIDS have been buried on Hart Island, but the precise number is unknown.

From 1991 to 1993, New York artist Melinda Hunt and photographer Joel Sternfeld photographed Hart Island for their book of the same name, which was published in 1998. Hunt subsequently founded the Hart Island Project organization in 1994 to help the families and friends of those buried on Hart Island. Another media work, the 2018 documentary One Million American Dreams, documents the history of Hart Island and delves briefly into the lives of various individuals buried there.

There is a section of old wooden houses and masonry institutional structures dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries that have fallen into disrepair. Military barracks from the Civil War period were used prior to the construction of workhouse and hospital facilities. In the late 2010s, the Hart Island Project and City Island Historical Society started petitioning for Hart Island to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation labeled the island a "site of historical significance" in 2016, given that Hart Island met three of the four criteria for being listed on the NRHP. The island was significantly affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and some of the shoreline was eroded, which exposed many of the skeletons buried on the island. Following this, the city announced a restoration of the shoreline. The federal government gave \$13.2 million toward the shoreline project in 2015, but the work was delayed for several years. The start of restoration was initially slated for 2020, but in August 2019, the city announced that shoreline work would begin the following month.

Control of the island passed to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation in December 2019. Burials in the Potters' Field continued after transfer, but they were conducted by city contract workers. In June 2021, the New York City Department of Buildings issued an emergency order authorizing the demolition of eighteen buildings on the island, which the city deemed to be severely deteriorated. Sixteen of these buildings had been identified for demolition in a March 2020 report but, even then, some of these structures were also identified as being easy to repair. The New York City Department of Social Services awarded a \$3.3 million contract to JPL Industries in October 2021 for the demolition of the deteriorated structures.

## Cemetery

Hart Island contains New York City's 131-acre (0.53 km2) potter's field, or public cemetery. The potter's field is variously described as the largest tax-funded cemetery in the United States, the largest-such in the world, and one of the largest mass graves in the United States. At least 850,000 have been buried on the island, though since the 2000s, the burial rate has declined to fewer than 1,500 a year. According to a 2006 New York Times article, there had been 1,419 burials at the potter's field during the previous year: of these, 826 were adults, 546 were infants and stillborn babies, and 47 were dismembered body parts.

One-third of annual burials are infants and stillborn babies, which has been reduced from a proportion of one-half since the Children's Health Insurance Program began to cover all pregnant women in New York State in 1997. By the 2020s, those buried on the island came from a wider range of economic and social classes. In 2022, The Washington Post wrote that the island's recent interments included "a professional ballet dancer, a nurse, a software engineer, a scuba instructor and an acclaimed musical composer."

### Burials

The dead are buried in trenches. Babies are placed in coffins, which are stacked in groups of 100, measuring five coffins deep and usually in twenty rows. Adults are placed in larger pine boxes placed according to size, and are stacked in sections of 150, measuring three coffins deep in two rows and laid out in a grid system. There are seven sizes of coffins, which range from 1 to 7 feet (0.30 to 2.13 m) long. Each box is labeled with an identification number, the person's age, ethnicity, and the place where the body was found, if applicable. Prior to civilian contractors doing the actual burials which began in 2020, inmates from the nearby Rikers Island jail were paid fifty cents an hour to bury bodies on Hart Island.

The bodies of adults are frequently disinterred when families are able to locate their relatives through DNA, photographs and fingerprints kept on file at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. There were an average of 72 disinterments per year from 2007 to 2009. As a result, the adults' coffins are staggered to expedite removal. Children, mostly infants, are rarely disinterred. Regulations stipulate that the coffins generally must remain untouched for 25 years, except in cases of disinterment.

Approximately half of the burials are of children under five who are identified and died in New York City's hospitals, where the mothers signed papers authorizing a "City Burial." The mothers were generally unaware of what the phrase meant. Many other interred have families who live abroad or out of state and whose relatives search extensively; these searches are made more difficult because burial records are currently kept within the prison system. An investigation into the handling of the infant burials was opened in response to a criminal complaint made to the New York State Attorney General's Office in 2009.

Burial records on microfilm at the Municipal Archives indicate that until 1913, burials of unknowns were in single plots, and identified adults and children were buried in mass graves. In 1913, the trenches became separate to facilitate the more frequent disinterment of adults. The potter's field is also used to dispose of amputated body parts, which are placed in boxes labeled "limbs". Ceremonies have not been conducted at the burial site since the 1950s. In the past, burial trenches were re-used after 25–50 years, allowing for sufficient decomposition of the remains. Since then, however, historic buildings have been demolished to make room for new burials. Because of the number of weekly interments made at the potter's field at the expense of taxpayers, these mass burials are straightforward and are conducted by Rikers Island inmates, who stack the coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across, and each plot is marked with a concrete marker. A tall, white peace monument was erected by New York City prison inmates at the top of a hill that was known as "Cemetery Hill" following World War II and was dedicated in October 1948.

#### Disease victims' burials

Hart Island has also been used for burials of disease victims during epidemics and pandemics. During the 1980s AIDS epidemic, those who had died from AIDS were the only people to be buried in separate graves. At first, bodies were delivered in body bags and buried by inmate workers wearing protective jumpsuits. When it was later discovered that the corpses could not spread HIV, the city started burying people who had died of AIDS in the mass graves. In 2008, the island was selected as a site for mass burials during a particularly extreme flu pandemic, available for up to 20,000 bodies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, Hart Island was designated as the temporary burial site for people who had died from COVID-19 if deaths overwhelmed the capacity of mortuaries. At the time, deaths at home within the city had increased significantly, though the corpses were not tested for COVID-19. Preparations for mass graves began at the end of March 2020, and private contractors were hired to replace inmate labor for mass grave burials. Although several media sources reported in April 2020 that burials had begun, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio clarified that Hart Island was only being used to bury unclaimed corpses, as well as the bodies of those who chose it as a burial place. In 2021, the website The City published an analysis that found there was a sharp increase in the number of interments between 2019, when 846 corpses were buried on the island, and 2020, when 2,334 corpses were buried.

### Records

Many burial records were destroyed by arson in late July 1977. Remaining records of burials before 1977 were transferred to the Municipal Archives in Manhattan; while records after that date are still kept in handwritten ledgers, these are now transcribed into a digital database that is partially available online. A Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request for 50,000 burial records was granted to the Hart Island Project in 2008. A lawsuit, concerning "place of death" information redacted from the Hart Island burial records, was filed against New York City's government in July 2008 and was settled out of court in January 2009.

### Notable people buried

Those interred on Hart Island are not necessarily homeless or indigent. Many of the dead either had families who could not afford the expenses of private funerals or were not claimed by relatives within a month of death. Notable burials include the playwright, film screenwriter, and director Leo Birinski, who was buried there in 1951 after dying alone and in poverty, and painter Mihri Müşfik Hanım, who was buried in 1954 after dying penniless. The American novelist Dawn Powell was buried on Hart Island in 1970, five years after her death, after her remains had been used for medical studies and the executor of her estate refused to reclaim them. Academy Award winner Bobby Driscoll, who was found dead in 1968 in an East Village tenement, was buried on Hart Island because his remains could not be identified in a timely fashion. T-Bone Slim, the labor activist, songwriter, and Wobbly, was buried on Hart Island after his body was found floating in the Hudson River.

## Public engagement

### Hart Island Project

Founded by New York artist Melinda Hunt in 1994, the Hart Island Project is a nonprofit organization devoted to improving access to the island and its burial data. The organization helps families obtain copies of public burial records; arranges visits to grave sites; and operates a website to help people find relatives interred on the island. Historian Thomas Laqueur writes:

> Woody Guthrie's song about the unnamed Mexican migrant dead has had a long resonant history. Hunt, in an emotionally related gesture, has researched, for years, in order to publish the names of as many as 850,000 paupers who lie in 101 acres of Hart Island where the city buries its anonymous dead.

Since 2009, the city has given burial records for the island to the Hart Island Project. In turn, the organization maintains an online database of burial records from 1980 onward. The project has led to reforms of access to Hart Island such as opening the island monthly to everyone and legislation that requires the Department of Correction to publish burial records online.

The Hart Island Project has digitally mapped grave trenches using Global Positioning System (GPS) data. In 2014, an interactive map with GPS burial data and storytelling software "clocks of anonymity" was released as the "Traveling Cloud Museum", which collects publicly submitted stories of those who are listed in the burial records. Traveling Cloud Museum was updated in 2018 to include a map created with GeoTIFF images collected by a drone. The map displays nearly 69,000 intact burials and allows people who knew the deceased to add stories, photographs, epitaphs, songs and videos linked to a personal profile, as well as identify those who died of AIDS related illnesses.

In 2012, Westchester Community College hosted an art exhibition of people whose graves were located through the Hart Island Project with Hunt's help. The Hart Island Project also collaborated with British landscape architects Ann Sharrock and Ian Fisher to present a landscape strategy to the New York City Council and the Parks Department. Sharrock introduced the concept that Hart Island is a natural burial facility and outlined a growing interest in green burials in urban settings.

### Legislation

On October 28, 2011, the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice held a hearing titled "Oversight: Examining the Operation of Potter's Field by the N.Y.C., Department of Correction on Hart Island". Legislation passed in 2013 requires the Department of Correction to make two sets of documents available on the Internet: a database of burials and a visitation policy. In April 2013, the Department of Correction published an online database of burials on the island. The database contains data about all persons buried on the island since 1977 and is composed of 66,000 entries.

#### Transfer to Parks Department

A bill to transfer jurisdiction to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation was introduced on April 30, 2012. The Hart Island Project testified in favor of this bill on September 27, 2012, but the bill was not passed.

The bill was reintroduced in March 2014, and Bill 0134 had a public hearing on January 20, 2016. The bill ultimately failed because neither the Parks Department nor the Department of Correction supported the move. The Parks Department stated that the operation of an active cemetery was outside its purview while the Department of Correction preferred that another city agency take control of Hart Island.

In 2018, City Council member Ydanis Rodríguez and three colleagues re-introduced the bill a second time. In supporting the bill, Rodriguez stated that he wanted relatives of Hart Island's deceased to be able to access their loved ones' graves. The bill was passed in the New York City Council in November 2019, with most council members voting in favor of transferring jurisdiction to the Parks Department. The following month, mayor Bill de Blasio signed the legislation, as well as three other bills, including one that would allow the ferry service to be operated by the New York City Department of Transportation. NYC Parks finally assumed full control of the island in July 2021.

## Access

The only access to Hart Island is by ferryboat. Hart Island and the pier on Fordham Street on City Island are restricted areas under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Correction. Family members who wish to visit the island must request a visit ahead of time with the Department of Correction. The city government allows family members to visit the island and leave mementos at grave sites, and maintains an online and telephone system for family members to schedule grave site visits. Other members of the public are permitted to visit by prior appointment only.

### Ferry service

The city formerly operated a 24/7 ferry service between City and Hart islands, which ran every forty-five minutes during the day and less frequently at night. The ferries also transported corpses. By the 1960s, two ferryboats were used for the Hart Island ferry service; the Michael Cosgrove (built 1961) and the Fordham (in service 1922–1982). The service was extremely expensive to operate; in 1967, about 1,500 people per month used the service and the city spent \$300,000 per year to keep it running. By 1977, the city had discontinued frequent ferry service and provided seven trips a day. The Department of Correction offered one guided tour of the island in 2000. Under legislation enacted in 2019, the New York City Department of Transportation was to operate the ferry at a higher frequency.

### Loosening of restrictions

The process of visiting the island has been improved due to efforts by the Hart Island Project and the New York Civil Liberties Union. An ecumenical group named the Interfaith Friends of Potter's Field and another organization called Picture the Homeless has also advocated for making the island more accessible. The Department of Correction opposed further loosening of restrictions on accessing Hart Island; a 2016 The New York Times article quoted a Corrections official as saying: "As long as D.O.C. runs the facility, we are going to run it with the D.O.C. mentality".

In July 2015, the Department of Correction instituted a new policy, wherein up to five family members and their guests were allowed to visit grave sites on one weekend per month. The first visit took place on July 19, 2015. Visits to individual graves, which take place twice a month, are restricted to individuals who had a close relationship with the deceased. Visits to Hart Island's gazebo, which occur once a month, are available to the general public. The ferry leaves from a restricted dock on City Island. In 2017, the city government increased the maximum number of visitors per month from 50 to 70. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the public was not allowed to visit Hart Island; though visits resumed in May 2021, the number of visitors allowed on each ferry trip was decreased to ten.

Even after NYC Parks took over the island, Bloomberg reported in October 2021 that there had been little change in the conditions for visitors. As part of the Hart Island Transportation Study, which sought to improve access to the island, NYC Parks conducted public meetings in early 2022. Four alternatives were presented: a shuttle bus service from Orchard Beach to the Fordham Street ferry pier; a shuttle bus service from the New York City Subway's Pelham Bay Park station, stopping at Orchard Beach and Fordham Street; a new ferry service from Ferry Point Park to the island; and an extension of NYC Ferry's Soundview route from Ferry Point Park to the island.

## See also

- Davids Island (New York)
- Geography and environment of New York City
- Postage stamps and postal history of the Confederate States#Prisoner of war prisons and camps

Island, part of the Pelham Islands, in the Bronx, New York


Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez

Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, 531 U.S. 533 (2001), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the constitutionality of funding restrictions imposed by the United States Congress. At issue were restrictions on the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), a private, nonprofit corporation established by Congress. The restrictions prohibited LSC attorneys from representing clients attempting to amend (or challenge) existing welfare law. The case was brought by Carmen Velazquez, whose LSC-funded attorneys sought to challenge existing welfare provisions since they believed that it was the only way to get Velazquez financial relief.

The Court ruled that the restrictions violated the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because LSC facilitated "private" speech, that of its grantees, the restrictions did not simply regulate government speech.

Because the restrictions blocked attempts to change only a specific area of law, the Court held, they could not be considered viewpoint-neutral, and the government is prohibited from making such viewpoint-based restrictions of private speech.

Reactions to the decision were mixed within Congress, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing on the propriety of the decision. Several law review articles argued that the use of a "distortion principle" to decide violations of free speech was an unreasonable and unconstitutional rule whose conditions on funding might "distort" speech advocacy. Others contended that the Court mishandled the interpretation of the statute at issue.

## Background

### History of funding restriction jurisprudence

The first major test of the federal government's power over funding restrictions based on speech was the 1991 case Rust v. Sullivan. In Rust, the Supreme Court had upheld a restriction on the use of Department of Health and Human Services funds for counseling, referring patients to, or advocating the use of abortion services. The Court reasoned that the restriction "merely [chose] to fund one activity to the exclusion of the other." Here, the government was using private speakers to transmit information about the government's own program.

Six years later, the Court reviewed another restriction, this time about funding restrictions imposed by a public university. In the 1997 case Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, a government supported university sought to withhold funds from religious student publications although it funded similar secular publications. The Court said that the government could seek to shape funding to support a government message, such restrictive steps could not be imposed to the exclusion of a particular viewpoint.

### Legal Services Corporation

In 1974 the United States Congress passed the Legal Services Corporation Act, which established the Legal Services Corporation. The purpose of the Act was to provide government-funded legal aid to indigent clients that would be funded through grants to regional entities throughout the country. In 1996, Congress amended the act with that year's appropriations bill, which imposed restrictions on the LSC. The restrictions included prohibitions against filing class action lawsuits, providing legal assistance to immigrants in particular types of cases, collecting attorney's fees, soliciting clients, providing advocacy training programs, and attempting to reform welfare laws. The restrictions affected only a small portion of the caseload. The restrictions prohibited funding cases:

> ... initiating legal representation or participating in any other way, in litigation, lobbying, or rulemaking, involving an effort to reform a Federal or State welfare system, except that this paragraph shall not be construed to preclude a recipient from representing an individual eligible client who is seeking specific relief from a welfare agency if such relief does not involve an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing welfare law in effect on the date of the initiation of the representation.

### Lower-court proceedings

In 1997, Carmen Velazquez lost welfare benefits from the government under the provisions of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act (TANF). An attorney from an LSC grantee, Bronx Legal Services, litigated her claim. Bronx Legal Services, on behalf of Velazquez, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York to seek a declaration that the provision of the Act prohibiting challenges to existing welfare law was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. It argued that there was no way to help Velazquez without challenging the welfare system itself, and it sought to challenge the provisions under which Velazquez lost her benefits, a challenge that they could not make because of the 1996 restrictions. The district court denied an injunction.

The court's decision was affirmed in part and reversed in part by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which unanimously held that the welfare-advocacy restriction was unconstitutional, but upheld other restrictions that Bronx Legal Services had challenged (such as the lobbying restriction) by a 2–1 vote. The Second Circuit also rejected the claim that any funding conditions would be illegitimate by instead preferring a case-by-case analysis. LSC asked the Supreme Court for a review and argued that the Second Circuit had been wrong in striking only down the welfare-advocacy restriction.

## Supreme Court decision

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on October 4, 2000 and issued its decision four months later.

The Court affirmed the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by holding 5-4 that the restriction on pursuing welfare advocacy was unconstitutional because of the First Amendment.

Justice Kennedy delivered the majority opinion. It distinguished a 1991 Supreme Court case, Rust v. Sullivan, which upheld a prohibition on federally funded family planning services from discussing abortion with their patients. The majority reasoned that in Rust, the government was attempting to use its funds to express its own message, but the purpose of the Act was to promote a diversity of private views with its funding, not an attempt to restrict any views. The Court said that the government can only issue "content-neutral" conditions on such speech and that the specific prohibition on welfare-reform litigation was viewpoint-based by restricting only support for welfare reform advocacy. "If the restriction on speech and legal advice were to stand, the result would be two tiers of cases... there would be lingering doubt whether the truncated representation had resulted in complete analysis of the case, full advice to the client, and proper presentation to the court."

The Court also criticized the fact that the restriction functionally barred attorneys from participating in the courts. Any attorney receiving LSC funding would not be able to litigate welfare claims that challenged welfare rules, thereby preventing certain cases from being filed. "The restriction imposed by the statute here threatens severe impairment of the judicial function.... We must be vigilant when Congress imposes rules and conditions which, in effect, insulate its own laws from legitimate judicial challenge."

### Dissent

Justice Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion from the decision of the Court and believed that Rust mandated a ruling upholding the restriction. Scalia was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Associate Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas and wrote, "The [act] is a federal subsidy program, not a federal regulatory program... regulations directly restrict speech; subsidies do not." He disagreed with the majority's contention that there was viewpoint discrimination and argued that no specific viewpoint was restricted. Scalia was also concerned with dicta in the majority opinion that seemed to him to indicate a "fondness" for the concept of reform by using the courts.

He argued that the majority's holding was "unprecedented" because it was the first time the government would be limited in advocating its own message.

## Reactions

The immediate reaction was mixed among members of Congress. Democratic supporters of the decision were optimistic of future victories against funding restrictions and stated that they were glad the restriction had fallen but that the decision "opens the LSC up to even more attacks." Republicans in Congress condemned the decision and agreeing to work against it. US Representative Steve Largent (R-OK) said, "It'll be on the radar screen for sure.... Why are we giving taxpayer money to sue taxpayers?" The New York Times described the decision as the end of the "latest chapter, although almost certainly not the last, in a long political struggle over the federally financed program of civil legal services for the poor."

Parties involved in the case also had mixed reactions. LSC, which had sought to protect the restrictions, said that it would "immediately review [their] regulations and then modify them to adhere to the Court's ruling," which it did quickly after the decision. Burt Neuborne, the lawyer who argued against the restriction before the Supreme Court, said that the ruling "really reads like a First Amendment textbook."

## Subsequent developments

In the weeks following the Velazquez decision, the Supreme Court rejected appeals related to other LSC restrictions. LSC has engaged in welfare-reform litigation since the original injunction was lifted.

The case provided the basis for other challenges to restrictions imposed on LSC, such as bans against lobbying or class actions. The challenges were rejected by the Ninth Circuit and the Second Circuit in separate suits. The challenges failed because the relevant provisions do not regulate a specific type of advocacy; for example, the restriction on LSC grantees from collecting attorney's fees would not raise a speech issue because there is no speech involved in such a process. The argument raised in those challenges was that the Court articulated a new "conditions" principle in Velazquez, a distortion-of-speech test, which they argued would require the restrictions to be struck down. Both courts of appeal reviewing that claim have rejected thar reading of Velazquez. Instead of a distortion-of-speech test, the decision was based on the application of limited public forum principles. When the government provides funds to an entity, and the funding's purpose was to encourage diversity of private views, it must act in a viewpoint-neutral way. Programs funded in this manner are treated as a public forum in which the ability of the government to restrict speech is highly limited.

The implications of those subsequent rulings mandated two new rules, one narrow and one broad. Firstly, restrictions may be imposed on LSC as long as they do not discriminate on the basis of "viewpoint" or "opinion." Because the other restrictions were not based on viewpoint, they were upheld. Secondly, on a broader scale the government may not discriminate against viewpoints in any instance that it is funding a private entity to that a diversity of views. For this reason, the decision in Velazquez set an important binding precedent for how the government may act as subsidizer and speaker.

## Analysis and commentary

A Journal of Law and Politics article by Jay Johnson was critical of the decision and the Court's claimed distinction between the speech restriction in Rust and the one on LSC and contended that there was no functional difference between the two. The article highlighted a problem with the Court's interpretation of the statute's purpose at hand: "Even assuming the propriety of invoking legislative purpose in statutory interpretation, the text of the [Act] does not support the Court's understanding of the Act's purpose." The article noted that although the Court looked at a section of the Act discussing attorneys "protecting the best interest of their clients," the same section noted that the program must be free of "political pressures." Because a factor in the Court's reasoning was its understanding of the Act's purpose, that alleged error purportedly misguided the rest of the Court's analysis.

Further criticism from the article was that the Court unduly rested its decision on a separation of powers determination. The Court held in Velazquez that the restriction on welfare advocacy cases disrupted the "vital relationship between the bar and the judiciary." That finding, the article argued, was baseless because there is no connection between preventing some government lawyers from arguing a single point and the deprivation of due process rights. It concluded that the fundamental problems of statutory interpretation and a lack of a credible distinction with Rust in Justice Kennedy's analysis renders the opinion "unconvincing."

An article in the Maryland Law Review by Christopher Gozdor, a lawyer in the Maryland Attorney General's office, was also critical of the decision, but he was concerned with an alleged lack of clarity in the majority opinion. It discussed the case law relating to government speech and examined what it described as the "conditions doctrine" by which certain conditions on receiving federal funds were upheld or struck down.

The article then turned to the Rust distinction. Gozdor explained: "The Court distinguished Velazquez from Rust because Rust involved a subsidy to facilitate private expression of the government's message, while Velazquez involved LSC funding that was designed [for] private speech." The critical question for the court was the characterization of the speech that the law promoted. Because advocacy by LSC grantees to change welfare laws was not in advance of the government's own message, the restriction placed on it essentially prohibited a form of private speech. The relationship that the Court set forth, Gozdor asserted, was that the restriction "distorted" private speech. That "distortion principle" was the main criticism of the article, as was Scalia's dissenting opinion.

Gozdor, agreeing with Scalia's dissent, wrote that the restriction did not create such a distortion of private speech because Congress had still permitted LSC to form affiliate organizations, which would be considered "legally separate." Notwithstanding the difficulty of an organization to classify itself as an "affiliate entity" of LSC, Gozdor argued that there was no real prevention of speech when there were ample alternative means of relaying the message.

Further, in attacking the distortion principle's application, Gozdor also argued against the principle as a legal concept in the first place: "Regardless of the Court's rationale for its distortion principle, determining a First Amendment violation by measuring whether the government used a subsidy 'in ways which distorted the medium's usual functioning' suggests that forum functions become unchangeable once created." He claimed the unworkability of the distortion principle in a hypothetical example, which would moot the very existence of the LSC: "Taking the Velazquez rationale to its logical ends, the LSC subsidy itself could become an unconstitutional speech restriction. If Congress substantially increased LSC appropriations in order to allow LSC to take all of its cases... the functioning of the legal system would be distorted because such a subsidy likely would result in a dramatic increase in the federal courts' caseloads." With that in mind, he concluded with a process by which the Court should have decided the case: a process leading to the upholding of the restriction by finding that LSC's purpose was in promoting the government's message in contrast to a diversity of private views.

An article by Jessica Sharpe in the North Carolina Law Review argued that Kennedy's majority opinion wrongly set forth the understanding of the role of an attorney. Sharpe criticized the Court's thesis that the role of the attorney is that of an advocate such that a restriction on the attorney served as a direct restriction of advocacy. That rationale, Sharpe argued, could undermine the balance of abortion restrictions because state regulations on abortion access also could be seen as an intrusion into doctor–patient speech. Because Velazquez "blurred" this distinction, the privileged nature of doctor–patient conversations could be subjected to future regulations and limitations.

## See also

- Legal meaning of 'Forum'
- List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment

United States Free Speech Clause case law

United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court