Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

Boston City Hall the Way It Is? Boston.com (July 25, 2018),
https://www.boston.com/news/history/2018/07/ 25/boston-
city-hall-brutalism.

On the plaza, near City Hall’s entrance, stand three 83-
foot flagpoles.  Boston flies the American flag from the first 
pole  (along  with  a  banner  honoring  prisoners  of  war  and 
soldiers missing in action).  From the second, it flies the flag
of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  And  from  the 
third,  it  usually  (but  not  always)  flies  Boston’s  flag—a
sketch of the “City on a Hill” encircled by a ring against a 
blue backdrop.

Boston makes City Hall Plaza available to the public for 
events.  Boston acknowledges that this means the plaza is 
a “public forum.”  Brief for Respondents 27.  The city’s policy
is, “[w]here possible,” “to accommodate all applicants seek-
ing to take advantage of the City of Boston’s public forums,” 
including the plaza and the area at the flagpoles’ base.  App.
to Pet. for Cert. 133a, 137a. 

For years, since at least 2005, the city has allowed groups
to hold flag-raising ceremonies on the plaza.  Participants
may hoist a flag of their choosing on the third flagpole (in
place  of  the  city’s  flag)  and  fly  it  for  the  duration  of  the
event,  typically  a  couple  of  hours.    Most  ceremonies  have 
involved the flags of other countries—from Albania to Ven-
ezuela—marking the national holidays of Bostonians’ many 
countries of origin.  But several flag raisings have been as-
sociated with other kinds of groups or causes, such as Pride
Week,  emergency  medical  service workers,  and  a  commu-
nity  bank.  All  told,  between  2005  and  2017,  Boston  ap-
proved  about  50  unique  flags,  raised  at  284  ceremonies. 
Boston has no record of refusing a request before the events
that gave rise to this case.  We turn now to those events. 

B 
In July 2017, Harold Shurtleff, the director of an organi-
zation  called  Camp  Constitution,  asked  to  hold  a  flag-