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18  MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORP. v. HALLECK 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

tional  obligation  to  award  a  cable  franchise  or  to  operate 
public-access  channels.    But  once  the  City  did  award  a 
cable franchise, New York law required the City to obtain 
public-access channels,  see  supra,  at  2,  and to  open  them 
up as a public forum, see supra, at 9–10.  That is when the 
City’s  obligation  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  First 
Amendment  with  respect  to  the  channels  arose.    That  is 
why,  when  the  City  handed  the  administration  of  that 
forum  off  to  an  agent,  the  Constitution  followed.    See 
supra, at 10–13.12 
  The  majority  is  surely  correct  that  “when  a  private 
entity  provides  a  forum  for  speech,  the  private  entity  is 
not  ordinarily  constrained  by  the  First  Amendment.”  
Ante,  at  9.    That  is  because  the  majority  is  not  talking 
about  constitutional  forums—it  is  talking  about  spaces 
where private entities have simply invited others to come 
speak.  A comedy club can decide to open its doors as wide 
as  it  wants,  but  it  cannot  appoint  itself  as  a  government 
agent.    The  difference  is  between  providing  a  service  of 
one’s  own  accord  and  being  asked  by  the  government  to 
administer  a  constitutional  responsibility  (indeed,  here, 
existing to do so) on the government’s behalf.13 
—————— 

12 Jackson  v.  Metropolitan  Edison  Co.,  419  U. S.  345  (1974),  by  con-
trast,  exemplifies  a  type  of  case  in  which  a  private  actor  provides  a 
service that there is no governmental obligation to provide at all.  See 
id.,  at  353  (no  state  requirement  for  government  to  provide  utility 
service);  see  also,  e.g.,  Hudgens,  424  U. S.  507  (shopping  center).    In 
West  v.  Atkins,  487  U. S.  42  (1988),  by  contrast,  the  prison  was  obli- 
gated to provide health care in accordance with the Eighth Amendment to 
its prisoners once it incarcerated them, and here, the City was required 
to  provide a  public  forum  to  its  residents  in accordance with  the  First 
Amendment once it granted the cable franchise.  See supra, at 11–13. 

13 Accordingly,  the  majority  need  not  fear  that  “all  private  property 
owners  and  private  lessees  who  open  their  property  for  speech  [c]ould 
be subject to First Amendment constraints.”  Ante, at 10.  Those kinds 
of  entities  are  not  the  government’s  agents;  MNN  is.    Whether  such 
entities  face  “extensive  regulation”  or  require  “government  licenses, 
government contracts, or government-granted monopolies,” ante, at 12,