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12 

SHURTLEFF v. BOSTON 

Opinion of the Court 

All told, while the historical practice of flag flying at gov-
ernment buildings favors Boston, the city’s lack of meaning-
ful  involvement  in  the  selection  of  flags  or  the  crafting  of 
their messages leads us to classify the flag raisings as pri-
vate,  not  government,  speech—though  nothing  prevents
Boston from changing its policies going forward. 

III 
Last,  we  consider  whether  Boston’s  refusal  to  allow 
Shurtleff  and  Camp  Constitution  to  raise  their  flag
amounted to impermissible viewpoint discrimination.

Boston  acknowledges  that  it  denied  Shurtleff ’s  request 
because it believed flying a religious flag at City Hall could 
violate the Establishment Clause.  And it admits this con-
cern proceeded from the premise that raising the flag would
express government speech.  See Brief in Opposition 23 (ex-
plaining  that  “viewpoint  neutrality”  was  “incompatible” 
with Boston’s view of its program).  But we have rejected
that  premise  in  the  preceding  pages.    We  must  therefore 
consider Boston’s actions in light of our holding. 

When a government does not speak for itself, it may not 
exclude  speech  based  on  “religious  viewpoint”;  doing  so
“constitutes 
impermissible  viewpoint  discrimination.” 
Good  News  Club  v.  Milford  Central  School,  533  U. S.  98, 
112 (2001).  Applying that rule, we have held, for example, 
that a public university may not bar student-activity funds
from reimbursing only religious groups.  See Rosenberger, 
515 U. S., at 830–834.  Here, Boston concedes that it denied 
Shurtleff ’s  request  solely  because  the  Christian  flag  he
asked to raise “promot[ed] a specific religion.”  App. to Pet.
for Cert. 155a (quoting Rooney deposition).  Under our prec-
edents, and in view of our government-speech holding here, 
that refusal discriminated based on religious viewpoint and
violated the Free Speech Clause.