Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf
Page Number: 22.0

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

3 

ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

real speaker is a private party and the government is sur-
reptitiously engaged in the “regulation of private speech.” 
Summum, 555 U. S., at 467.  But our precedent has never
attempted  to  specify  a  general  method  for  deciding  that
question, and the Court goes wrong in proceeding as though 
our decisions in Walker and Summum settled on anything
that might be considered a “government-speech analysis.” 
Ante, at 6.  In both cases, we employed a fact-bound totality-
of-the-circumstances inquiry that relied on the factors that
appeared helpful in evaluating whether the speech at issue
was government or private speech.  See Walker, 576 U. S., 
at 210–213; Summum, 555 U. S., at 470–478.  We did not 
set out a test to be used in all government-speech cases, and 
we did not purport to define an exhaustive list of relevant 
factors.  And  in  light  of  the  ultimate  focus  of  the  govern-
ment-speech inquiry, each of the factors mentioned in those 
cases could be relevant only insofar as it sheds light on the 
identity of the speaker.  When considered in isolation from 
that  inquiry,  the  factors  central  to  Walker  and  Summum 
can lead a court astray.

Consider  first  “the  extent  to  which  the  government  has
actively  shaped  or  controlled  the  expression.”  Ante,  at  6. 
Government control over speech is relevant to speaker iden-
tity in that speech by a private individual or group cannot 
constitute  government  speech  if  the  government  does  not
attempt to control the message.  But control is also an es-
sential element of censorship.  Consider this example.  The 
British Licensing Act of 1737, 10 Geo. II c. 28, §1, in 17 Eng.
Stat. at Large 140 (1765), as amended by the Theatres Act 
of 1843, 6 & 7 Vict. c. 68, §2 (1843), prohibited the perfor-
mance  of  any  “interlude,  tragedy,  comedy,  opera,  play, 
farce, or other entertainment” without a patent issued by
the King of England or a “License from the Lord Chamber-
lain  of  Her  Majesty’s  Household.”    Ibid.    This  regime  at-
tracted criticism precisely because it gave the Lord Cham-
berlain  extensive  “control  over  the  nature  and  content,”