Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

While  this history  favors  Boston,  it  is  only  our  starting 
point.  The question remains whether, on the 20 or so times
a  year  when  Boston  allowed  private  groups  to  raise  their 
own flags, those flags, too, expressed the city’s message.  So 
we must examine the details of this flag-flying program.

Next, then, we consider whether the public would tend to 
view the speech at issue as the government’s.  In this case, 
the circumstantial evidence does not tip the scale.  On an 
ordinary  day,  a  passerby  on  Cambridge  Street  sees  three
government flags representing the Nation, State, and city. 
Those  flags  wave  “in  unison,  side-by-side,  from  matching 
flagpoles,”  just  outside  “ ‘the  entrance  to  Boston’s  seat  of 
government.’ ”  986 F. 3d, at 88.  Like the monuments in the 
public park in Summum, the flags “play an important role 
in  defining  the  identity  that  [the]  city  projects  to  its  own 
residents and to the outside world.”  555 U. S., at 472.  So, 
like the license plates in Walker, the public seems likely to
see the flags as “ ‘conveying some message’ ” on the govern-
ment’s “ ‘behalf.’ ”  576 U. S., at 212 (quoting Summum, 555 
U. S., at 471). 

But as we have said, Boston allowed its flag to be lowered
and  other  flags  to  be  raised  with  some  regularity.  These 
other flags were raised in connection with ceremonies at the 
flagpoles’ base and remained aloft during the events.  Peti-
tioners  say  that  a  pedestrian  glimpsing  a  flag  other  than 
Boston’s on the third flagpole might simply look down onto 
the plaza, see a group of private citizens conducting a cere-
mony  without  the  city’s  presence,  and  associate  the  new 
flag with them, not Boston.  Thus, even if the public would
ordinarily  associate  a  flag’s  message  with  Boston,  that  is
not necessarily true for the flags at issue here.  Again, this
evidence of the public’s perception does not resolve whether 
Boston conveyed a city message with these flags. 

Finally,  we  look  at  the  extent  to  which  Boston  actively
controlled these flag raisings and shaped the messages the 
flags sent.  The answer, it seems, is not at all.  And that is