Opinion ID: 515998
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying Public Forum Doctrine

Text: 28 Having determined that the motion to dismiss should have been denied, we do not, of course, pass on the merits of the public forum question. Cf. Preferred Communications, supra (undesirable to express detailed views on first amendment questions on basis of complaint alone). That question is for the district court to resolve on the basis of a factual record. For issue-identification purposes only, we point out that on remand the district court may confront, inter alia, the following concerns. 29 The question which must be resolved in this litigation is what are the government's interests in operating a Stadium. For example, while spectators may attend to watch a football game, and players to play, the government's intent may be solely profitmaking. Alternatively, a government may build a stadium not as a money-making venture but rather to fill a need not satisfied by the private market. In such a case, the government may set out not to make a profit but simply to satisfy a public need. A government-operated university is an analogy. It is also conceivable that the government's intent is not commercial in either a profit or nonprofit sense: the government may intend to build civic pride, identity and cohesion through sponsorship of public events which bring citizens together for a common purpose. For these reasons, total reliance cannot be placed on the statute authorizing the Armory Board to build the Stadium as evidence of the government's intent. The statute says only that the Stadium is to be suitable for holding athletic events. D.C.Code Sec. 2-321; J.A. 42. By itself the statute cannot answer the central question of what the government's purposes are when it undertakes to sponsor athletic events. 30 Second, the compatibility of public property with expressive activity enters into the first amendment analysis in two different ways. In the first place, as discussed in Cornelius, supra, compatibility provides some evidence of the government's intent. Then, once the nature of the forum has been established, compatibility is relevant to the ultimate determination of whether restrictions on speech are either reasonable or narrowly tailored to a compelling state interest (the constitutional standards for nonpublic and public fora, respectively). 31 In examining compatibility, the district court appears to have conflated the first test into the second. Although the court noted that the use of a stadium to present an athletic contest is not inconsistent with many types of expressive activity, J.A. 44, it apparently did not consider the alleged presence of banners and other expressive activity at the Stadium as evidence of compatibility bearing on the government's intent. Instead, the court took the government's essentially commercial purpose, J.A. 45, as a given and proceeded to consider how this purpose could be disrupted by uncontrolled banners. J.A. 44-46. While this latter analysis might be appropriate in reviewing the constitutionality of the Armory Board's restrictions on speech once the government's intent has been determined, it is not the appropriate analysis for purposes of identifying that intent. 32 Finally, we reiterate that the consistent policy and practice of the Armory Board in controlling the uses of the Stadium are key indicators of the government's intent. In this respect any policy or practice of the Armory Board welcoming banners, perhaps evidenced by the alleged diversity of signs displayed around RFK Stadium during both football games, will enter directly into the threshold determination of whether a public forum has been created. In this case, the hospitality of the Stadium to banners may be particularly important because of conceded uncertainty about the Board's banner policies. The liberal policy statement alleged in the complaint was written after the January 8 event and the specter of litigation had been raised by Senator Trible. But we do not know as yet whether this statement accurately reflects the Board's policy, whether it has been published anywhere or the procedures by which such policies are promulgated. The very fact that appellants' signs were removed despite the representation in the letter that all banners except the obscene or commercial are welcome in the Stadium suggests that there is more to the policy than meets the naked eye. Moreover, the complaint alleges that the General Manager told appellants on November 5 that whatever the letter said, his approval was required for all signs (approval which he ultimately withheld). Thus, at this early stage it is still unclear whether this one-on-one approval is part of the policy, 10 whether the Board has adopted any standards on which to base this discretionary approval, or whether there is in fact any practice of generally supervising signs. These matters should be resolved on remand. What has been and may during trial be represented as policy cannot be simply ex post justification for the Armory Board's decision selectively to exclude appellants' signs. 33 The dimensions of the Board's policy are further complicated by the fact that the district court had before it yet another policy statement in the February 10 letter also written to Senator Trible in connection with the events of January 8. 11 The Armory Board referred to this earlier policy in its motion to dismiss as prohibit[ing] signs and banners unrelated to the event scheduled at the Stadium. J.A. 26. The letter itself represented the earlier policy as follows: 34 Banners are generally permitted inside the Stadium unless they offer a message which is obscene, political, religious, controversial in nature, appear [sic] to advertise or otherwise does not relate to the event being held. Likewise, any banner which when installed creates a sight line problem or is suspended by objects which could be physically dangerous to patrons are [sic] not permitted inside the facility.... [I]t was the opinion of the Stadium Management that the John 3:16 message was controversial in nature and for that reason had to be eliminated. That opinion was supported by a reported two dozen or so phone calls to the CBS studios in New York, objecting to the message. 35 J.A. 31-32. Resolving the dimensions of the policy, as a general matter and not merely as applied to these appellants, is crucial to the threshold question of whether or not RFK Stadium is a public forum. 12 Mere statements of policy, if consistently contradicted by practice, are not dispositive. The core question here--a factual one--is precisely what policies the Board follows in controlling the use of the Stadium for expressive activity.