Opinion ID: 3031949
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Level of Judicial Scrutiny

Text: The Supreme Court has rejected heightened scrutiny where, as here, the government provides a public service that, by its nature, requires evaluations of and distinctions based on the content of speech. See United States v. American Library Ass'n, Inc., 539 U.S. 194, 203-208 (2003) (“ALA”); Nat’l Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, 580-87 (1998); Arkansas Educ. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U.S. 666, 673-74 (1998). As a university, one of UC’s “essential freedoms” is to “determine for itself on academic grounds . . . who may be admitted to study.” Sweezy v. State of N.H. by Wyman, 354 U.S. 234, 263 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). UC exercises that freedom by reviewing high school courses to ensure that they adequately prepare incoming students for the rigors of academic study at UC. The plaintiffs’ reliance on forum cases which apply heightened scrutiny is misplaced. See Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981); Bd. of Regents of Univ. of -3- Wisconsin System v. Southworth, 529 U.S. 217 (2000). The plaintiffs concede that this case does not involve a forum. Nor does this case present a “close analogy” to forum cases as in Southworth. Here, UC evaluates high school courses to ensure they are college preparatory, not to facilitate “the free and open exchange of ideas by, and among, its students.” Southworth, 529 U.S. at 229-30. The forum cases are simply inapposite. See ALA, 539 U.S. at 206-07 (distinguishing Rosenberger because a “public library does not acquire Internet terminals in order to create a public forum for Web publishers to express themselves.”); Finley, 524 U.S. at 586 (“The NEA's mandate is to make esthetic judgments, and the inherently content-based ‘excellence’ threshold for NEA support sets it apart from the subsidy at issue in Rosenberger . . . .”).