Opinion ID: 1036439
Heading Depth: 3
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Heading: The Supreme Court’s decision in Fraser

Text: “[A]s a general matter, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564, 573 (2002). Of course, there are exceptions. When acting as sovereign, the government is empowered to impose time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, see Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791 (1989), make reasonable, content-based decisions about what speech is allowed on government property that is not fully open to the public, see Ark. Educ. Television Comm’n v. Forbes, 523 U.S. 666, 674–75 (1998), decide what viewpoints to espouse in its own speech or speech that might be attributed to it, see Johanns v. Livestock Mktg. Ass’n, 544 U.S. 550, 560 (2005), and categorically restrict unprotected speech, such as obscenity, see Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 23 (1973).8 8 Other examples of categorically unprotected speech include child pornography, see New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 764–65 (1982), advocacy that imminently incites lawless action, see Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447–48 (1969) (per curiam), fighting words, see Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571–72 (1942), true threats, see Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 18 Sometimes, however, the government acts in capacities that go beyond being sovereign. In those capacities, it not only retains its sovereign authority over speech but also gains additional flexibility to regulate speech. See In re Kendall, 712 F.3d 814, 825 (3d Cir. 2013) (collecting examples). One of those other capacities is K-12 educator. Although “students do not ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,’” the First Amendment has to be “applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment” and thus students’ rights to freedom of speech “are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.” Morse, 551 U.S. at 396–97 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The Supreme Court first expressed this principle nearly a half century ago. In 1965, the United States deployed over 200,000 troops to Vietnam as part of Operation Rolling Thunder—and thus began the Vietnam War. That war “divided this country as few other issues [e]ver have.” Tinker, 393 U.S. at 524 (Black, J., 705, 708 (1969) (per curiam), commercial speech that is false, misleading, or proposes illegal transactions, see Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557, 562, 566–67 (1980), and some false statements of fact, see United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537, 2546–47 (2012). 19 dissenting). Public opposition to the war made its way into schools, and in one high-profile case, a group of high-school and middle-school students wore black armbands to express their opposition. Id. at 504 (majority opinion). School officials adopted a policy prohibiting the armbands and suspending any student who refused to remove it when asked. Id. Some students refused and were suspended. Id. The Supreme Court upheld their right to wear the armbands. Id. at 514. Tinker held that school officials may not restrict student speech without a reasonable forecast that the speech would substantially disrupt the school environment or invade the rights of others. Id. at 513. As nothing more than the “silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance on [the students’] part,” the students’ armbands were protected by the First Amendment. Id. at 508. Under Tinker’s “general rule,” the government may restrict school speech that threatens a specific and substantial disruption to the school environment or that “inva[des] . . . the rights of others.”9 Saxe v. State 9 We have not yet decided whether Tinker is limited to on-campus speech. See J.S. v. Blue Mountain Sch. Dist., 650 F.3d 915, 926 & n.3 (3d Cir. 2011) (en banc) (declining to reach this issue); see also id. at 936 (Smith, J., concurring) (“I write separately to address a question 20 College Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 211, 214 (3d Cir. 2001) (citing Tinker, 393 U.S. at 504). Since Tinker, the Supreme Court has identified three “narrow” circumstances in which the government may restrict student speech even when there is no risk of substantial disruption or invasion of others’ rights. Id. at 212. First, the government may categorically restrict vulgar, lewd, profane, or plainly offensive speech in schools, even if it would not be obscene outside of school. Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683, 685. Second, the government may likewise restrict speech that “a reasonable observer would interpret as advocating illegal drug use” and that cannot “plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue.” Morse, 551 U.S. at 422 (Alito, J., concurring); see also id. at 403 (majority opinion) (“[T]his is plainly not a case about political debate over the criminalization of drug use or possession.”).10 And third, the government may impose restrictions on schoolsponsored speech that are “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns”—a power usually lumped together with the other school-specific speech doctrines but that, strictly speaking, simply reflects the government’s more general power as sovereign over that the majority opinion expressly leaves open: whether Tinker applies to off-campus speech in the first place.”). 10 As we explain in Part III.B(2), the limitations that Justice Alito’s concurrence places on the majority’s opinion in Morse are controlling. 21 government-sponsored speech.11 Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. 11 Compare Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 468 (2009) (discussing the government-speech doctrine and explaining that “[a] government entity may exercise this same freedom to express its views when it receives assistance from private sources for the purpose of delivering a government-controlled message” (citing Johanns, 544 U.S. at 562)), with Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. at 271, 273 (reaffirming the government’s same authority to control speech that might be “reasonably perceive[ed] to bear the imprimatur of the school” in its role as K-12 educator); see also Eugene Volokh, The First Amendment and the Government as K-12 Educator, The Volokh Conspiracy (Oct. 31, 2011, 6:26 PM), http://www.volokh.com/2011/10/31/the-firstamendment-and-the-government-as-k-12-educator/ (“[Kuhlmeier] generally reflects broad government-asspeaker law, and not special rules related to the government as K-12 educator.”); Michael J. O’Connor, Comment, School Speech in the Internet Age: Do Students Shed Their Rights When They Pick Up a Mouse?, 11 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 459, 469 (2009) (“Hazelwood . . . simply illustrates the idea that the school speech arena is not isolated from developments in wider First Amendment jurisprudence. . . . Hazelwood recognizes that schools are government actors and therefore are entitled to control speech that could be reasonably viewed as originating with them.”); Gia B. 22 Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 273 (1988). The first exception is at issue here. We must determine the scope of the government’s authority to categorically restrict vulgar, lewd, indecent, or plainly offensive speech under Fraser. Fraser involved a highschool assembly during which a student “nominated a peer for class office through an ‘an elaborate, graphic, and explicit sexual metaphor.’” Saxe, 240 F.3d at 212 (quoting Fraser, 478 U.S. at 677). Fraser’s speech “glorif[ied] male sexuality”: I know a man who is firm—he’s firm in his pants, he’s firm in his shirt, his character is firm—but most . . . of all, his belief in you, the students of Bethel, is firm. . . . Jeff Kuhlman [the candidate] is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he’ll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn’t attack things in spurts, he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally—he succeeds. . . . Jeff is a man who will go to the very end—even the climax, for each and every one of you. . . . So vote for Jeff for A.S.B. vice-president—he’ll never come between you and the best our high school can Lee, First Amendment Enforcement in Government Institutions and Programs, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1691, 1711–12 (2009) (similar). 23 be. Fraser, 478 U.S. at 687 (Brennan, J., concurring). In response, “[s]ome students hooted and yelled; some by gestures simulated the sexual activities pointedly alluded to in [Fraser’s] speech.” Id. at 678 (majority opinion). Still “[o]ther students appeared to be bewildered and embarrassed by the speech.” Id. The school suspended Fraser and took him out of the running for graduation speaker. Id. The Supreme Court upheld Fraser’s suspension. Id. at 683. Rather than requiring a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption under Tinker, the Court held that lewd, vulgar, indecent, and plainly offensive student speech is categorically unprotected in school, even if it falls short of obscenity and would have been protected outside school. Saxe, 240 F.3d at 213 (discussing Fraser); Morse, 551 U.S. at 405 (“Had Fraser delivered the same speech in a public forum outside the school context, it would have been protected.”); Fraser, 478 U.S. at 688 (Blackmun, J., concurring) (“If [Fraser] had given the same speech outside of the school environment, he could not have been penalized simply because government officials considered his language to be inappropriate.”). For this proposition, the Court relied on precedent holding that the government can restrict expression that would be obscene from a minor’s perspective—even though it would not be obscene in an 24 adult’s view—where minors are either a captive audience or the intended recipients of the speech. See Fraser, 478 U.S. at 684–85 (relying on Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 635–37 & nn.4–5 (1968) (upholding criminal punishment for selling to minors any picture depicting nudity); Bd. of Educ., Island Trees Union Free Sch. Dist. No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 870 (1982) (plurality opinion) (acknowledging that the Free Speech Clause would allow a local board of education to remove “pervasively vulgar” books from school libraries); and FCC v. Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. 726, 749–50 (1978) (rejecting a Free Speech Clause challenge to the FCC’s broad leeway to regulate indecent-but-not-obscene material on broadcast television during hours when children were likely to watch)). Fraser did no more than extend these obscenity-tominors12 cases to another place where minors are a 12 See Brown v. Entm’t Merchs. Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729, 2735 (2011) (describing Ginsberg as regulating “obscenity for minors”); Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 869 (1997) (reaffirming the government’s power under Pacifica and Ginsberg to “‘protect[] the physical and psychological well-being of minors’ which extended to shield them from indecent messages that are not obscene by adult standards” (quoting Sable Comm’cns of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989))); Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. at 767 (Brennan, J., dissenting) 25 captive audience—schools. Indeed, as the Court explained, schools are tasked with more than just “educating our youth” about “books, the curriculum, and the civics class.” Id. at 681. Society also expects schools to “teach[] students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior,” including the “fundamental values of ‘habits and manners of civility’ essential to a democratic society.” Id. at 681, 683 (citation omitted). Consequently, Fraser’s “sexually explicit monologue” was not protected. Id. at 685. It is important to recognize what was not at stake in Fraser. Fraser addressed only a school’s power over speech that was plainly lewd—not speech that a reasonable observer could interpret as either lewd or nonlewd. See, e.g., Doninger v. Niehoff, 527 F.3d 41, 49 (2d Cir. 2008) (“[Fraser’s] reference to ‘plainly offensive’ speech must be understood in light of the vulgar, lewd, and sexually explicit language that was at issue in [that] case.”); Chandler v. McMinnville Sch. Dist., 978 F.2d (agreeing with the majority that the government could regulate “variable obscenity” or “obscenity to minors” on broadcast television, but disagreeing with the majority that the Carlin monologue met that standard); Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 213 n.10 (1975) (describing Ginsberg as involving “obscenity as to minors”); Ginsberg, 390 U.S. at 635 n.4 (using the label “variable obscenity”). 26 524, 530 (9th Cir. 1992) (interpreting Fraser as limited to “per se vulgar, lewd, obscene, or plainly offensive” school speech). After all, the Court believed Fraser’s speech to be “plainly offensive to both teachers and students—indeed to any mature person.”13 Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683. And because it was plainly lewd, the Court did not believe that Fraser’s speech could plausibly be interpreted as political or social commentary. In hindsight, it might be tempting to believe that Fraser’s speech was political because it was made in the context of a student election. Cf. Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 130 S. Ct. 876, 898 (2010) (describing the importance of political speech as the “means to hold 13 Of course, Fraser’s speech might “seem[] distinctly lacking in shock value” today, especially “from the perspective enabled by 25 years of erosion of refinement in the use of language.” Zamecnik v. Indian Prairie Sch. Dist. No. 204, 636 F.3d 874, 877 (7th Cir. 2011); see also Fraser, 478 U.S. at 691 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (noting that Clark Gable’s famous use of the word “damn” in “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” “shocked the Nation” when Justice Stevens was a high school student but had become “less offensive” by the time of Fraser). Any such change in perspective, however, is irrelevant to our examination of the Court’s interpretation of Fraser’s speech and its reasoning. 27 officials accountable to the people”). But that kind of revisionist history is belied by both the logic and language of Fraser. “Fraser permits a school to prohibit words that ‘offend for the same reasons that obscenity offends.’” Saxe, 240 F.3d at 213 (quoting Fraser, 478 U.S. at 685). Obscenity, in turn, offends because it is “no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and [is] of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from [it] is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.” Fraser, 478 U.S. at 683 (quoting Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. at 746 (plurality opinion)). In other words, obscenity and obscenity to minors, like “other historically unprotected categories of speech,” have little or no political or social value. United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 130 S. Ct. 1577, 1585 (2010). By concluding that Fraser’s speech met the obscenity-to-minors standard, the Court necessarily implied that his speech could not be interpreted as having “serious” political value. Miller, 413 U.S. at 24. In fact, the majority in Fraser made this explicit. “[T]he Fraser [C]ourt distinguished its holding from Tinker in part on the absence of any political message in Fraser’s speech.” Guiles ex rel. Guiles v. Marineau, 461 F.3d 320, 326, 328 (2d Cir. 2006). In the Court’s own words, there was a “marked distinction between the political ‘message’ of the armbands in Tinker and the sexual content of [Fraser’s] speech.” Fraser, 478 U.S. at 28 680 (emphasis added); see also Defoe ex rel. Defoe v. Spiva, 625 F.3d 324, 332 (6th Cir. 2010) (“Tinker governs this case because by wearing clothing bearing images of the Confederate flag, Tom Defoe engaged in ‘pure speech,’ which is protected by the First Amendment, and thus Fraser would not apply.”). Several courts of appeals have similarly interpreted Fraser. Guiles, 461 F.3d at 326, 328; Newsom ex rel. Newsom v. Albemarle Cnty. Sch. Bd., 354 F.3d 249, 256 (4th Cir. 2003) (explaining that Fraser “distinguish[ed] Tinker on the basis that the lewd, vulgar, and plainly offensive speech was ‘unrelated to any political viewpoint’ (quoting Fraser, 478 U.S. at 685)); Chandler, 978 F.2d at 532 n.2 (Goodwin, J., concurring) (concluding that Fraser does not apply because “this case clearly involves political speech”). And the Supreme Court later characterized Fraser’s reasoning the same way. Morse, 551 U.S. at 404 (noting that Fraser was “plainly attuned” to the sexual, non-political “content of Fraser’s speech”). In fact, Morse refused to “stretch[] Fraser” so far as to “encompass any speech that could fit under some definition of ‘offensive’” out of a fear that “much political and religious speech might be perceived as offensive to some.” Id. at 409. Fraser therefore involved plainly lewd speech that did not comment on political or social issues. 29