Opinion ID: 470078
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Viewpoint-Based Discrimination

Text: 46 Furthermore, it appears that the Board was engaging in viewpoint-based discrimination. By allowing the publication of the military recruitment advertisements, the Board allowed the presentation of one side of a highly controversial issue. The Board provided a forum to those who advocate military service. The Board then refused, without a valid reason, to allow those who oppose military service to use the same forum. The only reasonable inference is that the Board was engaging in viewpoint discrimination. As the Supreme Court has stated, [t]o permit one side of a debatable public question to have a monopoly in expressing its views ... is the antithesis of constitutional guarantees. City of Madison, 429 U.S. at 175-76, 97 S.Ct. at 426-27. In other words, the First Amendment means that the government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 65, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 2879, 77 L.Ed.2d 469 (1983) (quoting Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 2289-90, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972)). Viewpoint-based discrimination is not permitted even in a non-public forum. Cornelius, 105 S.Ct. at 3554. Accordingly, the Board's viewpoint discrimination provides a second ground for holding that even if the school newspapers do not constitute a public forum, the Board violated the First Amendment in excluding CARD's advertisement.