Opinion ID: 729769
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lubavitch's Viewpoint Discrimination Claim

Text: 33 Although its retaliation claim can be dismissed with relative ease, Lubavitch presents a more colorable viewpoint discrimination claim. Here Lubavitch alleges that, regardless of whether the Building Authority wanted to retaliate because of Lubavitch's litigation success, the Building Authority's overarching intent to discriminate against the menorah display (and against religious displays generally) makes Rule 13 an unconstitutional viewpoint-based regulation of speech. 9 34 Because the City-County Building lobby is government property, the constitutionality of a regulation of speech on that property hinges on what has been called forum analysis. Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 800 (1985). Although [n]othing in the Constitution requires the Government freely to grant access to all who wish to exercise their right to free speech on every type of Government property, id. at 799-800, any regulation of speech on government property must still withstand some constitutional scrutiny. 35 The exact constitutional standard depends on whether the government is trying to regulate a public forum or a nonpublic forum. Property can be designated as a public forum either by tradition or by law. Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, ___ U.S. ___, ____, 115 S. Ct. 2440, 2446 (1995). Traditional public fora are properties like streets and parks which have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Perry Educ. Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983) (quoting Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496, 515 (1939) (opinion of Roberts, J.)). Legally created public fora are fora such as school board meetings and municipal theaters where the government has intentionally -- not by inaction or by permitting limited discourse -- opened a nontraditional forum for public discourse. See Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 802; Perry, 460 U.S. at 4546, 103 S.Ct. at 955. Any remaining government property is considered a nonpublic forum. International Soc'y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 678-79 (1992). 36 Given their greater importance to the free flow of ideas, public fora receive greater constitutional protection from speech restrictions. Any speech regulation in a public forum must be either 1) a reasonable, content-neutral time, place, and manner restriction, or 2) narrowly drawn to advance a compelling state interest. Capitol Square, 115 S. Ct. at 2446. As Justice Brennan explained in his Perry dissent, content-neutrality is a particularly strong constitutional standard that prohibits the government from choosing the subjects that are appropriate for public discussion. Perry, 460 U.S. at 59 (Brennan, J., dissenting). In other words, content-neutrality not only forbids discrimination against particular viewpoints on a subject (what Justice Brennan called censorship in its purest form, id. at 62), but also prevents the government from even limiting discussion in public fora to specific subjects. A content-neutral regulation is thus both viewpoint-neutral and subject-neutral. See Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 115 S. Ct. 2510, 2517 (1995) ([D]iscrimination against one set of views or ideas is but a subset or particular instance of the more general phenomenon of content discrimination.). 37 The constitutional standard governing speech regulations in nonpublic fora is less certain. The Supreme Court has elaborated on the standard in a number of cases, but the Court's language has not always been entirely consistent. The cases have unequivocally held that any speech regulation in a nonpublic forum must be reasonable in light of the purposes served by the forum. Rosenberger, 115 S. Ct. at 2517; Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, 113 S. Ct. 2141, 2147 (1993); Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 806; Perry, 460 U.S. at 49; see also Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Ass'ns, 453 U.S. 114, 131 n.7 (1981). The cases have been less definitive, however, regarding the neutrality standard that a nonpublic forum speech regulation must meet. In Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Ass'ns, the Court said that such speech restrictions must be content-neutral. Id. In Perry and Cornelius, however, the Court shifted its focus to viewpoint discrimination and particularly to the intent to discriminate against specific viewpoints. The Court stated that a regulation must not be an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view, Perry, 460 U.S. at 46, and similarly that a regulation must not be in reality a facade for viewpoint-based discrimination, Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 811. In its most recent cases, meanwhile, the Court has said that nonpublic forum regulations must be viewpoint neutral, making no mention of impermissible intent. See Rosenberger, 115 S. Ct. at 2517; Lamb's Chapel, 113 S. Ct. at 2147. 38 We need not decide whether the City-County Building lobby is a public forum because Lubavitch has conceded for the purposes of its preliminary injunction motion that the lobby is a nonpublic forum. We must determine, however, the appropriate standard under which to review Rule 13. The Court has clearly abandoned the contentneutrality standard, but the relevance of motive in the Court's opinions has varied. We must therefore determine whether the subjective language in Perry and Cornelius (suggesting that the mere intent to discriminate against a viewpoint is sufficient for a constitutional violation) survives the more recent cases that suggest a more objective measure of viewpoint-neutrality. 39 Whatever the Court's language in recent cases, the Court's actions are both more telling and more binding than any mere dicta. And the motive language in earlier cases cannot be dismissed as mere dicta because the Court in Cornelius remanded the case to determine whether the speech restriction at issue was impermissibly motivated by a desire to suppress a particular point of view. 473 U.S. at 812-13, 105 S.Ct. at 3454. Nonetheless, we view the present case as distinguishable from these prior precedents because the Court never considered a content-neutral speech restriction like Rule 13. Rather, the Court's concern about motivation arose only in cases where the Court was considering speech restrictions that explicitly discriminated on the basis of content. 40 Motive becomes keenly relevant in cases that involve content discrimination because the line between viewpoints and subjects is such an elusive one. Because subject matter discrimination is clearly constitutional in nonpublic fora, see Perry, 460 U.S. at 49, classifying a particular viewpoint as a subject rather than as a viewpoint on a subject will justify discrimination against the viewpoint. This inherent manipulability of the line between subject and viewpoint has forced courts to scrutinize carefully any content-based discrimination. See Airline Pilots Ass'n v. Department of Aviation, 45 F.3d 1144, 1159-60 (7th Cir. 1995) (warning courts against retreating to an exaggerated level of generality when examining content-based regulations). Courts thus have struggled, for example, with the issue of whether religious discussion should be categorized as a subject (and therefore excludable from a nonpublic forum) or as a viewpoint (and therefore constitutionally protected). See Rosenberger, 115 S. Ct. at 2517-18; Grossbaum I, 63 F.3d at 589-92. The Supreme Court faced a similar issue in Cornelius where it was understandably dubious of the argument that excluding all advocacy groups, regardless of political orientation, from a government charity drive was just subject matter discrimination rather than viewpoint discrimination. 473 U.S. at 811-12. Because the government was distinguishing among groups based on the content of their messages (either advocacy or nonadvocacy), the Court remanded the case to see whether the government was really targeting certain viewpoints. 41 Where, however, the government enacts a content-neutral speech regulation for a nonpublic forum, there is no concern that the regulation is in reality a facade for viewpoint based discrimination, Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 811. Whatever the intent of the government actors, all viewpoints will be treated equally because the regulation makes no distinctions based on the communicative nature or impact of the speech. A facade for viewpoint discrimination, in short, requires discrimination behind the facade (i.e., some viewpoint must be disadvantaged relative to other viewpoints). Courts do have a hard call to make when they review content-based speech regulations because the government could be shutting out some viewpoints by labeling them as subjects. Motive may thus be a vital piece of evidence that courts must use to judge the viewpoint-neutrality of the regulation. When the government restricts speech in a content-neutral fashion, however, all viewpoints -- from the Boy Scouts to the Hare Krishnas -- receive the exact same treatment. 10 42 Indeed, the Supreme Court suggested in Capitol Square that content-neutral regulations are free from motive inquiries even in public forum cases. The Court there considered the denial of a permit to the Ku Klux Klan for the erection of a Latin cross in a public forum, even after the government had granted permission for a Christmas tree and a menorah to be displayed. Eight members of the Court joined behind the proposition that the State of Ohio could ban all unattended private displays in [the forum] if it so desired. Capitol Square, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 115 S. Ct. at 2457 (Souter, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); see also id. at 2446; id. at 2467-68 (Stevens, J., dissenting). This proposed course of action would seem impossible, however, if Ohio's undisputed desire to keep the Klan off of government property would be sufficient to establish viewpoint discrimination. And if eight justices thought Ohio was free, even after it had discriminated against the Klan, to ban all private displays in a public forum, then the Building Authority a fortiori should have the same freedom to prohibit all private displays in its nonpublic forum. 11 43 In sum, content-neutral speech regulations in nonpublic fora pass constitutional muster regardless of motive for the same reason that retaliation claims are inoperative against generally applicable rules. When a government body acts at a sufficiently high level of generality, there is no need for courts to search the minds of government actors for invidious motives that might indicate unconstitutional discriminatory effect. And it is this unconstitutional effect that ultimately matters. [A] facially neutral government action that does not in fact . . . violate anyone's constitutional rights or any constitutional principle . . . should not be rendered unconstitutional, or even suspect, just by virtue of the factors considered by, or the attitudes or intentions held by, the public officials responsible for that action . . . . Tribe, supra, at 28-29; cf. Kagan, supra, at 505-17. 44 Moreover, we are mindful of Judge Easterbrook's observation that real world actors such as the Building Authority need ex ante guidance from our decisions, not just ex post judicial critiques: 45 People are entitled to know the legal rules before they act, and only the most compelling reason should lead a court to announce an approach under which no one can know where he stands until litigation has been completed. Litigation is costly and introduces risk into any endeavor; we should struggle to eliminate the risk and help people save the costs. Unless some obstacle such as inexperience with the subject, a dearth of facts, or a vacuum in the statute books intervenes, we should be able to attach legal consequences to recurrent factual patterns. 46 Secretary of Labor v. Lauritzen, 835 F.2d 1529, 1539 (7th Cir. 1987) (Easterbrook, J., concurring). The past year of litigation, the more than 900 pages of depositions fishing for an inculpatory admission by the Building Authority, and the thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on legal expenses for this case only underscore the point. This motive game is not worth the candle. 47 The only possible issue remaining is whether Rule 13 is reasonable in light of the purposes served by the City-County Building lobby. Although Lubavitch did not explicitly challenge Rule 13 on reasonableness grounds separate from its viewpoint discrimination claim, Lubavitch clearly did argue that the unreasonableness of Rule 13 was evidence that the Building Authority's motives were pretextual. Assuming for the sake of argument that this was sufficient to raise the reasonableness issue, we are confident that the District Court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Lubavitch's motion for a preliminary injunction. The Government's decision to restrict access to a nonpublic forum need only be reasonable; it need not be the most reasonable or the only reasonable limitation. Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 808. The District Court found a number of reasonable justifications for the new Rule 13, 909 F. Supp. at 1205, 1207, 1209-10, and all are well within the bounds of what rational basis scrutiny permits. 48 In closing, nothing in this opinion should be construed as undermining Lubavitch's hardfought success in its previous appeal to this court. Lubavitch clearly struck a blow for the freedom of speech when it challenged the Building Authority's earlier policy that discriminated against religious displays. Lubavitch's prior victory against the Building Authority does not, however, give Lubavitch immunity against all subsequent Building Authority actions that, although nondiscriminatory, happen to be disadvantageous to Lubavitch. 49 The decision of the District Court to deny preliminary injunctive relief is AFFIRMED.