Court Opinion

ID: 9479904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:32:03.479052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:21.164696
License: Public Domain

STEPHEN F. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the court’s invalidation of WMATA’s requirement of a permit for any “free speech” activity, but believe the result can be reached by a far easier path, without getting into the thicket of “public forum” jurisprudence. As to the other restrictions on First Amendment activity, I agree with the majority that these need to be remanded to the district court, although I would also remand the “conversational tone” restriction.
I. The Permit Requirement
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority requires a permit for all “free speech activities” in the above-ground areas of its stations. Regulations Concerning the Use By Others of The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Property (“WMATA Regulations”), § 100.10(b). It defines “free speech activity]” as “the organized exercise of rights and privileges which deal with political, religious, or social matters and are noncommercial.” Id. at § 100.7(h). Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Board of Airport Comm’rs v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569, 107 S.Ct. 2568, 96 L.Ed.2d 500 (1987), invalidating a ban on all “First Amendment activities” within Los Angeles International Airport, the permit system cannot stand.
The differences between the two sets of regulations do not justify a different outcome. The WMATA regulation’s scope is slightly narrower, as it applies only to the “organized exercise of rights_” WMA-TA suggests that therefore it covers only “persons who are engaged in a plan or pattern of conduct that is intended to propagate a point of view on political, religious, or social matters to bystanders.” WMATA Reply Brief at 18. But limiting the permit requirement to those who proselytize still leaves it applicable to much of the sort of conduct that persuaded the Court to find the Los Angeles regulation facially over-broad, such as “the wearing of a T-shirt or button that contains a political message.” See 482 U.S. at 576, 107 S.Ct. at 2573. While WMATA might invoke the adjective “organized” to exclude the lone actor from coverage (thus allowing the lone wearer of a T-shirt or button), it makes no claim that solos are exempt; for instance, it asserts (and strenuously defends) coverage of a lone protester with a placard.
Second, WMATA has imposed only a license requirement, not an outright ban. But this is not enough to save it. Just as the Court in Board of Airport Comm’rs found that “no conceivable governmental *1397interest would justify such an absolute prohibition” of nondisruptive speech, id. at 575, 107 S.Ct. at 2572, there can be none that would justify requiring the lone button wearer to go to WMATA’s office for a permit. Accordingly, here as there, the regulation must be found overbroad regardless of whether the areas covered are any kind of a public forum.
WMATA, as had the airport in Board of Airport Comm’rs, started from the wrong end of the problem. Instead of identifying problem conduct, it started with the entire universe of free speech activity and then applied some limitations. As a result, it swept up far more speech than posed any real concern.
Unnecessarily, the majority embarks on an application of the several public forum categories — “traditional public forum,” “designated public forum,” and government property that is not a public forum at all. While these play a role in constitutional assessment of content-based restrictions, see, e.g., Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators’ Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 46, 103 S.Ct. 948, 955, 74 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983), they are of “limited utility" for evaluating time, place, and manner regulations. City Council v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 815 n. 32, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 2134 n. 32, 80 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984). In each of the three categories limits of time, place, and manner must be reasonable. See Perry, 460 U.S. at 45-46, 103 S.Ct. at 954-55. Restrictions qualify as such if they “are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.” Id. at 45, 103 S.Ct. at 955. The first requirement is merely definitional, excluding content-based restrictions. The substantive standards, expressed as the second and third prongs, are applied in every forum. See, e.g., Clark v. CCNV, 468 U.S. 288, 293, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 3069, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984) (applying test in Lafayette Park, a traditional public forum); Heffron v. Int’l Soc. for Krishna Consc., 452 U.S. 640, 647-48, 655, 101 S.Ct. 2559, 2563-64, 2567, 69 L.Ed.2d 298 (1981) (applying test in a “limited public forum”); Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. at 808, 812, 813-15, 104 S.Ct. at 2130, 2132, 2133 (applying test despite finding that property was not a public forum); Gannett Satellite Inf. Net. v. Metro Transp. Auth., 745 F.2d 767, 772-73 (2nd Cir.1984) (applying three-part test after finding public areas of MTA stations not to be public forum); United States v. Bjerke, 796 F.2d 643, 650-51 (3rd Cir.1986) (upholding regulation that “reasonably advances the governmental interest” and leaves open “alternative areas ... for communication” after holding post office walkways not to be public forum); cf. Hale v. Department of Energy, 806 F.2d 910, 916-17 (9th Cir.1986) (holding nuclear test site not public forum and finding regulation reasonable in light of safety and national security interests and because of existence of alternative channels of communication); but see United States v. Belsky, 799 F.2d 1485, 1489 (11th Cir.1986).1 See also Daniel A. Farber and John E. Nowak, The Misleading Nature of Public Forum Analysis: Content and Context in First Amendment Adjudication, 70 Va.L. Rev. 1219, 1239 (1984) (“Essentially the same test applies to all content neutral regulations regardless of the nature of the forum, as the Court’s opinion in [Taxpayers for Vincent] indicates.”); but see Geoffrey R. Stone, Content-Neutral Restrictions, 54 U.Chi.L.Rev. 46, 90 (1987) (“it seems clear to me that the Court does indeed apply different standards of review to public forums and nonpublic forums.”).2
*1398Parenthetically, I note that even if the test for time, place and manner restrictions varied perceptibly as between forum types, the cases do not suggest that the typology has served the purpose of helpfully structuring analysis of such restrictions. First, the decisions allocating spaces among the categories are not easily reconciled. See, for example, Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298, 94 S.Ct. 2714, 41 L.Ed.2d 770 (1974) (advertising spaces on interior of buses are not public forum); Gannett Satellite Inf. Net. v. Metro Transp. Auth., 745 F.2d at 773 (public areas of MTA stations are not public forum); Moskowitz v. Cullman, 432 F.Supp. 1263, 1266 (D.N.J.1977) (PATH subway stations are public forum); cf. Lebron v. WMATA, 749 F.2d 893, 896 (D.C.Cir.1984) (advertising spaces in subway were converted into designated public forum by subway’s acceptance of political advertising). See also U.S. S.W. Africa/Namibia Trade & Cult. Coun. v. U.S., 708 F.2d 760, 764-66 (D.C. Cir.1983) (display areas in National and Dulles airports are public forum); Jamison v. City of St. Louis, 828 F.2d 1280, 1283 (8th Cir.1987) (collecting cases holding airports to be public forums); Note, Public Forum Analysis after Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators’ Association, 54 Ford.L.Rev. 545, 548 (1986) (collecting cases dealing with other governmental properties).
Second, once made, the classification does not seem to clearly determine the outcome. Either formulation of the substantive standard — whether the three-part reasonableness test for public forums or the allegedly less stringent one for nonfo-rums — involves a rather open-ended balancing of factors. Thus, agreement that a space is, for example, a traditional public forum does not produce consistent results. Compare United States v. Kokinda, 866 F.2d 699 (4th Cir.1989) (holding post office sidewalks are public forums and striking down prohibition on soliciting contributions), cert. granted, - U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 47, 107 L.Ed.2d 16 (1989), with National Anti-Drug Coalition, Inc. v. Bolger, 737 F.2d 717 (7th Cir.1984) (assuming that post office sidewalks are public forums but upholding same regulation). Moreover, in striking the reasonableness balance courts inevitably reweigh the very factors that decided the public forum issue in the first place. Compare Kokinda, 866 F.2d at 702-03 with id. at 704, and Bjerke, 796 F.2d at 649 with id. at 650, 651.
In fact, the evaluation of time, place and manner restrictions at any location is basically an assessment of the compatibility of the forbidden speech with the government’s interests in the space. “The crucial question is whether the manner of expression is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time.” Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 116, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2303, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972); see also Wright v. Chief of Transit Police, 558 F.2d 67, 68 n. 1 (2nd Cir.1977) (“Whether or not a particular forum is a ‘public forum’ akin to a public street is merely a variant of the ‘compelling interest’ test.”); cf. Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828, 843, 96 S.Ct. 1211, 1220, 47 L.Ed.2d 505 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring) (content-based restriction should be judged on whether excluded speech is incompatible with government’s interest in area); id. at 859-60, 96 S.Ct. at 1227-28 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (similar). Judicial review can fully reflect the details of context without use of the public forum categories. See, for example, the analyses of time, place and manner restrictions in Heffron, 452 U.S. at 649-55, 101 S.Ct. at 2564-68; Clark v. CCNV, 468 U.S. 288, 104 S.Ct. 3065, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984); White House Vigil for the ERA Committee v. Clark, 746 F.2d 1518 (D.C.Cir.1984).
The unnecessary confusion deepens when a court (as here) applies the “designated ” public forum doctrine to time, place and manner restrictions. That doctrine operates usefully as a kind of equal protection doctrine for free speech: once the government opens a forum, it cannot exclude speech because of its content without “compelling” reasons. See, e.g., Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 268, 102 S.Ct. 269, 274, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981) (university that provides space to accommodate meetings of student groups may not ex-*1399elude on basis of content of intended speech in absence of compelling state interest); but see Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 473 U.S. 788, 803-06, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3449-51, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985) (government reservation of discretionary content-based control over access indicates lack of intent to designate as public forum). Not surprisingly, every Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit case that has invoked the designated public forum doctrine to strike down a regulation has involved content-based restrictions. See Widmar; Madison School District v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 429 U.S. 167, 175, 97 S.Ct. 421, 426, 50 L.Ed.2d 376 (1976) (school teachers who wish to discuss controversial labor relations issues may not be excluded from school board meetings); Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 555, 95 S.Ct. 1239, 1245, 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975) (public theater, which was a “public forum designed for and dedicated to expressive activities,” could not veto performance of the musical “Hair” without meeting heavy burden of justification); Lebron v. WMATA, 749 F.2d 893 (D.C.Cir.1984) (WMATA could not refuse particular political advertisement when it had accepted other political advertising in the past).
But time, place, and manner restrictions call for no such heightened scrutiny. Among the oddities of the court’s analysis here is that it invokes WMATA’s forebearance from any ad hoc content-based restrictions as a basis for imposing a stricter test on its time, place and manner rules. Maj.Op. at 1391. WMATA should not depart from this litigation sorry for ever having opened its premises to speech without discrimination as to content. Such a result would "deter officials from making generous concessions” to accommodate free expression, Knolls Action Project v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab., 771 F.2d 46, 49 (2nd Cir.1985), and would ill serve the First Amendment.
If it were necessary to determine whether the ground-level areas of WMATA’s stations were a “designated” public forum, circuit precedent would require a set of factual findings that the majority skips. In Stewart v. District of Columbia Armory Board, 863 F.2d 1013 (D.C.Cir.1988), this court held that the question of whether RFK Stadium was a designated public forum could not be decided “in the absence of a factual record.” Id. at 1018. As the court noted, “[t]he forum doctrine itself is not a taxonomy of ideal types; it is virtually impossible in most cases to identify a public forum by legal inquiry alone, confined to the intrinsic nature of government actions or purposes.” Id. See also Searcey v. Crim, 815 F.2d 1389, 1392 (11th Cir.1987); National Anti-Drug Coalition, Inc. v. Bolger, 737 F.2d 717, 722-23 (7th Cir.1984). In Stewart, accordingly, we required findings as to the primary purpose of the government in operating the property, the compatibility of that purpose with expressive activity, and any consistent pattern of such activity on the property. 863 F.2d at 1019.
Here neither the judge below nor the majority makes any such findings. The only material facts found by the district judge were “the existence of the WMATA Regulation and the applicability of that Regulation.” CCNV v. Turner, 714 F.Supp. 29, 32 (D.D.C.1989).3 Even the Plaintiff’s Statement of Material Facts Not In Dispute does not address the Stewart factors. The majority’s conclusion on the designated public forum issue is supported only by the bare assertion that “by promulgating the Regulation and its predecessor regulation, WMATA has indicated an intent to open these areas to a wide range of free speech activities.” Maj.Op. at 1391. Indeed, if the designated public forum finding has in fact affected the majority’s decision, WMATA’s imposition of time, place and manner restrictions is invalid either because it failed to enact more severe time, place and manner restrictions, or, perhaps more startling, because it failed to make content-based choices among groups or individuals. See id.
*1400A final note on the disposition of the permit requirement. I believe the majority also errs in looking only to the regulated area for alternative channels of communication. Id. at 1393. For example the majority weighs against the regulation the facts that “[tjhere are no WMATA areas not covered by the permit,” and that “[tjhere is no intra-forum alternative.” Id. The Supreme Court takes a broader view. In examining restrictions on public fairgrounds, for example, it looked to the entire area outside the grounds (“anywhere”). Heffron, 452 U.S. at 654-55, 101 S.Ct. at 2567-68; see also National Anti-Drug Coalition, Inc. 737 F.2d at 727-28 (looking to “municipal sidewalks surrounding and/or adjacent to postal property” as an alternative channel of communication). Restricting the inquiry to “intra-forum” alternatives represents a new and unjustified limitation on the alternative channels test. As with the public forum issue, moreover, there is no need to address the question of alternative channels, for the permit requirement is both fatally overbroard under Board of Airport Comm’rs and (the same thing in different words) defective for want of “narrow tailoring” under the test for time, place and manner restrictions.
II. Other Regulations
I largely agree with the majority’s disposition on the other regulations. Section 100.10(e), which limits “the number of persons,” must fall for the same reason as the permit requirement, although again my reasoning would follow Board of Airport Comm’rs. With respect to the prohibitions found in § 100.10(g), I concur in the majority’s remand to the district court to develop a better factual record, but would include in the remand the ban on communications not in a “conversational tone.” While vagueness claims are often conceived as pure issues of law, they are not wholly so, as is made clear by the Court’s decision in Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 111-12, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 2300-01, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972), upholding a ban on “making a noise or diversion that disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order” of a school session, and relying on the school context. Moreover, the parties have not briefed the issue. Certainly some limiting constructions of the “conversational tone” clause are possible, even compelled. It surely prohibits only expressions in volumes exceeding a conversational tone; i.e., it does not prohibit whispers. Cf. id. (relying on state court interpretation that ban was limited to imminent threats to peace or good order). Thus, to secure the benefit of the fact-gathering that is in any event necessary for review of the other clauses, and the parties’ assistance on such legal issues as the proper construction, I would remand this issue as well.
Accordingly, I concur in the judgment that WMATA’s permit system violates the First Amendment and in the remand to the district court.

. The Belsky decision suggests that the reasonableness test is weaker in areas that are not a public forum, primarily in omitting any least-restrictive-alternative analysis. But in fact no such analysis is applied even in a public forum. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, - U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 2757-58, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989).

. Dean Stone points to the different outcomes, for example, in United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 103 S.Ct. 1702, 75 L.Ed.2d 736 (1983) (invalidating ban of displays of flags, etc. on sidewalk surrounding Supreme Court), and Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828, 96 S.Ct. 1211, 47 L.Ed.2d 505 (1976) (upholding ban of political speeches on military base), but the specific governmental interests at stake — preserving the appearance of impartiality of the Court versus maintaining security and morale on a military base — were *1398radically different in the two cases and seem an ample explanation of the outcomes.