Court Opinion

ID: 9459126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:11:28.032054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:02.016983
License: Public Domain

LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:.
I concur in the affirmance of the District Court’s judgment, construed as provided in our judgment today, as in our judgment of December 10, 1971, so that the application of plaintiff Women Strike for Peace to erect a temporary display “adjacent to that occupied by the Christmas Pageant of Peace . . . in the general vicinity of the other displays” is satisfied by a location within the Ellipse area broadly defined, but not within the “central circular area” occupied by the Christmas Pageant of Peace.
The Government’s park-use regulations, as they pertain to this case, are unconstitutionally discriminatory and overbroad. They are invalid insofar as they (a) wholly and at all times disable groups such as Women Strike for Peace (WSP) from erecting display structures while according that “privilege” to “NPS Events” — -sponsored or co-sponsored by the National Park Service — such as the Christmas Pageant of Peace (CPP) and (b) otherwise contemplate blanket preemption of park land in favor of NPS Events in cases of simultaneous proposals for park-use by an NPS Event and a non-NPS Event. In the absence of regulations that are narrowly drawn and contain articulated criteria for distinguishing, on an objective basis, those who may and may not erect structures, that avoid the constitutional disability of determining park land use through censorship, WSP is entitled to court relief protecting its right to use park lands, and to include displays thereon, limited to avoidance of interference with the display erected annually by the Christmas Pageant for Peace.
It will be evident that my views coincide in large part with Judge Wright’s. However, there is a difference between *1295us as to the appropriate decree. Moreover, his opinion paints First Amendment freedoms with a broader brush than I us?, some might say a freer stroke. His opinion reflects a reorientation of First Amendment analysis. This may be sound, but it requires additional thought that I think unnecessary for the case at hand. Thus, Judge Wright points out shortcomings in the concept of pure speech as distinguished from speech-plus-action. If that distinction is taken as a philosophical absolute, it is beset with shortcomings; if it is taken as shorthand, its imperfections may be no greater than those often encountered in the use of principled judicial doctrine for regjilating the affairs of men. Structures on park land, even though temporary, are within the reach of freedom of communications, but they may have the kind of extra ingredient added to the message that goes beyond Tinker’s armband or Stromberg’s flag and permits appropriate government regulation.
I.
The Park Service regulations challenged in A Quaker Action Group v. Morton, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 346, 460 F.2d 854 (D. C.Cir.1971), were issued following the same administrative proceeding that led to the adoption of the regulations challenged here. The court of the prior litigation of this case and Quaker Action is adequately set forth in Judge Wright’s opinion and I need not retrace it here.
In Quaker Action we remanded to the District Court for an evidentiary hearing into the reasonableness of numerical restrictions, put forward in the interests of Presidential safety, on the size of White House demonstrations. In the case at bar, there is no need for further proceedings. The content of Park Service policies has been clarified and embodied in its regulations.1 The exposure shows they are unconstitutional.
in substance, the Park Service regulations come down to this: WSP’s use of the Ellipse and other local park land under Park Service jurisdiction is curtailed as to permissible display, because it does not enjoy government sponsorship as an “NPS Event.” That regulation falls squarely within the ambit of those cases that condemn, as an invalid prior restraint, an official regulatory scheme that empowers regulatory officials to pick and choose among those seeking to use public facilities for communicative activity, without providing narrowly drawn standards for the exercise of official discretion. The doctrine applies both to programs that operate through an informal practice, Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268, 71 S.Ct. 325, 95 L.Ed. 267 (1951), and to formal licensing procedures, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 89 S.Ct. 935, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969), Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 71 S.Ct. 312, 95 L.Ed. 280 (1951). A selection on the basis of unarticulated nonapparent criteria from among those applying for facilities for communicative activity amounts to a discriminatory denial to those not selected of constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of expression and of equal protection. Niemotko v. Maryland, supra, 340 U.S. at 272, 71 S.Ct. 325. They harbor the prospect of censorship.
The vitality of these decisions and the underlying principles is underscored by Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972). Noting the close intertwining of equal protection and First Amendment interests in these cases, the Court stated: “[ Government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views. * * * Selective exclusions from a public forum may not be based on content alone, and may not *1296be justified by reference to content alone.” And to the extent that discrimination is necessary to further significant governmental interests, the discrimina-tions made by the regulation must be narrowly tailored to serve a substantial governmental interest. The Court said:
We have continually recognized that reasonable “time, place and manner” regulations of picketing may be necessary to further significant governmental interests. * * * Conflicting demands on the same place may compel the State to make choices among potential users and uses. And the State may have a legitimate interest in prohibiting some picketing to protect public order. But these justifications for selective exclusions from a public forum must be carefully scrutinized. Because picketing plainly involves expressive conduct within the protection of the First Amendment, . . . discriminations among picketers must be tailored to serve a substantial governmental interest. * * The Equal Protection Clause requires that statutes affecting First Amendment interests be narrowly tailored to their legitimate objectives. (408 U.S. at 98, 92 S.Ct. at 2291, citations omitted.)
The regulations before us 2 do not contain standards narrowly enough drawn, indeed they do not contain any standards at all. Nowhere in the regulations are there criteria for determining what groups are to receive “NPS” designation. The comments of the Secretary of the Interior proposing the regulations that were, in essence, adopted, suggest that “NPS” designation may very well be restricted in advance to certain enumerated events.3 While this presentation noted *1297that the particular events listed were deemed in harmony with basic park purposes, this was both stated in a concluso-ry way and not carried over into any governmental requirement.
The regulation restricting display structures provides, see 36 CFR 50.19 (c):
(c) Speaker’s stands or platforms may be erected where needed, as adjuncts to any permitted public gathering, except on the White House sidewalk; but no other structures (including billboards, displays, etc.) may be erected on park lands except in connection with NPS events. All such structures shall be erected as inconspicuously as possible, and with least possible damage to basic National Park System values, and shall be dismantled as soon as practicable after conclusion of the public gathering.
Looking at the Secretary’s comments in support of the display structure restriction4 and assuming, arguendo, that there is some support in the Secretary’s *1298“park expertise” for his conclusion that structures on park land are generally undesirable (“inevitably causes injuries to basic park values”), there is no comparable support for his conclusion that structures other than speakers’ stands and platforms have only minimal relation to the “communication value of the first amendment freedoms.” Again, assuming support in park expertise for his conclusion that “messages” in display structures hinder enjoyment of parks (“cause great injury to the people’s enjoyment of beautiful, unblemished, reposeful and uncluttered park areas”), the Secretary seems to have failed in full acceptance of the proposition that in a free society, park values as a whole are not properly in opposition to, but rather embrace, the values of freedom of communication. Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 515, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423 (1939); Women Strike for Peace v. Hickel, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 29, 32, 420 F.2d 597, 600 (1969). And finally there can be no support in terms of his own limited concept of “basic park values,” a concept apparently considered not to embrace communicative use of parks, for the distinctions he draws in terms of deciding when these basic park values are to be overborne by some higher good (because the event is NPS-sponsored), and when there is no offsetting good (because there is only a request for freedom to communicate in a cause that has not been decreed to merit NPS sponsorship). In the last analysis, all that is presented to us is an inchoate ipse dixit, without accompanying criteria, that NPS-sponsored events are deemed to have “supervening park purposes.” More than this is necessary to justify the restrictive regulations. See Quaker Action, supra, 148 U.S.App.D.C. at 355, 460 F.2d at 863.
The legal vice of discrimination is accompanied by one of overbreadth, and resulting invalidity, insofar as the regulation provides for preemption of park land in favor of NPS events, 36 CFR ’50.19(b), without the requirement of a showing either that limited simultaneous use by another group would threaten interference with the NPS Event, or that such use would unduly compromise the Park Service’s responsibility to maintain the parks as recreational facilities for the public at large ’ as well as loci for communicative activity by individuals and groups.
II.
Under the doctrine of United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 88 S.Ct. 419 (1967) and United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 88 S.Ct. 1673 (1968), an incidental restriction on First Amendment activities may be justified
if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.
United States v. O’Brien, supra, 391 U. S. at 377, 88 S.Ct. at 1679.
Judge Wright’s opinion suggests that the conventional approach to such First Amendment cases, of differentiating protected “expression” from unprotected “action,” should and indeed may be giving way to a new First Amendment theory, a more or less explicit interest-balancing theory in which communicative activities will be protected in inverse though indefinite proportion to the “societal costs” that stem from the activities. And Judge Wright goes on to conclude from his own examination that there is no nexus such as the Government alleges between the erection of the WSP display and substantial governmental interests (153 U.S.App.D.C.-, 472 F.2d at 1289).
My own approach would be to say that I have no basis for rejecting the possibil*1299ity of a nexus between structures on park land and governmental interest in serenity of park use.
I understand Judge Wright to conclude that the Government’s claim of nexus, that structures impair park values, is undercut by its permission for CPP structures. If I understand correctly what the Government officials have said, they recognize that' even CPP structures impair park values. It is just that they think this impairment is offset by higher values. The overbreadth of the regulations that permits them to derive such offset is offensive, and unconstitutional, but it does not undercut the notion that structures impair park values.
The point is, however, that a regulation vidicating the nexus must be narrowly drawn, with articulated criteria, to avoid possibility of censorship. I certainly would not be disposed to envisage a ruling that condemned evenhanded regulations that permitted demonstration activity in parks generally, but barred them in a few park areas selected for primeval park purposes. I might further conclude that a regulation might validly prohibit all display structures, as imposing especially severe burdens on park values.5
Communicative activity on park land, though important, particularly so here at the seat of the Nation’s government, Quaker Action, supra, 148 U.S.App.D.C. at 351, 460 F.2d at 859, is nonetheless only one of a number of interests that must be accommodated, in a proper system of park governance, social, cultural and recreational. But those problems are not before us. I mention them to highlight the limited nature of our action in this case.
III.
This ease requires consideration of the Government’s fail-back position, that the display structure and preemption regulations are sustainable as applied in this case, that a simultaneous WSP display would have been unacceptable “interference” with the CPP displays. “Conflicting demands on the same place may compel the State to make choices among potential users and uses,” Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, supra, 408 U.S. 92, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972).
It is the Government’s premise (Br. 68) that the presence of the WSP display anywhere on the Ellipse would have introduced
a jarring, strident, politically partisan factor into what has always been— since the inception of the Christmas Pageant of Peace in 1954 — a nonpartisan and nonpolitical National Celebra-tional Event.
The Government’s characterization of CPP as “nonpartisan and nonpolitical” does not stand up, as is demonstrated by Judge Wright’s discussion, supra at 1291.
There is an “interference” question, apart from the partisan/nonpartisan issue, and this is given needed context by adverting to the actual dimensions of the Ellipse area. The total area involved is a rectangle, some three city blocks long and two city blocks wide. Its focal point (the “central circular area”) is a large, generally elliptical area immediately south of the White House lawn. The sides and corners of the rectangle bound five smaller areas separated from the central circular area by access roadways. It appears that during the course of the CPP, its displays usually account for somewhat more than half of the area within the central circular area. Apparently no CPP displays are erected in the outlying areas.6
At our behest the District Court held an evidentiary hearing on the question of interference. Its relevant findings are as follows:
“10. There is physical space for the simultaneous inclusion of both plaintiff’s *1300display and the Christmas Pageant of Peace display on the Ellipse, both inside the central circular area and outside of that area.
11. Plaintiff anticipates that most of those viewing its display will be persons already drawn to the Ellipse by the Christmas Pageant of Peace.
“12. Plaintiff anticipates a token number of its members (approximately 10) to be in attendance at the display at various times.
“13. Plaintiff’s members do not propose to engage in any vocal or other related activity of persuasion at the display site but propose to simply stand by the display.
“14. There is ready access to the Ellipse from both the Constitution Avenue side and the E Street side. Visitors may enter the area from four directions and proceed to the display. Whether plaintiff’s display be inside or outside the circular area of the Ellipse, its presence on the Ellipse during the 1971 Christmas season would not physically interfere with the visitor’s access to the Ellipse for viewing of the Christmas Pageant of Peace.
“15. If plaintiff’s display were placed adjacent to the Christmas Pageant display it would be perceived by most people as part of a unified theme of peace.
“16. Only those persons who are especially politically sensitive will view the plaintiff’s proposed display other than as part of the general theme of peace. Such politically sensitive people will in all likelihood constitute only a small minority of all people who will visit the Ellipse during the Christmas season.
“17. If plaintiff’s display were placed in the central circular area of the Ellipse in close proximity to the Christmas Pageant display the public coming to visit the Christmas Pageant of Peace might erroneously consider the plaintiff as a cosponsor for the entire Christmas program on the Ellipse or vice versa — thus creating confusion. If plaintiff’s display were placed outside the central area the possibility of confusion would be minimal.
“18. Any confusion created by placing plaintiff’s display in the central circular area of the Ellipse would not constitute a significant interference with the 1971 Christmas Pageant of Peace and if plaintiff’s display were placed on the Ellipse outside the central circular area no interference would be created.
“19. Upon consideration of all of the evidence this Court finds that there would be no significant interference with the 1971 Christmas Pageant of Peace if permission were granted for plaintiff’s proposal for a public gathering and structure on the Ellipse during the 1971 Christmas season.
The Government’s fear was that the introduction of the WSP display of antiwar sentiment would have interfered with the enjoyment of the park area of those who came to see the Pageant of Peace. The pertinent findings of the District Court (17 and 18) may usefully be rearranged as follows: (a) If WSP’s display were in the central circular area, where the Christmas Pageant of Peace is held, the public coming to visit that Pageant might be confused, and assume both displays were sponsored by the same group. However, any confusion so created “would not constitute a significant interference” with the Pageant, (b) If the display were placed inside the large Ellipse area, but outside the circular area, the possibility of confusion would be minimal, and no interference would be created.
The findings set forth in (b) above are clearly supported in the record, and support our judgment permitting WSP to maintain its display at the same time as the Christmas Pageant, but outside the circular area.
A more difficult question is presented by the claim that WSP should be permitted to present its display within the central circular area. That requires analysis of the findings summarized in (a). The District Judge recognized that an imme*1301diately adjacent location for WSP would cause confusion and apparently recognized that any WSP location within the circular area might cause confusion, as to the separateness of the two displays. Finding No. 17. But relying on the testimony of WSP’s psychologist-witness, he concluded that such confusion would not amount to significant interference with CPP displays. Finding No. 18.
Judge Wright’s opinion builds on these findings as “not clearly erroneous.” I am not prepared to accept these findings, on the record before us, as a basis for holding plaintiffs are constitutionally entitled to a display within the circular area containing the Christmas Pageant displays.
The only record support is the testimony of the psychologist-witness whose conclusion, that no interference would occur, is based on a theory of human perception mechanisms. In part this approach was derived from studies of how people of varying backgrounds and experience react to laboratory displays of groups of lines and dots.7
I do not think that constitutional issues, dependent on balancing of claims, can be conclusively resolved on the testimony of a single expert, even one holding special qualifications in that domain of psychology that deals with perception states and psycho-physical judgments.8
The application of the principles of psychology to specific problems requires *1302knowledge and understanding of particular conditions, and the trier of fact must necessarily make some evaluation of the witness’s judgment concerning those matters. The witness himself emphasized that in addition to the “structural” determinants of perception, there are “personal influences” of the spectators (“our own needs, our wishes, our prior experience”) and social influences (dependent on their “social situation”). Yet the witness’s conclusion that the WSP display of gravestones, put inside the circular area where the Christmas Pageant is presented, would be responded to “in terms of a total exhibit” was predicated almost entirely on the “structural factors which define how we organize our perceptions” — that “a part of something is integrated into the whole.” He concluded that the structural factors “would operate to resolve any potential psychological conflict” between the WSP display and the Christmas Pageant; that due to the “massive stimuli” the essentially disparate elements would be organized and integrated in the “unity around the theme of peace;” that only for a “small minority” of politically “sensitized” visitors would there be a personal factor of perception that would discern a political overtone to the display (J.A. 162-65).
With all respect, this testimony must be taken as enhancing insight, not controlling outcome. Insofar as it brings forward relevant principles of perception, it is useful. It also makes a contribution in emphasizing a general structural tendency toward integration of stimuli. On the other hand, I find it disturbing that the witness did not specifically address himself to the issue of how the weight of the structural influence is affected when large out-of-doors stimuli are involved. This is a different point from that involved in his assertion that his research in tactile stimuli had application to visual stimuli, because “the same general principles of perception would hold in any modality” (J.A. 152). My point is that, in any modality, differences in scale may make for differences in kind. Even an untutored layman is aware that mico- and macro- applications are likely to present special problems. There is at least a question whether the organizing and integrating tendency may not be more powerful for line-and-dot configurations on a paper, than for displays so much more physically separated. The individual displays, to be described presently, are spread over an area that requires some walking from place to place — an area, of, say, 2-3 square blocks. There are some who drive by on the roadway, and gain an overall impression of lit-up trees without awareness of the content of the individual displays; presumably those passersby are not the audience in which WSP is interested. Since a person who comes to examine the displays on the Ellipse cannot view the displays together, at the same time, except at a distance, obviously there is at least a problem of perceptual integration, and I do not find this problem discussed by the witness.
What is more significant, the witness’s testimony does not mention, much less grapple with, the dynamics of the situation. We are not considering stimuli presented with neutral emphasis, as in a laboratory. What is involved are persons who are coming to this area, often from a considerable distance, for the express purpose of inspecting the much-heralded Pageant. Then they would be presented, in addition, with what must at least be described as a different kind of exhibit. The Christmas Pageant of Peace includes these segments: a Nativity scene, the National Christmas tree, an array of smaller trees presented by states and foreign nations, a reindeer display, and stage and bandstand for various speaking and musical presentations. The WSP proposed display consisted of several gravestones.
It seems to me significant that there are emotional aspects to the displays of both CPP and WSP that distinguish the perception problems from those involved in relatively abstract line-dot drawings. Indeed, unless I completely misunderstand what this case is all about, it is the *1303very purpose of WSP to present a display that will be different enough from the Christmas Pageant to make the spectator stop and reflect.9 To say that WSP’s stark gravestones would be taken by most passers-by as part of a single continuum with the Christmas Pageant seems to me so unlikely that I would require stronger proof than this record contains to lead me to override what I think are the dictates of common sense.
Fortunately, the question of whether a location for WSP on the central circular area would have been likely to cause interference presents a harder question than this appeal requires be answered. WSP did not specifically demand a location at any particular point. It asked for
an area on the Ellipse adjacent to that occupied by the Christmas Pageant of Peace. ... in the general vicinity of the other displays of the Christmas Pageant for Peace in order to provide the Women Strike for Peace display with the same police protection accorded to the Christmas Pageant for Peace. It is not the intention of the Women Strike for Peace that their display interfere with any scheduled event of the Christmas Pageant for Peace.
App. 132.
While this may not be what WSP had in mind, I conclude that on a balancing of interests the appropriate result is to satisfy WSP’s application by a location in the general Ellipse park area but outside the central circular area. From the exhibits and submissions before us, the conclusion of the District Court, that WSP would not threaten meaningful interference, is clearly supported in regard to a location for WSP on one of the outlying segments that is separated from the central circular area by access roadways.
This conclusion supports our affirmance of the District Court’s order, construed as entitling plaintiff to a location within the Ellipse but not necessarily within the “central circular area.”
On the record as it stands, I am not prepared to enjoin defendants, in implementing a policy of respecting plaintiff’s rights, but without undue interference to CPP, from prohibiting a WSP location within the central circular area at the same time as the Pageant for Peace.
IY.
At the end of the line we are left without a coherent framework of regulations, governing public gatherings in park areas subject to the jurisdiction of the National Park Service based on thorough and reflective consideration of park values, including First Amendment rights. The Department of the Interior has not shouldered the responsibility to provide discriminating, rather than discriminatory, park regulations. A forthcoming and careful exercise of administrative responsibility may serve to avoid administrative disarray.
Plaintiffs are, in my view, entitled to a continuing injunction restraining the enforcement of the regulations prohibiting structures on the Ellipse area, subject to the qualification that plaintiffs are not entitled to a display or structure that establishes interference, from the viewpoint of the large crowds brought to the area each Christmas by the Christmas Pageant for Peace, with their use and enjoyment of this Capital park area.
A passage in Judge Wright’s opinion (p. 1292) suggests that the prohibition of such interference is proper if there is “a precise and fairly administered regu*1304lation.” That there must be fairness in administration is plain enough. Whether there must be a precise regulation oil the subject of avoiding interference is another question. It would certainly be desirable, as avoiding any possible charge of indirect censorship. But I am not prepared to say that a regulation could not validly permit the Park Service officials to deny permits for any structures that would cause “interference” with the impact being communicated by structures already permitted.
In any event, this case has come to focus on the issue of whether or not there would be interference. I do not think the record as it stands requires rejection of an administrative determination that a WSP display within the circular area would constitute interference with CPP that would warrant denying a permit. However, in the absence of valid regulations, the defendants would stand enjoined from denying plaintiffs a permit on the mere ground that structures are prohibited for all activities other than NPS Events.

. In our first opinion in this case, Women Strike for Peace v. Hickel, 137 U.S.App.D.C. 29, 35, 420 F.2d 597, 603 (1969), we invited the Park Service
to define and announce a set of coherent park policies, clarifying the matters that are as yet unclear, and perhaps modifying the policies on further reflection as to the interaction of the . various interests properly taken into account.

. The Secretary of the Interior responded to our invitation, see note 1, supra, and issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, see 35 Fed.Reg. 11485, in which a number of regulations governing public gatherings in park areas were proposed. The proposed regulations were adopted substantially intact, see 35 Fed.Reg. 15393, et seq., so that 36 CFR now provides:
§ 50.19 Public gatherings.
(a) Definitions:
(1) The term “public gatherings” includes, but is not limited to, demonstrations, picketing, speechmaking, holding of vigils, parades, ceremonies, meetings, entertainment and all other forms of public assembly.
(4) The term “park areas” shall include all areas, including sidewalks adjacent thereto, other than the White House area, administered by National Capital Parks of the National Park Service.
(5) The term “NPS event” means any celebration, commemorative, or recreational event sponsored or cosponsored by the National Park Service.
(b) Public gatherings, other than NPS events, may be held only pursuant to a valid official permit issued in accordance with the provisions of this section. NPS events are excepted from the operation of this section. They will not require official permits; may be held in any park area or the White House area; and may preempt any such areas to the exclusion of other public gatherings.
(c) Speaker’s stands or platforms may be erected, where needed, as adjuncts to any permitted public gathering, except on the White House sidewalk; but no other structures (including billboards, displays, etc.) may be erected on park lands except in connection with NPS events. All such structures shall be erected as inconspicuously as possible, and with least possible damage to basic National Park System values, and shall be dismantled as soon as practicable after conclusion of the public gathering.
I offer that it is material to our consideration at this stage of whether the regulations are truly the product of “reflective consideration,” rather than administrative reflex, that they achieve precisely the same result — of totally excluding WSP’s small display while permitting much larger CPP displays — that we were unable to sanction when the case was last before us.

. See 35 Fed.Reg. 11490-91, 11492:
As for park areas having natural settings, the National Park Service considers its prime responsibility to be to preserve them in as unspoiled a state as possible. In general, activities which tend to interfere with the public’s enjoyment of their particularly appealing recreational-and-mental-health-restorative-values are not encouraged. Of course, the designation and mainte*1297nance of adequate recreational areas within these national park sites are considered essential incidents of proper public enjoyment of the park values.
Additionally, many park sites under National Capital Parks administration also function as city recreational play areas. In the particular areas reserved for outdoor athletics, the playing of baseball, tennis, softball games, etc.
Moreover, there are other park activities directly related to fulfillment of National Capital Parks responsibilities in administering an urban park system for Washington, D.C. These include sucli activities as the annual Folk Festival staged by the Smithsonian Institution, the annual Art Show staged by the District of Columbia, and the Summer-in-the-Parks program conducted by National Capital Parks itself. The Mall functions as a park adjunct to the National Art Gallery, and the various Smithsonian Institution museums. The cultural, educational and recreational purposes to which those civic activities are dedicated are in harmony with the basic park values of the Mall.
Finally, there are national celebration, commemorative and recreational events that are sponsored (or cosponsored) by the National Park Service. These include the Christmas Pageant of Peace, the Cherry Blossom Festival, Independence Day (July 4th) Celebration, the President’s Cup Regatta, and Inaugural Day events.
These and similar features of National Capital Parks administration are deemed to be essential incidents of promoting and maintaining proper public use of the National Capital Parks sites for the basic park value purposes to which they are primarily dedicated.
As for the erection of structures and bringing movable facilities on park lands: Proposed 36 CFR 50.19 permits speakers’ stands and platforms to be erected, where needed, in connection with any permitted demonstration or other public assembly. These regulations also allow movable facilities — including stands, floats, chairs — to be used in connection with such activities. However, other structures will not be permitted to be erected in connection with permitted demonstrations or other public assemblies on National Capital Parks. An exception has been made, however, relative to structures incident to events determined by the National Park Service to warrant its sponsorship or cosponsorship.

. See 35 Fed.Reg. 11492:
The Secretary is of the view that allowing structures to be erected on park land is generally undesirable, unless a supervening park purpose requires it since the erection of structures inevitably causes injuries to basic park values.
In the Secretary’s judgment, barring the temporary erection of structures (other than speakers’ stands or platforms) in connection witli permitted assemblages on park lands has minimal impact on effectuation of the communication value of the first amendment freedoms. Proposed 36 CFR 50.19 makes adequate provision for movable facilities, signs, placards, etc., in connection with permitted demonstrations or assemblies on park lands. Going beyond the bar to the temporary erection of structures in connection with permitted assemblages on park lands, the Secretary is further of the view that freedom to communicate ideas does not extend to erecting structures on park lands advertising “messages” which some group or individual wishes to convey to the general public. The detriment to basic park values if billboard or display structure “messages” were permitted to be erected over the park *1298landscapes is obvious. It could result in offensive and unaesthetic defacement of park features and vistas, and cause great injury to the people’s enjoyment of beautiful, unblemished, responseful and uncluttered park areas.

. See supra note 4.

. At the remand hearing, counsel for the Government indicated a willingness to stipulate that the WSP display could be “physically accommodated in a corner of the Ellipse,” meaning outside the “eircu-lar Ellipse portion.” J.A. I, 52.

. The witness testified, inter alia, J.A. 153-54:
[DIRECT EXAMINATION]
Q Well, according to the perception stages in psychology, will different people react differently to visual stimuli?
A Yes, one of the cardinal principles in perception is that different people will perceive according to various characteristics about themselves.
Q What kind of factors are at work in considering how a given person will perceive a given visual stimulus?
A Well first of all, of course, there are the characteristics of the stimulus itself, in the pattern of stimuli coming in to my eye, that I want to identify, because this is different than another pattern which I am going to identify— so there are the characteristics of what is out there, but then there are also certain structural characteristics or factors and our sensory mechanism organizes our perceptions for us. We don’t perceive the discrete. This is the way perception fits in patterns, or in wholes.
A second set of influences in addition to the structural would be personal factors — that is our own needs, our wishes, our prior experience — these will influence what we see.
Finally we can identify social influences, that is the influence on what we ' will hear or see, depending on our social situation that we are in.
Q Could you just amplify for the Court’s edification this structural determinant in its opposite equation. That is, if someone reacts in a physiological — in a structural way — could you give some laboratory example which might make this clearer to the Court and for the record?
A Yes. For example, in listing some of the structural principles, first the list should be and would be that we tend to organize parts into a whole. For example, in the laboratory we might present certain patterns of dots and lines and when a person is asked to describe these he ' doesn’t give you a straight description of those dots — or he would do the same thing with the lines. He organizes them into some kind of a pattern and says “Well — there are patterns or there are groupings”.
Q Yes — similarly I take it, people would tend to identify something in context — for example in a certain laboratory example about series of numbers flashed—
A Yes, here we are getting over into the issue of one's prior experience or background. For example, if a person lias been trained to anticipate a series of numbers during the course of an experiment, and is flashing a thing that looks like an incomplete “B”, that is a “B” where the line to the top and bottom adjoining the straight lines are broken — a person who has been trained to expect numbers is going to say “thirteen” whereas if a person has been through some kind of experience with letters, he is going to say it is a “B”, so that you get two different responses depending on the two persons.
Experience and background is what determines the responses there.

. The witness's doctoral dissertation was on the subject, “Personality in Psycho-physical Judgments.”

. See the testimony as to purpose of the WSP display of Mrs. Edith Vilastrigo, for WSP, at remand hearing, J.A. 148:
The object [of our display] is to be close to the AVliite House where the decisions on the war are made, we would like the President to be aware of the fact that we have a tombstone honoring our American dead on the Ellipse, near to his house.
The objective is clearly educational to let as many people know as possible that we are, that we have this — that we are opposed to the war in Viet Nam.