Court Opinion

ID: 9601732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:49:32.813981+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:22.344089
License: Public Domain

McCONNELL, J., joined by GORSUCH, J.,
dissenting from denial of
rehearing en banc.
These opinions hold that managers of city parks may not make reasonable, content-based judgments regarding whether *1175to allow the erection of privately-donated monuments in their parks. If they allow one private party to donate a monument or other permanent structure, judging it appropriate to the park, they must allow everyone else to do the same, with no discretion as to content-unless their reasons for refusal rise to the level of “compelling” interests. See Summum v. Duchesne City, 482 F.3d 1263, 1274 (10th Cir.2007) (a “constitutional right exists to erect a permanent structure on public property ... when the government allows some groups to erect permanent displays, but denies other groups the same privilege”); Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, 483 F.3d 1044, 1054 (10th Cir.2007) (the city “could ban all permanent displays of an expressive nature by private individuals” but may not exclude a monument based on its content unless the restriction serves “compelling” interests and is “narrowly tailored to achieve its stated interests”). This means that Central Park in New York, which contains the privately donated Alice in Wonderland statute, must now allow other persons to erect Sum-mum’s “Seven Aphorisms,” or whatever else they choose (short of offending a policy that narrowly serves a “compelling” governmental interest). Every park in the country that has accepted a VFW memorial is now a public forum for the erection of permanent fixed monuments; they must either remove the war memorials or brace themselves for an influx of clutter.
Significantly, the religious nature of the donated monuments is not relevant to the free speech question (though it would be to an Establishment Clause challenge). These cases happen to involve Ten Commandments monuments, but it could work the other way. A city that accepted the donation of a statue honoring a local hero could be forced, under the panel’s rulings, to allow a local religious society to erect a Ten Commandments monument — or for that matter, a cross, a nativity scene, a statue of Zeus, or a Confederate flag.
With all due respect to the panel, this conclusion is unsupported by Supreme Court precedent. None of the cases cited supports this proposition. By tradition and precedent, city parks — as “traditional public forums” — must be open to speeches, demonstrations, and other forms of transitory expression. But neither the logic nor the language of these Supreme Court decisions suggests that city parks must be open to the erection of fixed and permanent monuments expressing the sentiments of private parties. By their policies or actions, governments may create designated public forums with respect to fixed monuments, but — contrary to these opinions — the mere status of the property as a park does not make it so.
It is plain that the cities in these cases did not create designated public forums for the erection of permanent monuments in their parks. In the Duchesne case, the Ten Commandments monument is apparently the only fixed monument in the park. In Pleasant Grove, the other permanent structures and monuments “relate to or commemorate Pleasant Grove’s pioneer history.” 483 F.3d at 1047. In neither ease did the city, by word or deed, invite private citizens to erect monuments of their own choosing in these parks. It follows that any messages conveyed by the monuments they have chosen to display are “government speech,” and there is no “public forum” for uninhibited private expression.
In Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 125 S.Ct. 2854, 162 L.Ed.2d 607 (2005), the Supreme Court considered a nearly identical monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles to the State of Texas and displayed under analogous circumstances. Without dissent on this point, the Court unhesitatingly concluded the monument *1176was a state display, and applied Establishment Clause doctrines applicable to government speech. Id. at 692,125 S.Ct. 2854 (calling the monument “Texas’ display”). Various courts of appeals have reached the same conclusion on similar facts. ACLU Nebraska Foundation v. City of Plattsmouth, 419 F.3d 772, 778, 774 (8th Cir.2005) (Eagles monument “installed ... by the City” and counted as “City’s display”); Van Orden v. Perry, 351 F.3d 173, 176 (5th Cir.2003) (Eagles monument belonged to the state); Adland v. Russ, 307 F.3d 471, 489 (6th Cir.2002) (donated Eagles monument constituted state speech in violation of the Establishment Clause); Indiana Civil Liberties Union v. O’Bannon, 259 F.3d 766, 770 (7th Cir.2001) (city’s acceptance of donated Ten Commandments monument constituted state action in violation of the Establishment Clause); Books v. City of Elkhart, 235 F.3d 292, 301 (7th Cir.2000) (city’s display of Ten Commandments monument was state action violating Establishment Clause). See also Modrovich v. Allegheny County, 385 F.3d 397, 399-400 (3d Cir.2004) (bronze plaque of Ten Commandments donated by private party and affixed to courthouse wall constituted government speech).
Our own leading precedent on government speech confirms these holdings.1 Wells v. City and County of Denver, 257 F.3d 1132 (10th Cir.2001), involved a temporary holiday display, which was on municipal property and co-sponsored by the city and private businesses; the display included a large sign on city property thanking private donors for their eontribu-tions to the city’s holiday display. The Court concluded that the message conveyed by this sign was government speech. The city, we reasoned, chose to erect the sign for its own purposes, the city controlled the content of the sign, and it determined when, where, and how the sign would be displayed. 257 F.3d at 1141-42. Wells employed a four-part analysis derived from the Eighth Circuit’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo., 203 F.3d 1085 (8th Cir.2000), which involved the asserted right of the Missouri KKK to sponsor a segment of All Things Considered on National Public Radio.2 In both Wells and Knights, the governmental or private character of the speech was in doubt because “ownership” could not be clearly established. Did the holiday decor belong to the city or to the private donors in Wells? Did the sponsorship message written by the KKK belong to that organization or to the public employee who broadcast it statewide on a state radio station?
The instant cases are easier than Wells, because ownership of the “speech” in these cases is clear: the Ten Commandments monument in Duchesne was donated by the Cole family to the City of Duchesne, and the Ten Commandments monument in Pleasant Grove was donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles to the City of Pleasant Grove. At the relevant time, the cities owned the monuments, maintained them, and had full control over them. But even if ownership were not clear, the second and fourth prongs of the Wells test *1177would nonetheless be dispositive: The cities exercised total “control” over the monuments, 257 F.3d at 1141, and they bore “ultimate responsibility” for the monuments’ contents and upkeep. Indeed, because the cities owned the monuments, they could have removed them, destroyed them, modified them, remade them, or (following state law procedures for disposition of public property) sold them at any time. Indeed, the City of Duchesne attempted to do just that — sell the monument along with the plot of land on which it sits. See 482 F.3d at 1266-67.3 Cf. Serra v. U.S. General Servs. Admin., 847 F.2d 1045, 1049 (2d Cir.1988) (holding that when an artist donates or sells a piece of art to the government for public display, the artist loses control over the artwork).
The only difference from Wells is that in the Summum cases, the cities did not design these monuments. The cities, however, accepted the statues, treated them as public property, and displayed them for their own purposes on public land. The cities were under no obligation to accept the statues, and could have objected to their content. When they accepted donation of the monuments and displayed them on public land, the cities embraced the messages as their own. Similarly, Du-chesne and Pleasant Grove controlled the placement of the statues, just as in Wells Denver bore “ultimate responsibility for the content of the display.” 257 F.3d at 1142.
Once we recognize that the monuments constitute government speech, it becomes clear that the panel’s forum analysis is misguided. Viewpoint- and sometimes content-neutrality are required when the government regulates speech in public forums, but the government’s “own speech ... is controlled by different principles.” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 834, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995). Specifically, “when the State is the speaker, it may make content-based choices.” Id. at 833, 115 S.Ct. 2510. See also Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 193, 111 S.Ct. 1759, 114 L.Ed.2d 233 (1991). The government may adopt whatever message it chooses — subject, of course, to other constitutional constraints, such as those embodied in the Establishment Clause — and need not alter its speech to accommodate the views of private parties. Downs v. Los Angeles Unified Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1003, 1013 (9th Cir.2000) (“Simply because the government opens its mouth to speak does not give every outside ... group a First Amendment right to play ventriloquist.”) In other words, just because the cities have opted to accept privately financed permanent monuments does not mean they must allow other private groups to install monuments of their own choosing.
Other circuits have reached this conclusion in similar cases. See Tucker v. City of Fairfield, 398 F.3d 457, 462 (6th Cir.2005) (“Courts have generally refused to protect on First Amendment grounds the placement of objects on public property where the objects are permanent or otherwise not easily moved.”); Graff v. City of Chicago, 9 F.3d 1309, 1314 (7th Cir.1993) (en banc) (“even in a public forum there is no constitutional right to erect a structure”); Lubavitch Chabad House, Inc. v. Chicago, 917 F.2d 341, 347 (7th Cir.1990) (“We are not cognizant of ... any private constitutional right to erect a structure on private property. If there were, our traditional public forums, such as our public parks, would be cluttered with all manner of structures.”).
*1178This does not mean that the Ten Commandments monuments in Duchesne and Pleasant Grove are immune to First Amendment challenge. Rather, as government speech, they may be challenged by appropriate plaintiffs under the Establishment Clause, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Their validity would depend on details of their context and history, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 162 L.Ed.2d 729 (2005), and Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 125 S.Ct. 2854, 162 L.Ed.2d 607 (2005). We have no occasion here to speculate on the outcome of any such litigation.
The panels’ decisions in these cases, however, are incorrect as a matter of doctrine and troublesome as a matter of practice. I realize that en banc proceedings are a major investment of time and judicial resources, and that we cannot en banc every case that errs. But the error in this case is sufficiently fundamental and the consequences sufficiently disruptive that the panel decisions should be corrected.

. To the extent Summum v. Callaghan, 130 F.3d 906 (10th Cir.1997), and Summum v. City of Ogden, 297 F.3d 995 (10th Cir.2002), teach the contrary, they should be overruled.

. The factors were:
(1) that "the central purpose of the enhanced underwriting program is not to promote the views of the donors;” (2) that the station exercised editorial control over the content of acknowledgment scripts; (3) that the literal speaker was a KWMU employee, not a Klan representative; and (4) that ultimate responsibility for the contents of the broadcast rested with KWMU, not with the Klan.
Wells, 257 F.3d at 1141 (quoting Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 203 F.3d at 1093-94).

. Indeed, the panel held that Duchesne's attempted sale of the monument is controlled by state law governing the disposition of "public property.” Duchesne, 482 F.3d at 1272.