Court Opinion

ID: 9426025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:31.885334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.691156
License: Public Domain

*570Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
The Court treats this case as if it were on all fours with Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965), which it is not. Freedman dealt with the efforts of the State of Maryland to prohibit the petitioner in that case from showing a film “at his Baltimore theater,” id., at 52. Petitioner here did not seek to show the musical production “Hair” at its Chattanooga theater, but rather at a Chattanooga theater owned by the city of Chattanooga.
The Court glosses over this distinction by treating a community-owned theater as if it were the same as a city park or city street, which it is not. The Court’s decisions have recognized that city streets and parks are traditionally open to the public, and that permits or licenses to use them are not ordinarily required. “[0]ne who is rightfully on a street which the state has left open to the public carries with him there as elsewhere the constitutional right to express his views in an orderly fashion. This right extends to the communication of ideas by handbills and literature as well as by the spoken word.” Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413, 416 (1943). The Court has therefore held that where municipal authorities seek to exact a license or permit for those who wish to use parks or streets for the purpose of exercising their right of free speech, the standards governing the licensing authority must be objective, definite, and nondiscriminatory. Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147 (1969). But until this case the Court has not equated a public auditorium, which must of necessity schedule performances by a process of inclusion and exclusion, with public streets and parks.
In Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 568 (1968), the Court recognized that the government as an *571employer was to be viewed differently from the government as a lawmaker for the citizenry in general:
“[I]t cannot be gainsaid that the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general.”
See, e. g., Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 402-403 (1950); United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 95 (1947); Konigsberg v. State Bar, 366 U. S. 36, 50-51 (1961). Here we deal with municipal action by the city of Chattanooga, not prohibiting or penalizing the expression of views in dramatic form by citizens at large, but rather managing its municipal auditorium. In Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, 47-48 (1966), the Court said:
“The State, no less than a private owner of property, has power to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated. For this reason there is no merit to the petitioners’ argument that they had a constitutional right to stay on the property .... The United States Constitution does not forbid a State to control the use of its own property for its own lawful nondiscriminatory purpose.”
The Court avoids the impact of cases such as Adderley by insisting that the municipal auditorium and the theater were “public forums designed for and dedicated to expressive activities,” ante, at 555, and that the rejection of petitioner’s application was not based on “any regulation of time, place, or manner related to the nature of the facility or applications from other users.” Ibid. But the apparent effect of the Court’s decision is to tell the managers of municipal auditoriums that they may *572exercise no selective role whatsoever in deciding what performances may be booked. The auditoriums in question here have historically been devoted to “clean, healthful entertainment”;1 they have accepted only productions not inappropriate for viewing by children so that the facilities might serve as a place for entertaining the whole family. Viewed apart from any constitutional limitations, such a policy would undoubtedly rule out much worthwhile adult entertainment. But if it is the desire of the citizens of Chattanooga, who presumably have paid for and own the facilities, that the attractions to be shown there should not be of the kind which would offend any substantial number of potential theatergoers, I do not think the policy can be described as arbitrary or unreasonable.2 Whether or not the production of the version of “Hair” here under consideration is obscene, the findings of fact made by the District Court and affirmed on appeal do indicate that it is not entertainment designed for the whole family.3
If every municipal theater or auditorium which is “designed for and dedicated to expressive activities” becomes subject to the rule enunciated by the Court in this case, consequences unforeseen and perhaps undesired by the Court may well ensue. May an opera house limit its *573productions to operas, or must it also show rock musicals? May a municipal theater devote an entire season to Shakespeare, or is it required to book any potential producer on a first come, first served basis? These questions are real ones in light of the Court’s opinion, which by its terms seems to give no constitutionally permissible role in the way of selection to the municipal authorities.
But these substantive aspects of the Court’s opinion are no more troubling than the farrago of procedural requirements with which it has saddled municipal authorities. Relying on Freedman, the Court holds that those charged with the management of the auditorium have the burden of instituting judicial proceedings, that “restraint” prior to judicial review can be imposed only for a specified brief period, and that a prompt final judicial determination must be assured. Ante, at 560.
If these standards are applicable only where a lease for a production is refused on the grounds that the production is putatively obscene, the Court has performed the rather novel feat of elevating obscene productions to a preferred position under the First Amendment. If these procedures must be invoked every time the management of a municipal theater declines to lease the facilities, whether or not because of the putative obscenity of the performance, other questions are raised. What will be the issues to be tried in these proceedings? Is the Court actually saying that unless the city of Chattanooga could criminally punish a person for staging a performance in a theater which he owned, it may not deny a lease to that same person in order for him to stage that performance in a theater owned by the city?
A municipal theater may not be run by municipal authorities as if it were a private theater, free to judge on a content basis alone which plays it wishes to have performed and which it does not. But, just as surely, that element of it which is “theater” ought to be accorded *574some constitutional recognition along with that element of it which is “municipal.” I do not believe fidelity to the First Amendment requires the exaggerated and rigid procedural safeguards which the Court insists upon in this case. I think that the findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals support the conclusion that petitioner was denied a lease for constitutionally adequate and nondiscriminatory reasons. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

 See the Court’s opinion, ante, at 549 n. 4.

 Limitations on the use of municipal auditoriums by government must be sufficiently reasonable to satisfy the Due Process Clause and cannot unfairly discriminate in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. A municipal auditorium which opened itself to Republicans while closing itself to Democrats would run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no allegation in the instant case that the auditoriums accepted equally graphic productions while unfairly discriminating against “Hair” because of its expressions of political and social belief.

 The findings of fact of the District Court were reported at 341 F. Supp. 465, 472-474 (ED Tenn. 1972), and were repeated by the Court of Appeals at 486 F. 2d 894, 895-897 (CA6 1973).