Diminishing the Freedom to Speak on Public Property: International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee

Abstract

INTRODUCTION|The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law . . .abridging the freedom of speech." However, to accommodate competing social interests, such as maintaining public order, some restrictions on speech are allowed. For instance, a government may restrict the freedom to speak on public property under some circumstances.|To determine when a government may restrict speech on public property, the United States Supreme Court has developed the public forum doctrine. This doctrine assigns different levels of scrutiny to be applied to regulations depending on the categorization of the public property. The Court has divided public property into three categories: (1) traditional public forums, (2) limited public forums, and (3) nonpublic forums. In traditional public forums and limited public forums, content-based restrictions on speech are subjected to strict scrutiny, while content-neutral restrictions on speech are subjected to heightened scrutiny. However, in nonpublic forums, a content based or content-neutral restriction need only be reasonable and viewpoint neutral to be constitutional...