The manner of government speech

Denver University Law Review

Volumn 87, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 809-817

  Bezanson, Randall P ^b   Vernon, David H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF IOWA COLLEGE OF LAW   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77957682018     PISSN: 08839409     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. See 500 U. S. 173, 193-94 (1991) (holding that the government can script a doctor's discussion with a patient on the subject of abortion when the doctor is an agent of the government in a federally funded clinic).
2. See Randall P. Bezanson, The Government Speech Forum: Forbes and Finley and Government Speech Selection Judgments, 83 IOWA L. REV. 953 passim (1998).
3. In the interest of simplicity I refer the reader to the wonderful discussion and analysis of the public forum categories and criteria by Erwin Chemerinsky in his treatise, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES 11127-1144 (3d ed. 2006).
4. Randall P. Bezanson & William G. Buss, The Many Faces of Government Speech, 86 IOWA L. REV. 1377, 1404-05 (2001).
5. Rust, 500 U. S. at 193-94, 198.
6. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397, 99 (1989).
7. Nat'l Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U. S. 569, 572 (1998).
8. See RANDALL P. BEZANSON, ART AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH 7-49 (2009), for a discussion of the Finley case.
9. Bezanson & Buss, supra note 4, at 1380;
10. see Abner S. Greene, Government of the Good, 53 VAND. L. REV. 1, 8-11 (2000).
11. Rust, 500 U. S. at 193-94.
12. Ark. Educ. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 673-74 (1998).
13. Finley, 524 U. S. at 574-75, 587-88.
14. Johanns v Livestock Mktg. Ass'n, 544 U. S. 550, 560-63 (2005).
15. See, e.g., Sutliffe v. Epping Sch. Dist., 584 F.3d 314, 329-31 (1st Cir. 2009).
16. Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U. S. 410, 436-38 (2006) ;
17. see Helen Norton, Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government's Control of Its Workers' Speech to Protect Its Own Expression, 59 DUKE L. J. 1, 11-13 (2009).
18. See Buono v. Kempthorne, 527 F.3d 758, 772 (9th Cir. 2008)
19. cert. granted sub nom. Salazar v. Buono, 129 S. Ct. 1313 (2009) (awaiting decision).
20. Of course the government itself, through its agents or otherwise, need not speak in the forum; instead, the government may express its views through selected private speech. See Finley, 524 U. S. at 587-88;
21. Ark. Educ. Television Comm'n v. Forbes, 523 U. S. 666, 674 (1998).
22. Government websites limited to government information and government policy views are an example. See, e.g., Sutliffe, 584 F.3d at 329-35.
23. Bezanson & Buss, supra note 4, at 1488-90, 1510-11;
24. Greene, supra note 8, at 27-29.
25. Greene, supra note 8, at 49-52;
26. Abner S. Greene, (Mis) Attribution, 87 DENV. U. L. REV. 833, 844 (2010) ;
27. see also Bezanson & Buss, supra note 4, at 1457-63, 1467.
28. Helen Norton & Danielle Keats Citron, Government Speech 2.0, 87 DENV. U. L. REV. 899 (2010).
29. Bezanson & Buss, supra note 4, at 1501-08.
30. Id. at 1508.
31. Id. at 1508-09
32. (quoting Robert C. Post, Subsidized Speech, 106 YALE L. J. 151, 151 (1996)).
33. See ALEXANDER MEIKLEJOHN, FREE SPEECH AND ITS RELATION TO SELF-GOVERNMENT 26-27 (1948).
34. Id.
35. Id. at 25.
36. Id. at 26.
37. Id. at 25.
38. Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 25-26 (1971).
39. Many controls of this sort have been enacted through the political process. See Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Nobody's Fools: The Rational Audience as First Amendment Ideal, 2010 U. ILL. L. REV. 799, 845 (2010).
40. E.g., Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 129 S. Ct. 1125, 1129-30, 1138 (2009).
41. See, e.g., Sutliffe v. Epping Sch. Dist., 584 F.3d 314, 334-35 (1st Cir. 2009).
42. Norton & Citron, supra note 20.
43. Buono v. Kempthorne, 527 F.3d 758, 760 (9th Cir. 2008)
44. cert. granted sub nom. Salazar v. Buono, 129 S. Ct. 1313 (2009) (challenging a large cross on a small piece of land atop an otherwise isolated promontory in the national park in the Mojave Desert).
45. See id.; Joseph Blocher, Property and Speech in Summum, 104 NW. U. L. REV. COLLOQUY 83, 90 (2009), http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/colloquy/ 2009/31/LRColl2009n31Blocher.pdf.
46. See Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 18-22 (1971).
47. See id. at 21.
48. See MEIKLEJOHN, supra note 24, at 24-27.
49. "Aesthetic" is defined as: "Of or pertaining to sensuous perception, received by the senses." OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (2d ed. 1989).
50. For an extended discussion of aesthetic versus cognitive expression, see generally BEZANSON, supra note 7, passim.
51. KAROL BERGER, A THEORY OF ART 62 (2000).
52. Id. at 236
53. (interpreting IMMANUEL KANT, THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT 59-60 (James Creed Meredith trans., Oxford University Press 1952)).
54. YouTube, Willie Horton 1988 Attack Ad, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Io9KMSSEZ0Y (last visited Apr. 7, 2010) ;
55. see also Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343, 354-55 (2003) (discussing the intimidating effect of the Ku Klux Klan's burning cross).
56. Lawrence Lessig, The Regulation of Social Meaning, 62 U. CHI. L. REV. 943, 1009 (1995)
57. (discussed insightfully in Norton, supra note 14, at 42).
58. Bezanson & Buss, supra note 4, at 1508.
59. Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 20 (1971).
60. Courts regularly judge proposed evidence as prejudicial on very similar criteria.
61. For example, whether a use of copyrighted material is "transformative." 17 U. S. C. § 107 (2006) (outlining the "fair use" of a copyrighted work) ;
62. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U. S. 569, 579 (1994).
63. See Wis. Right to Life, Inc. v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 546 U. S. 410, 411 (2006) ;
64. R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 422 (1992) (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment).
65. For a wonderful discussion and analysis of the ambiguities in audience interpretation of the meaning of speech, see Lidsky, supra note 30, at 805-09.
66. See also Sonia K. Katyal, Semiotic Disobedience, 84 WASH. U. L. REV. 489, 538-41 (2006).
67. Consolidated Appropriations Resolution of Feb. 20, 2003, Pub. L. No. 108-7, 117 Stat. 11, § 626
68. discussed in STEVEN G. BRADBURY, U. S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE, OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL, MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE GENERAL COUNSEL DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (July 30, 2004), available at http://www.justice.gov/olc/opfinal. htm [hereinafter DOJ OLC OCPINION].
69. DOJ OLC OPINION, available at http://www.justice.gov/olc/opfinal.htm.
70. Id. (first emphasis added). This longstanding policy has been the subject of numerous OLC opinions over the course of its fifty-nine year history, and it seems to have been largely honored in the promise, not the breach. A few judicial opinions reflect this policy as well. See, e.g., Nat'l Treasury Employees' Union v. Campbell, 654 F.2d 784, 786 (D. C. Cir. 1981).