RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
The lower federal courts in controversies over transit ads still treat Lehman as good law, See e.g., Entertainment Software v. CTA, 696 F.Supp.2d 934(N.D. Illinois 2010); Ridley v. MBTA, 390 F.3d 65 ( 1st Cir. 2004). I am unaware of any subsequent Supreme Court case questioning Lehman's continued viability and at least in 1998 Justice White sitting on the 9th Circuit denied any erosion of the decisions'' authority. Children of Rosary v. City of Phoenix, 154 F.3d 972 (9th Circuit 1998) Associate General Counsel for Legal Advocacy ste...@ajc.org 212.891.1480 646.287.2606 (cell) http://www.ajc.org/ NOTICE This email may contain confidential and/or privileged material and is intended for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, disclosure, copying, distribution or other transmission is prohibited, improper and may be unlawful. If you have received this email in error, you must destroy this email and kindly notify the sender by reply email. If this email contains the word CONFIDENTIAL in its Subject line, then even a valid recipient must hold it in confidence and not distribute or disclose it. In such case ONLY the author of the email has permission to forward or otherwise distribute it or disclose its contents to others. _ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 05:14 To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: No religious advertisements on municipal buses Perhaps Lehman is not such good law anymore -- only a plurality opinion, and it says the buses are not a public forum (more like a commercial enterprise, with discretion about the genres of ads it takes, though not with discretion to engage in viewpoint discrimination within a genre). On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Marty Lederman lederman.ma...@gmail.com wrote: If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. Maybe. To be sure, that forum (limited to commercial speech) would be distinguishable from the broader forum in Rosenberger . . . but such a favoring of commercial over noncommercial speech would be suspect under the rationale of City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, wouldn't it? Nor is it obvious that an exclusion of speech about religion is ok just because religion and politics are treated equally. After all, that was effectively UVa's policy in Rosenberger. One of the oddities of that decision is that (especially when viewed in the Shadow of Lehman v. Shaker Heights and Greer v. Spock) the Court appears to have concluded that whereas all electioneering speech can be disfavored in a public forum -- even though such speech presumably is at the core of most any concept of what the First Amendment protects, cf. Citizens United -- speech about religious matters may not be. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Ira Lupu icl...@law.gwu.edu wrote: It would be good to know the exact policy. If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. If the city allows political ads but not religious ads, the policy is indeed highly questionable under Rosenberger, etc. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Brownstein, Alan aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu wrote: I don't know if Michael's equation of political ads and religious ads necessarily works. I'm pretty confident that there are lower court cases where the exclusion of political speech was considered to be content discrimination, not viewpoint discrimination (but I would have to look to find them.). There is also commentary questioning whether the exclusion of political speech from a nonpublic forum or limited public forum would receive the same rigorous standard of review applied to the exclusion of religious speech from such locations. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Masinter Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 12:13 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses The problematic case is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights; if a city can ban political ads from a bus, presumably it can also ban religious ads, though it may matter whether the ads are inside or outside the bus (inside in Lehman). But I would have joined the Lehman dissenters, and I am not confident that either the views of Justice Blackmun for the plurality or Justice Douglas would prevail today. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Professor of Law Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 Nova Southeastern University 954.262.6151 (voice) masin...@nova.edu954.262.3835 (fax) Quoting Corcos, Christine christine.cor
RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rssemc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
I assume Fort Worth was relying on Lehman v. Shaker Heights (1974), which held that a bus system can accept commercial advertising and exclude all political advertising. Lehman assumed that a commercial/political line did not involve viewpoint discrimination. Alan is of course right that Rosenberger, Good News Club, and similar cases say that a religious/secular line is viewpoint discrimination, and therefore cast doubt on whether Fort Worth's reliance on Lehman is justified or even reasonable. But one can imagine distinguishing advertising slogans that will fit on a placard or the side of a bus from the serious discussions at issue in Rosenberger and Good News. On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:35:03 -0800 Brownstein, Alan aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu wrote: I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. Douglas Laycock Armistead M. Dobie Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
The problematic case is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights; if a city can ban political ads from a bus, presumably it can also ban religious ads, though it may matter whether the ads are inside or outside the bus (inside in Lehman). But I would have joined the Lehman dissenters, and I am not confident that either the views of Justice Blackmun for the plurality or Justice Douglas would prevail today. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Professor of Law Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 Nova Southeastern University 954.262.6151 (voice) masin...@nova.edu954.262.3835 (fax) Quoting Corcos, Christine christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu: Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rssemc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
Re: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
Wouldn't such a policy be constitutionally valid under the ruling in Lehman v. Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298 (1974) (holding that advertising space on city buses is not a public forum, and upholding the city's rule forbidding political advertising, while allowing commercial advertising, on the buses)? On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:01 PM, Corcos, Christine christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu wrote: Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rssemc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood Eleanor Davis Professor of Law George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
I don't know if Michael's equation of political ads and religious ads necessarily works. I'm pretty confident that there are lower court cases where the exclusion of political speech was considered to be content discrimination, not viewpoint discrimination (but I would have to look to find them.). There is also commentary questioning whether the exclusion of political speech from a nonpublic forum or limited public forum would receive the same rigorous standard of review applied to the exclusion of religious speech from such locations. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Masinter Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 12:13 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses The problematic case is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights; if a city can ban political ads from a bus, presumably it can also ban religious ads, though it may matter whether the ads are inside or outside the bus (inside in Lehman). But I would have joined the Lehman dissenters, and I am not confident that either the views of Justice Blackmun for the plurality or Justice Douglas would prevail today. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Professor of Law Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 Nova Southeastern University 954.262.6151 (voice) masin...@nova.edu954.262.3835 (fax) Quoting Corcos, Christine christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu: Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rsse mc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can
Re: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
It would be good to know the exact policy. If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. If the city allows political ads but not religious ads, the policy is indeed highly questionable under Rosenberger, etc. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Brownstein, Alan aebrownst...@ucdavis.eduwrote: I don't know if Michael's equation of political ads and religious ads necessarily works. I'm pretty confident that there are lower court cases where the exclusion of political speech was considered to be content discrimination, not viewpoint discrimination (but I would have to look to find them.). There is also commentary questioning whether the exclusion of political speech from a nonpublic forum or limited public forum would receive the same rigorous standard of review applied to the exclusion of religious speech from such locations. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Masinter Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 12:13 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses The problematic case is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights; if a city can ban political ads from a bus, presumably it can also ban religious ads, though it may matter whether the ads are inside or outside the bus (inside in Lehman). But I would have joined the Lehman dissenters, and I am not confident that either the views of Justice Blackmun for the plurality or Justice Douglas would prevail today. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Professor of Law Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 Nova Southeastern University 954.262.6151 (voice) masin...@nova.edu954.262.3835 (fax) Quoting Corcos, Christine christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu: Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rsse mc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC Davis School of Law ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. ___ To post
Re: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. Maybe. To be sure, that forum (limited to commercial speech) would be distinguishable from the broader forum in Rosenberger . . . but such a favoring of commercial over noncommercial speech would be suspect under the rationale of City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, wouldn't it? Nor is it obvious that an exclusion of speech about religion is ok just because religion and politics are treated equally. After all, that was effectively UVa's policy in Rosenberger. One of the oddities of that decision is that (especially when viewed in the Shadow of Lehman v. Shaker Heights and Greer v. Spock) the Court appears to have concluded that whereas all electioneering speech can be disfavored in a public forum -- even though such speech presumably is at the core of most any concept of what the First Amendment protects, cf. Citizens United -- speech about religious matters may not be. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Ira Lupu icl...@law.gwu.edu wrote: It would be good to know the exact policy. If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. If the city allows political ads but not religious ads, the policy is indeed highly questionable under Rosenberger, etc. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Brownstein, Alan aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu wrote: I don't know if Michael's equation of political ads and religious ads necessarily works. I'm pretty confident that there are lower court cases where the exclusion of political speech was considered to be content discrimination, not viewpoint discrimination (but I would have to look to find them.). There is also commentary questioning whether the exclusion of political speech from a nonpublic forum or limited public forum would receive the same rigorous standard of review applied to the exclusion of religious speech from such locations. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Masinter Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 12:13 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses The problematic case is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights; if a city can ban political ads from a bus, presumably it can also ban religious ads, though it may matter whether the ads are inside or outside the bus (inside in Lehman). But I would have joined the Lehman dissenters, and I am not confident that either the views of Justice Blackmun for the plurality or Justice Douglas would prevail today. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Professor of Law Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 Nova Southeastern University 954.262.6151 (voice) masin...@nova.edu954.262.3835 (fax) Quoting Corcos, Christine christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu: Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rsse mc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't that regulation constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under Rosenberger and Good News Club? I have serious problems with some of the Court's decisions that characterize discrimination against religious expressive activities as viewpoint discrimination. But if that's the rule, it would certainly seem to apply in this case as well. Alan Brownstein UC
Re: No religious advertisements on municipal buses
Perhaps Lehman is not such good law anymore -- only a plurality opinion, and it says the buses are not a public forum (more like a commercial enterprise, with discretion about the genres of ads it takes, though not with discretion to engage in viewpoint discrimination within a genre). On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Marty Lederman lederman.ma...@gmail.comwrote: If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. Maybe. To be sure, that forum (limited to commercial speech) would be distinguishable from the broader forum in Rosenberger . . . but such a favoring of commercial over noncommercial speech would be suspect under the rationale of City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, wouldn't it? Nor is it obvious that an exclusion of speech about religion is ok just because religion and politics are treated equally. After all, that was effectively UVa's policy in Rosenberger. One of the oddities of that decision is that (especially when viewed in the Shadow of Lehman v. Shaker Heights and Greer v. Spock) the Court appears to have concluded that whereas all electioneering speech can be disfavored in a public forum -- even though such speech presumably is at the core of most any concept of what the First Amendment protects, cf. Citizens United -- speech about religious matters may not be. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Ira Lupu icl...@law.gwu.edu wrote: It would be good to know the exact policy. If the city allows commercial ads but no political or religious ads, I think the policy is constitutionally OK. If the city allows political ads but not religious ads, the policy is indeed highly questionable under Rosenberger, etc. On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Brownstein, Alan aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu wrote: I don't know if Michael's equation of political ads and religious ads necessarily works. I'm pretty confident that there are lower court cases where the exclusion of political speech was considered to be content discrimination, not viewpoint discrimination (but I would have to look to find them.). There is also commentary questioning whether the exclusion of political speech from a nonpublic forum or limited public forum would receive the same rigorous standard of review applied to the exclusion of religious speech from such locations. Alan -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Masinter Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 12:13 PM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses The problematic case is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights; if a city can ban political ads from a bus, presumably it can also ban religious ads, though it may matter whether the ads are inside or outside the bus (inside in Lehman). But I would have joined the Lehman dissenters, and I am not confident that either the views of Justice Blackmun for the plurality or Justice Douglas would prevail today. Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue Professor of Law Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314 Nova Southeastern University 954.262.6151 (voice) masin...@nova.edu954.262.3835 (fax) Quoting Corcos, Christine christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu: Fort Worth. See here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/us/17brfs-atheist.html?partner=rsse mc=rss I think it may be a reaction to part of a campaign (linked to a similar campaign in Canada) that is continuing the Good Without God campaign that was launched last year. See here. http://atheistbus.ca/ See the Atheist bus website here. http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/ Christine Corcos Associate Professor of Law Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Program LSU AM 324 Law Building 1 East Campus Drive Baton Rouge LA 70803 tel: 225/578-8327 fax: 225/578-3677 home page: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/ccorcos Feminist Law Professors (http://feministlawprofessors.com/) Law and Humanities Blog (http://lawlit.blogspot.com/) Law and Magic Blog (http://lpcprof.typepad.com/law_and_magic_blog/) Media Law Blog (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/) email: christine.cor...@law.lsu.edu -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 1:35 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: No religious advertisements on municipal buses I saw a newspaper story a few days ago (I'm sorry, but I don't recall all the details) reporting that a city prohibited all religious advertising on buses because people were annoyed with advertisements expressing a message by Atheists suggesting that there is no G-d. Wouldn't
