Constitutionally Protected Symbolic Speech

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In Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham (1969), the Court ruled for petitioner Shuttlesworth's right to lead orderly 1963 civil rights marches. Doing so violated a city ordinance requiring permit permission. Calling it unconstitutional, the decision stated it was denied to censor ideas, not obstruct traffic.

Various High Court decisions ruled that speech, including camping out in public places, is subject to time, place and manner regulations such as traffic control. However, protected speech must have alternate ways to communicate without undo restrictions.

For example, in Clark v. CCNV, the Court ruled for the National Parks Service's right to prohibit camping out overnight because doing so complied with reasonable time, place and manner restrictions of expression.

The Court said incidental speech restrictions are constitutional provided they're not "greater than necessary to further a substantial governmental interest."

However, the Court stressed that the restrictions must be "narrowly tailored." That requirement is satisfied as long as it "promotes a substantial governmental interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation."

Imposed restrictions must also be content neutral.

Three categories of public property were defined:

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• streets and parks (considered a public forum), traditionally used for public assembly and debate; government may not prohibit communicative activity therein; moreover, content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions must be justified to serve some legitimate interest;

• limited public forum space for use by certain groups, provided legitimate discriminatory limitations are justified by compelling government interests; and

• government "may reserve a forum for its intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view."

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