Abstract
This Article examines the inconsistent application of public forum doctrine in numerous recent legal clashes between advertisers and governments refusing to run certain ads on government property. The Author traces the evolution of the Supreme Court's public forum doctrine and shows how recurrent problems with public forum doctrine manifest themselves in the recent advertising cases, with particular emphasis on the case of New York Magazine v. Metropolitan Transit Authority. Together with the commercial/noncommercial speech dichotomy with which it is often linked, public forum doctrine fails to uphold the First Amendment's prohibition of government censorship. The Article concludes that if neither the older ad hoc balancing approach nor the current rule-based categorical approach work well to protect speech on government property, a practical solution may be to strengthen the default category of public forum doctrine, the "nonpublic forum."
How to Cite
42 Ariz. L. Rev. 607 (2000)
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