The government speech doctrine, in American
constitutional law
Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...
, says that the government is not infringing the free speech rights of individual people when the government declines to use
viewpoint neutrality in its own speech.
[Hudson, David. ]
The Rehnquist Court: Understanding Its Impact and Legacy
', p. 91 (Greenwood Publishing 2007). More generally, the degree to which governments have free speech rights remains unsettled, including the degree of free speech rights that states may have under the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
versus federal speech restrictions.
Individual free speech rights versus government speech
The government speech doctrine establishes that the government may advance its own speech without requiring viewpoint neutrality when the government itself is the speaker. Thus, when the state is the speaker, it may make content based choices. The simple principle has broad implications, and has led to contentious disputes within the Supreme Court.
The doctrine was implied in ''
Wooley v. Maynard'' in 1977, when the Supreme Court acknowledged a legitimate government interest in communicating an official, ideologically partial message to the public. In the 1991 case of ''
Rust v. Sullivan'', government-funded doctors in a government health program were not allowed to advise patients on obtaining abortions, and the doctors challenged this law on Free Speech grounds.
However, the Court held that because the program was government-funded, the doctors were therefore speaking on behalf of the government. Therefore, the government could say what it wishes, and “the Government has not discriminated based on viewpoint; it has merely chosen to fund one activity to the exclusion of the other."
In ''
Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez'', the Supreme Court held that, although providing government-funded legal services appeared similar to government-funded doctors, the speech of the lawyers was private speech because lawyers spoke on behalf of their clients. As a result, the government could not prevent these attorneys from filing constitutional suits against the government.
[Nowak, John and Rotunda, Ronald. ]
Nowak and Rotunda's Principles of Constitutional Law
', p. 919 (West Academic, 2010).
Free speech rights of states versus federal speech restrictions
When one sovereign tries to limit the speech of another sovereign, the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the ...
may protect the latter from the former.
David Fagundes has argued that government speech deserves constitutional protection only where the speech is intrinsic to a
public function and furthers democratic self-government.
References
Further reading
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Limits on Political Statements by Public Bodies State Law Penalizes Government Speech that Rises to the Level of Electioneering Public Corporation Law Quarterly, Michigan Bar, No. 3, p. 8, Fall 2008.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Government Speech
Freedom of expression
First Amendment to the United States Constitution