Does City’s Painting of Messages on City Streets Require It to Give Equal Access to Other Messages?

Various cities are painting “Black Lives Matter,” “End Racism Now,” and similar messages on city streets. Does that create a “public forum” where everyone would have the same right to do so?

No. In Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (2009), the Court recognized that a city is free to put up certain monuments in its parks—and to accept selected monuments from private groups—without having to put up or accept other monuments. Such monuments are government speech, and the government is free to discriminate based on viewpoint in choosing what messages to affirmatively promote this way:

A government entity has the