Facts
- District of Columbia law barred, within 500 feet of a foreign embassy, (1) displaying signs tending to bring a foreign government into “public odium” or “public disrepute,” and (2) congregating and refusing to obey a police dispersal order.
- Political demonstrators sought to picket near the Soviet Embassy with critical signs and to gather in ways that would violate both provisions.
- Officials denied or restricted the demonstrators’ permit requests under the statute.
- The demonstrators filed a facial First Amendment challenge against District officials in federal court.
- The district court upheld both provisions on summary judgment, and the court of appeals affirmed.
- The Supreme Court granted review.
Issues
- Whether the statute’s sign restriction near embassies is a content-based regulation of speech in a public forum that violates the First Amendment.
- Whether the statute’s congregation-and-dispersal provision is facially invalid or overbroad under the First Amendment.
Decision
- The Court held the sign restriction unconstitutional on its face because it was content-based in a traditional public forum and failed strict scrutiny.
- The Court assumed, without deciding, that diplomatic protection and foreign-relations interests could be compelling, but held the sign restriction was not narrowly tailored.
- The Court relied on the availability of less restrictive measures, including existing federal prohibitions on intimidation, harassment, and obstruction of foreign officials.
- The Court rejected treating listener offense or negative audience reaction as a permissible basis to suppress political speech.
- The Court upheld the congregation-and-dispersal provision as construed by the court of appeals, limiting its application to situations where police reasonably believe a gathering threatens embassy security or peace.
- As so construed, the congregation provision was treated as content-neutral and not facially overbroad.
- The judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Legal Principles
- Content-based restrictions on political speech in traditional public fora are subject to strict scrutiny and must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.
- The emotive impact of speech on listeners is not a “secondary effect” that permits content-based suppression; government may not prohibit speech to prevent hostile audience reaction.
- A regulation is not narrowly tailored when substantially less restrictive alternatives are readily available to address the asserted harms.
- Courts may accept a limiting construction to confine a broad statute to content-neutral, security-based time, place, and manner regulation, reducing overbreadth concerns.
- Police dispersal authority in a public forum may be upheld when constrained to reasonable, security-related grounds rather than message-based enforcement.
Conclusion
The Court invalidated the District’s ban on embassy-proximate signs that disparaged foreign governments as an impermissible content-based restriction in a public forum, while sustaining a narrowly construed dispersal provision aimed at preventing security threats near embassies.