## Facts

- James G. Gilles, a traveling Christian evangelist, used confrontational preaching and sought to speak on the Vincennes University campus, a public residential university in Indiana.
- In 2001, Gilles entered campus without invitation and preached on a lawn near the university library; a disturbance occurred.
- After the 2001 incident, the university adopted a policy barring solicitation on campus without prior approval and limiting approved solicitation to a brick walkway in front of the student union.
- The policy defined solicitation broadly to include seeking to obtain permission or to entice a person to action.
- When Gilles later returned, university officials directed him to use the designated brick walkway.
- Gilles claimed the designated location was too noisy to be effective and sued, alleging the policy violated the First Amendment.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the university officials; Gilles appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether central campus grounds such as a library-adjacent lawn are public, limited public, or nonpublic fora for an outside speaker, and what level of First Amendment protection applies.
2. Whether requiring prior approval and restricting an outside evangelist’s activity to a designated campus location violates the First Amendment as applied.
3. Whether the restrictions were reasonable and viewpoint neutral and left open adequate alternative channels for communication.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the university officials.
- The court held Gilles’s religious advocacy was protected speech, but he had no constitutional entitlement to speak at a particular preferred site on campus.
- The court concluded the university could regulate access by non-students to central campus areas and confine outside solicitation/speaking activity to a designated location.
- The court found the policy and its application to Gilles were reasonable in light of the university’s interests and were not based on hostility to his viewpoint.
- The Supreme Court denied certiorari.

## Legal Principles

- A public university is not required to treat all campus property as a traditional public forum for outsiders; forum classification governs the applicable level of scrutiny.
- In a nonpublic or limited public forum, restrictions on outsider speech are permissible if they are reasonable and viewpoint neutral.
- The First Amendment does not require the government to provide the most effective or “prime” location for an outsider’s message on government property.
- Channeling outside expressive activity to a specific campus area and requiring prior approval can be constitutional when justified by institutional interests (e.g., order and campus functioning) and applied without viewpoint discrimination.
- The existence of alternative ways to reach the intended audience supports the constitutionality of location-based restrictions.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that Vincennes University’s requirement that an outside evangelist obtain approval and speak only from a designated walkway was a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral regulation of campus property and therefore did not violate the First Amendment.


Gilles v. Blanchard, 477 F.3d 466 (7th Cir. 2007), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 127 (2007)