## Facts

- Clark County School District authorized high schools to publish student newspapers, yearbooks, and athletic programs and to accept paid advertising.
- School principals set advertising guidelines and decided whether to accept ads; policies commonly excluded obscene material and ads for products inappropriate for minors.
- Planned Parenthood of Southern Nevada sought to place ads in several high school publications describing reproductive-health services and providing contact information.
- Most schools refused to run the ads, citing a desire to avoid appearing to take sides on controversial issues and concerns about conflict with sex-education curricula.
- Planned Parenthood sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the refusals violated the First Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether the advertising space in school-sponsored student publications constituted a public forum, limited public forum, or nonpublic forum for First Amendment purposes.
2. Whether refusing Planned Parenthood’s advertisements was unconstitutional content- or viewpoint-based discrimination.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed judgment for the school district and officials.
- The court classified the school-sponsored publications’ advertising space as a nonpublic forum (and, alternatively, treated the publications as school-sponsored expressive activities subject to Hazelwood-style review).
- The refusals were upheld as reasonable in light of the publications’ educational purposes and the schools’ interest in avoiding perceived endorsement of a controversial position.
- The court found the restriction viewpoint neutral, aimed at maintaining school neutrality on contentious political and moral issues.

## Legal Principles

- School-sponsored publications are not public forums absent a clear policy or practice opening them for indiscriminate public use; accepting some advertising does not alone create a public forum.
- In a nonpublic forum, speech restrictions must be reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression because officials oppose the speaker’s viewpoint.
- Under Hazelwood, educators may exercise editorial control over school-sponsored expressive activities when reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns, including avoiding the appearance of school endorsement and protecting the educational mission.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that high school publications accepting limited advertising remained nonpublic forums and that school officials could, consistent with the First Amendment, reasonably and viewpoint-neutrally exclude Planned Parenthood advertisements to preserve the publications’ educational purpose and the schools’ stance of neutrality on controversial subjects.


Planned Parenthood of S. Nev., Inc. v. Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist., 941 F.2d 817 (9th Cir. 1991) (en banc)