## Facts

- Pro-Life Cougars, a registered student organization, sought to display a large graphic anti-abortion exhibit (“Justice for All Exhibit”) in Butler Plaza, a central, high-traffic pedestrian area on the University of Houston campus.
- University procedures required student groups to submit event-registration and reservation forms describing the proposed expressive activity, including date and location.
- Under the challenged policy, student expression deemed “potentially disruptive” was subject to additional regulation by the Dean of Students and could not occur in Butler Plaza, but instead had to be moved to more remote campus locations.
- The student group requested Butler Plaza for the exhibit; the Dean determined the exhibit would be “potentially disruptive” and conditioned approval on relocating it to one of two remote sites.
- Butler Plaza had been used for expressive events by other groups, including organizations associated with pro-choice advocacy, while plaintiffs’ exhibit was relegated to the campus periphery.
- Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the policy violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments; the case proceeded on plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment challenging the original “potentially disruptive” policy.

## Issues

1. Whether a public university violates the First Amendment by excluding student expression deemed “potentially disruptive” from a central campus forum based on administrative judgments about disruption.
2. Whether a policy that empowers officials to relocate speech using a subjective “potentially disruptive” standard constitutes impermissible content or viewpoint discrimination and grants unconstitutionally broad discretion.
3. Whether the policy was a valid time, place, and manner regulation, including whether it was narrowly tailored and left open adequate alternative channels for communication.

## Decision

- The district court granted plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.
- The court held the University’s “potentially disruptive” policy unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The court concluded the policy impermissibly restricted protected student speech and vested excessive discretionary authority in administrators without narrow, objective, and definite standards.
- The court declared the original policy unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement against plaintiffs’ expressive activities on campus, including in Butler Plaza.

## Legal Principles

- When a public university opens campus areas for student expressive activity, restrictions must comply with forum-based First Amendment limits; content- and viewpoint-based restrictions are presumptively unconstitutional.
- Permitting or licensing schemes for speech must contain narrow, objective, and definite standards; a standardless or subjective criterion (such as “potentially disruptive”) risks unconstitutional discretion.
- The government may not suppress or relocate speech based on anticipated audience reaction or controversy; disparate treatment of competing viewpoints indicates unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
- Restrictions framed as time, place, and manner regulations must be content neutral, narrowly tailored to significant governmental interests, and leave open ample alternative channels for communication.
- Through § 1983, First Amendment protections apply to public universities via incorporation under the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated the University of Houston’s policy that allowed officials to bar “potentially disruptive” student expression from a central campus location, holding that the policy enabled subjective, standardless relocation decisions and operated as unconstitutional content and viewpoint discrimination.


Pro-Life Cougars v. Univ. of Hous., 259 F. Supp. 2d 575 (S.D. Tex. 2003)