## Facts

- Student organizations and individual students protested South African apartheid and the university’s investment policies by erecting several “shanty” structures.
- On February 24, 1986, the students placed the shanties on a grass area near the student union building.
- The university initially issued a permit allowing the shanties to be displayed beginning in February 1986.
- In late July 1986, university officials decided the shanties had to be removed; negotiations with the students did not resolve the dispute.
- The university cited concerns including safety risks, potential liability and insurance coverage issues, costs, and aesthetics.
- The students sued for injunctive relief to prevent removal; the court issued a temporary restraining order barring removal or destruction pending a hearing.
- The parties agreed the injunction hearing would serve as a final trial on the merits under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(a)(2).

## Issues

1. Whether the shanties constituted protected symbolic expression under the First Amendment.
2. Whether a public university could order removal of the shanties based on asserted safety, liability, cost, and aesthetic concerns, where no established content-neutral rules governed such displays.
3. Whether the removal decision reflected impermissible discretionary or content-based suppression rather than a valid time, place, and manner restriction.

## Decision

- The court entered judgment for the plaintiffs and granted a permanent injunction preventing the university from removing or destroying the shanty displays.
- The court held the shanties were protected symbolic speech communicating a political message likely understood by viewers.
- The court treated the relevant campus area as a forum for student expression requiring strict limits on administrative discretion and careful scrutiny of restrictions.
- The court found the university’s asserted interests, as applied through an ad hoc removal order, were insufficient to justify suppressing the protected display.
- The injunction was issued with conditions, reflecting that the university could impose reasonable, content-neutral constraints directed to safety and property management.

## Legal Principles

- Symbolic conduct intended to convey a political message and likely to be understood by observers is protected by the First Amendment.
- On public university property used for student expression, restrictions on speech must be content-neutral, serve a significant governmental interest, be narrowly tailored, and leave open adequate alternative channels.
- A university’s ad hoc suppression of speech, especially without preexisting, generally applicable standards, risks unconstitutional unbridled discretion and viewpoint discrimination.
- Generalized concerns about safety, liability, cost, or aesthetics cannot justify eliminating protected expression in a speech forum absent specific evidence and less speech-restrictive measures.
- Universities may regulate the time, place, and manner of expressive displays through clear, neutral rules and reasonable conditions tied to legitimate operational needs.

## Conclusion

The court permanently enjoined the university from removing the protest shanties because they were protected symbolic speech in a campus forum and the university relied on discretionary, insufficiently justified reasons rather than narrowly tailored, content-neutral regulation.


Univ. of Utah Students Against Apartheid v. Peterson, 649 F. Supp. 1200 (D. Utah 1986)