Public and Nonpublic Fora: Brief Introduction

 The Categories of Public and Nonpublic Fora

The Supreme Court has classified government property opened to private expression as creating one of three categories of fora: such government property will be classified as either a traditional public forum, a designated public forum, or a nonpublic forum. A traditional public forum is a place, such as a park or a public street, that has “immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, ha[s] been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.”  

A second category of forum is the designated or limited public forum. Such a public forum is created when Government purposefully opens its property for public expression by part or all of the public.

Finally, a nonpublic forum exists when Government opens its property for certain communicative purposes, but does not intend to create a designated public forum.

In the case of a limited public forum, government may not exclude “a speaker who falls within the class to which a designated public forum is made generally available,” nor “may it discriminate against speech on the basis of viewpoint.” 


In the case of a nonpublic forum, the government may restrict access “as long as the restrictions are reasonable and [are] not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speakers view.” 

Significantly, although the government may exclude speech from even a limited public forum on the basis of subject matter, viewpoint discrimination is prohibited in both public and nonpublic fora.

Notice in Rosenberger the Court referred to the SAF Funding Policy as "a forum more in a metaphysical than in a spatial or geographic sense, but the same principles are applicable." 

What is a metaphysical forum? How can a pool of money be a forum for speech? Does it turn on the purpose of the funding? Why did U VA create a pool of funds to pay the printing costs of newspapers and magazines published by student groups?