Summum Case

Here is the issue in the case--Is the Ten Commandment display Government speech covered by the E.C. and Van Orden? If so, what result?

Or is the display the private speech of the Eagles (the group that donated the display in 1971) in which case we may have some kind of designated public forum governed by the Free Speech Clause? If the latter, then when Summum's Seven Aphorisms display is denied access to the park, Summum may be protected by the Free Speech Clause against content or viewpoint based exclusion.

If you were counsel to a strict-separationist group offended by Grove City's 10 Commandments Display, what would you do? Play Don Quixote and lose under Van Orden? Or try to come up with a new strategy, one that would force the City to remove the 10 Commandments display or be required to accept each and every display donated by anyone?

If the Court had held that Grove City had created a forum for private speech by accepting permanent monuments from private groups or individuals, how would the Free Speech analysis have gone?

Assuming the Free Speech Clause would require the City to refrain from censorship of private speech when receiving donations of monuments and memorials, and thus would require the City to accept and display Summum's Seven Aphorisms Monument, would the City also be required to accept and display a monument praising the September 11th terrorists? A monument donated by the KKK praising White Supremacy?

Here is the key passage from Summum:

We think it fair to say that throughout our Nation's history. the general government practice with respect to donated monuments has been one of selective receptivity." p.3

Although the Court says that "[p]ermanent monuments displayed on public property typically represent government speech," (p. 3) because the government accepts the monument in order to convey its own speech to the public, it also says that there are "limited circumstances" in which the government might create a permanent monument for the purpose of allowing private speakers to convey their message. p. 5

For example, suppose after the Columbine shootings, the local public school created a "wall of memory" and allowed survivors and their parents and friends to purchase a brick to be placed in the wall as part of this permanent memorial. Parents and friends were allowed to write their own memorials on the bricks (e.g. "to Bobby, who loved his school and his family" or "to Betty, from her friends in the LGBT community" or "love and tolerance is the answer to violence"). However, when John and Jane Doe, parents of Mary Doe, a student who was killed at Columbine, engrave "in memory of Mary Doe, who loved her Savior, Jesus" on their brick, the school refuses to place it on the memorial because --eek, a mouse--the Establishment Clause forbids this religious statement on a memorial in a public school.

Analyze this problem.


Scalia in Summum:

What the heck did Scalia mean when he said this?:

"The city ought not fear that today's victory has propelled it from the Free Speech Clause frying pan into the Establishment Clause fire."