holding that university’s expulsion of graduate student for distributing on campus a newspaper containing indecent speech violated First Amendment because she “was expelled because of the disapproved content of the newspaper rather than the time, place, or manner of its distribution .” (italics in original; footnote omitted)
How later courts described this case
- holding that university’s expulsion of graduate student for distributing on campus a newspaper containing indecent speech violated First Amendment because she “was expelled because of the disapproved content of the newspaper rather than the time, place, or manner of its distribution .” (italics in original; footnote omitted)
- recognizing that the student press is entitled to the same general protections afforded privately owned newspapers
- holding expulsion of student for distributing newspaper containing political cartoon on campus was not “viewpoint neutral,” and therefore did not fall within university’s “legitimate authority to enforce reasonable regulations as to the time, place and manner of speech and its dissemination”
- holding that university violated student's First Amendment rights by expelling student for distributing newspaper with a political cartoon the university viewed as explicit and offensive
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
dissenting.
I join the dissent of Justice Rehnquist which follows and add a few observations.
The present case is clearly distinguishable from the Court’s prior holdings in Cohen, Gooding, and Rosenfeld, *672 as erroneous as those holdings are. * Cohen, Gooding, and Rosenfeld dealt with prosecutions under criminal statutes which allowed the imposition of severe penalties. Unlike such traditional First Amendment cases, we deal here with rules which govern conduct on the campus of a state university.
In theory, at least, a university is not merely an arena for the discussion of ideas by students and faculty; it is also an institution where individuals learn to express themselves in acceptable, civil terms. We provide that environment to the end that students may learn the self-restraint necessary to the functioning of a civilized society and understand the need for those external restraints to which we must all submit if group existence is to be tolerable.
I find it a curious — even bizarre — extension of Cohen, Gooding, and Rosenfeld to say that a state university is impotent to deal with conduct such as that of the petitioner. Students are, of course, free to criticize the university, its faculty, or the Government in vigorous, or even harsh, terms. But it is not unreasonable or violative of the Constitution to subject to disciplinary action those individuals who distribute publications which are at the same time obscene and infantile. To preclude a state university or college from regulating the distribution of such obscene materials does not protect the values inherent in the First Amendment; rather, it demeans those values. The anomaly of the Court's holding today is *673 suggested by its use of the now familiar “code” abbreviation for the petitioner’s foul language.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals was eminently correct. It should be affirmed.
Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15, 27 (1971) (Blackmun, J., with whom Burger, C. J., and Black, J., joined, dissenting); Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U. S. 518, 528 (1972) (Burger, C. J., dissenting), 534 (Blackmun, J., dissenting); Rosenfeld v. New Jersey, 408 U. S. 901, 902 (1972) (Burger, C. J., dissenting), 903 (Powell, J., dissenting), 909 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).