Amicus Curiae Brief — Manhattan Community Access Corporation, et al., Petitioners v. DeeDee Halleck, et al.
Supreme Court briefDec 11, 2018
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No. 17-1702
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
___________________
MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORPORATION,
DANIEL COUGHLIN, JEANETTE SANTIAGO, CORY BRYCE,
Petitioners,
v.
DEEDEE HALLECK, JESUS PAPOLETO MELENDEZ,
Respondents.
___________________
On Writ of Certiorari to the United
States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
___________________
BRIEF OF THE CATO INSTITUTE
AS
AMICUS CURIAE
IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS
___________________
ILYA SHAPIRO
TREVOR BURRUS
CATO INSTITUTE
1000 Mass. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
DAVID DEBOLD
Counsel of Record
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
1050 Conn. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 955-8500
ddebold@gibsondunn.com
VINCE EISINGER
GRACE HART
CLIFFORD HWANG
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
200 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10166
Counsel for Amicus Curiae
QUESTION PRESENTED
Whether the Second Circuit erred in failing to apply this
Court’s “state action” tests and in adopting a per se rule that
private operators of public access channels are “state actors”
for constitutional purposes, even where the state has no control over the private entity’s board, policies, programs, facilities or operations, provides none of its funding, and is not alleged to have been involved in the conduct challenged in the
pleadings.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
QUESTION PRESENTED........................................... i
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES....................................... iv
INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ........................... 1
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 2
ARGUMENT ............................................................... 3
I.
THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS
FUNCTIONS BEST WHEN STATE
ACTORS CANNOT IMPAIR THE
SPEECH AND EDITORIAL RIGHTS OF
PRIVATE ACTORS. .........................................3
A.
A Robust Marketplace of Ideas Is an
Optimal Environment for the
Emergence of True and Superior
Ideas. ......................................................4
B.
State Interference Distorts the
Marketplace of Ideas Through
Coercion. .................................................7
C.
Private Actors Must Have Freedom
to Control Speech Within Their
Spheres of Influence. ...........................11
iii
II.
III.
THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS IS
BEST PRESERVED WHEN PRIVATE
ACTORS, WHO ARE NOT DOING THE
BIDDING OF THE STATE, RETAIN
THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT
FREEDOMS....................................................15
A.
A “State Actor” Requirement that
Focuses on Meaningful State
Control Over Speech Content
Correctly Distinguishes Between
State and Private Actors in the
Marketplace of Ideas............................16
B.
The Decision Below Failed to
Consider Whether Petitioners
Exercise Meaningful State Control. ....18
FAILURE TO ENFORCE THE “STATE
ACTOR” REQUIREMENT PROPERLY
COULD HAVE UNINTENDED FARREACHING CONSEQUENCES FOR
OTHER PLATFORMS AND MEDIA.............21
CONCLUSION .......................................................... 24
iv
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Page(s)
Cases
Abrams v. United States,
250 U.S. 616 (1919) ........................................ 4, 5, 9
Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan,
526 U.S. 40 (1999) ................................................ 17
Blum v. Yaretsky,
457 U.S. 991 (1982) .............................................. 16
Brentwood Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary
Sch. Athletic Ass’n,
531 U.S. 288 (2001) ........................................ 16, 17
Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition
for Fair Hous. v. City of Berkeley,
454 U.S. 290 (1981) ................................................ 4
Cohen v. California,
403 U.S. 15 (1971) ................................................ 10
Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc. v.
Democratic Nat’l Comm.,
412 U.S. 94 (1973) ................................................ 11
Davison v. Plowman,
247 F. Supp. 3d 767 (E.D. Va. 2017) ................... 23
Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co.,
Inc.,
500 U.S. 614 (1991) .............................................. 15
v
Howard v. Am. Online, Inc.,
208 F.3d 741 (3d Cir. 2000) ................................. 23
Jackson v. Metro. Edison Co.,
419 U.S. 345 (1974) .............................................. 17
Knight First Amendment Inst. at
Columbia Univ. v. Trump,
302 F. Supp. 3d 541 (S.D.N.Y. 2018) ................... 23
Lamont v. Postmaster Gen.,
381 U.S. 301 (1965) ................................................ 4
Leathers v. Medlock,
499 U.S. 439 (1991) ................................................ 8
Lebron v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp.,
513 U.S. 374 (1995) .............................................. 17
Lugar v. Edmonson Oil Co., Inc.,
457 U.S. 922 (1982) ........................................ 15, 19
Miami Herald Publ’g Co. v. Tornillo,
418 U.S. 241 (1974) .............................................. 12
Nat’l Inst. of Family & Life Advocates v.
Becerra,
138 S. Ct. 2361 (2018) ........................................ 5, 9
Packingham v. North Carolina,
137 S. Ct. 1730 (2017) .......................................... 22
Prager Univ. v. Google LLC,
No. 17-cv-06064, 2018 WL 1471939
(N.D. Ca. Mar. 26, 2018) ...................................... 23
vi
Reed v. Town of Gilbert,
135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015) ............................................ 8
Shulman v. Facebook.com,
No. 17-cv-00764, 2017 WL 5129885
(D.N.J. Nov. 6, 2017) ............................................ 23
Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of
New York State Crime Victims Bd.,
502 U.S. 105 (1991) ................................................ 9
Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. F.C.C.,
512 U.S. 622 (1994) .......................................... 7, 10
Other Authorities
A. Barton Hinkle, Government
Incentives to Business Distort Free
Market Forces, Reason.com,
https://reason.com/archives/2015/07/
27/ government-incentives-tobusiness-distor (July 27, 2015) .............................. 8
Charles Fried, The New First
Amendment Jurisprudence: A
Threat to Liberty, 59 U. Chi. L. Rev.
225 (1992) ......................................................... 7, 13
Dawn C. Nunziato, The Death of the
Public Forum in Cyberspace, 20
Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1115 (2005) .......................... 22
vii
Edmund Burke, Letter No. 1. On the
Overtures of Peace (1796), in 3
Select Works of Edmund Burke 59
(Liberty Fund, Inc. 1999),
https://tinyurl.com/ydecpqyx ................................. 8
Frederick F. Schauer, Hudgens v.
NLRB and the Problem of State
Action in First Amendment
Adjudication, 61 Minn. L. Rev. 433
(1977) .................................................................... 12
Frederick Schauer, Fear, Risk and the
First Amendment: Unraveling the
“Chilling Effect,” 58 B.U. L. Rev. 685
(1978) .................................................................... 10
Freedom of Expression Act of 1983:
Hearing on S. 1917 Before the S.
Comm. On Commerce, Sci., and
Transp., 98th Cong. 90 (1984) ............................. 20
Gary Chartier, An Ecological Theory of
Free Expression (2018) ........................................ 13
Guy Sorman, Schumpeter in the White
House, City Journal (Spring 2012),
https://www.cityjournal.org/html/schumpeter-whitehouse-13462.html ................................................... 6
Jean de La Fontaine, A Hundred Fables
of La Fontaine (London, The Bodley
Head 2d ed. n.d.) .................................................. 18
viii
John Milton, Areopagitica (Cambridge,
The University Press 1918) (1644),
https://tinyurl.com/ y7muykoj ............................... 5
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, in 18
Collected Works of John Stuart Mill
213 (Univ. of Toronto Press 1977),
https://tinyurl.com/yar4am3f ............................. 6, 9
Jonathan Peters, The “Sovereigns of
Cyberspace” and State Action: The
First Amendment’s Application—Or
Lack Thereof—To Third-Party
Platforms, 32 Berkeley Tech. L.J.
989 (2018) ............................................................. 22
Joseph Blocher, Institutions in the
Marketplace of Ideas, 57 Duke L.J.
821 (2008) ........................................................... 4, 5
Julian N. Eule & Jonathan D. Varat,
Transporting First Amendment
Norms to the Private Sector: With
Every Wish There Comes A Curse,
45 UCLA L. Rev. 1537 (1998) .............................. 14
Kate Klonick, The New Governors: The
People, Rules and Processes
Governing Online Speech, 131 Harv.
L. Rev. 1598 (2018) .............................................. 24
Maimon Schwarzschild, Value
Pluralism and the Constitution: In
Defense of the State Action Doctrine,
1988 Sup. Ct. Rev. 129 (1988) ............................. 11
ix
Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy,
and State with Power and Market
(Ludwig von Mises Inst. 2d ed.
2009), https://tinyurl.com/y8nrn4t9 ...................... 8
Tyler Cowen, In Praise of Commercial
Culture (1998) ........................................................ 7
INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE 1
The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan, public policy
research foundation founded in 1977 and dedicated
to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free
markets, and limited government. Cato’s Robert A.
Levy Center for Constitutional Studies helps restore
the principles of constitutional government that are
the foundation of liberty. To those ends, Cato holds
conferences; publishes books, studies, and the annual
Cato Supreme Court Review; and files amicus briefs.
Consistent with its values, Cato believes that the
Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, must
be preserved as a safeguard against government infringement on individual liberty, rather than used to
burden private citizens in the resolution of their disagreements with other private citizens. The Second
Circuit’s expansive view of the “state actor” requirement improperly treated private parties as creatures
of the state without considering whether those parties’ speech and editorial decisions were subject to
meaningful state control.
Cato offers this brief in support of Petitioner to
protect the idea of state action that is at the heart of
the First Amendment. The decision below illegitimately reads the state actor requirement out of the
state actor test and in so doing imperils the free expression that the First Amendment protects.
1
Pursuant to Rule 37.3(a) of the Rules of this Court,
counsel for all parties received timely notice of amicus’s intent
to file this brief, and consented in writing. No counsel for any
party authored this brief in any part; no person or entity other
than amicus or its counsel made a monetary contribution to
fund its preparation or submission.
2
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
The First Amendment, by its very terms, restricts
actions by the state, not those of private persons. The
only way the Constitution could burden a private
person with the duty to “make no law . . . abridging
the freedom of speech” is if that person stood in the
shoes of the state. This Court’s “state action” precedents establish that this requisite control by, or complicity with, the state is absent unless the person is
either acting jointly with the state, performing a
public (i.e., a state) function, or being compelled by
the state to act. As applied to a case like this, the appropriate question therefore is whether the private
person’s speech or editorial decisions can fairly be attributed to the state, not whether the state has in
some way allowed the person to operate in what can
be described as a public forum.
The need for Respondents to show that the state
acted in concert with Petitioners to the extent of controlling their editorial decisions stems from the very
nature of the Bill of Rights. A state has certain powers that private parties do not. The Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights to circumscribe those
uniquely governmental powers with duties uniquely
applicable to the state. For example, because the
state has the power to search and seize private property or deprive a person of life, liberty, or property,
the Constitution places limits on the state’s ability to
exercise those powers, such as the requirements to
get a warrant (Fourth Amendment) or provide due
process (Fifth Amendment).
So too when it comes to the First Amendment. Allowing the state unfettered power to interfere with
the flow of speech in the marketplace of ideas would
3
allow the state to alter discourse and consequently
interfere with the search for truth. The First
Amendment therefore prevents the state from restricting who may speak and what they can say. This
risk of abuse of power is absent, though, when a private person is speaking or—as relevant here—
deciding who may use its property to speak. Allowing
lawsuits that challenge the editorial decisions of private persons who promote speech via their private
property would unduly and unnecessarily stifle the
free flow of speech in the marketplace of ideas. Thus,
while Petitioners should prevail here, it is of even
greater importance for this Court to clearly hold that
the First Amendment does not saddle a private person with burdens that were created to check state
power, unless that person is standing in the state’s
shoes.
ARGUMENT
I. THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS FUNCTIONS
BEST WHEN STATE ACTORS CANNOT IMPAIR THE SPEECH AND EDITORIAL RIGHTS
OF PRIVATE ACTORS.
This Court has often used the “marketplace of
ideas” as a metaphor to illustrate the benefits of free
speech. When private participants in the marketplace of ideas are free to propose, debate, and accept
or reject ideas, the marketplace becomes a powerful
identifier of true and superior ideas.
State interference distorts the marketplace of
ideas. The state’s unique coercive powers would allow it to elevate favored speech, suppress disfavored
speech, and—in so doing—tilt the entire marketplace
4
in its favored direction. Private participants, on the
other hand, lack the state’s coercive power in the
marketplace. The inability of private parties to tilt
the marketplace of ideas explains why the First
Amendment proscribes only state interference with
speech.
A. A Robust Marketplace of Ideas Is an Optimal
Environment for the Emergence of True and
Superior Ideas.
Nearly 100 years ago, Justice Holmes wrote that
“the theory of our Constitution” is that “the ultimate
good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas,”
and “the best test of truth is the power of the thought
to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630
(1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting). In so writing, Justice
Holmes succinctly captured one of the foremost theories animating the First Amendment’s protections of
free speech.
The apt metaphor of a “market” in which speakers can trade in ideas “conceptualized the purpose of
free speech so powerfully that” Justice Holmes’
Abrams dissent “revolutionized not just First
Amendment doctrine, but popular and academic understandings of free speech.” Joseph Blocher, Institutions in the Marketplace of Ideas, 57 Duke L.J. 821,
823–24 (2008). The “marketplace of ideas,” as Justice
Brennan later put it, Lamont v. Postmaster Gen.,
381 U.S. 301, 308 (1965) (Brennan, J., concurring),
has since become a staple of the Court’s free speech
jurisprudence. See, e.g., Citizens Against Rent Control/Coal. for Fair Hous. v. City of Berkeley, 454 U.S.
290, 295 (1981) (“The Court has long viewed the
5
First Amendment as protecting a marketplace for
the clash of different views and conflicting ideas.”);
see also Blocher, supra, at 825 n.7 (collecting First
Amendment cases in which the Court has relied on
the concept of a marketplace of ideas). Indeed, the
Court reaffirmed Justice Holmes’ observations about
the marketplace of ideas as recently as last Term.
See Nat’l Inst. of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra,
138 S. Ct. 2361, 2375 (2018) (“NIFLA”) (“The best
test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself
accepted in the competition of the market . . . .” (alteration omitted) (quoting Abrams, 250 U.S. at 630
(Holmes, J., dissenting))).
Believers in free speech have long recognized the
importance of a robust exchange of ideas in the
search for truth. In 1644, John Milton wrote,
And though all the winds of doctrine were let
loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the
field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and
Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put
to the worse, in a free and open encounter?
John Milton, Areopagitica 58 (Cambridge, The University Press 1918) (1644), https://tinyurl.com/
y7muykoj. In 1859, John Stuart Mill also argued
that the free exchange of ideas enables truth to overcome error, and added that encountering erroneous
ideas benefits participants in the marketplace:
[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression
of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human
race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still
more than those who hold it. If the opinion is
6
right, they are deprived of the opportunity of
exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose,
what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer
perception and livelier impression of truth,
produced by its collision with error.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, in 18 Collected Works
of John Stuart Mill 213, 229 (Univ. of Toronto Press
1977), https://tinyurl.com/yar4am3f.
Mill further argued that the best approach for
“knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what
can be said about it by persons of every variety of
opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be
looked at by every character of mind.” Id. at 232. Indeed, according to Mill, it is not “in the nature of
human intellect to become wise in any other manner”
and “[t]he steady habit of correcting and completing
[one’s] own opinion by collating it with those of others . . . is the only stable foundation for just reliance
on it.” Id.
When the marketplace of ideas is functioning
properly, not only do those who participate benefit,
but so does society. Mill wrote that “[w]rong opinions
and practices gradually yield to fact and argument.”
Id. at 231. When flawed ideas give way to superior
ideas, the societal customs and traditions that are
founded on those ideas give way as well. This progression benefits all of society.
In fact, the process is doubly beneficial because a
robust marketplace of ideas continually retests even
the ideas that emerge as true and superior. Some of
yesterday’s “best” ideas are replaced with better ones
today, and some of today’s “best” ideas will be replaced with better ones tomorrow. Cf. Guy Sorman,
7
Schumpeter in the White House, City Journal
(Spring 2012), https://www.city-journal.org/html/
schumpeter-white-house-13462.html (under the economic theory of “creative destruction,” “progress in a
capitalist economy requires that the old give way
constantly to the new: production technologies in a
free economy improve constantly, and new products
and services are always on offer”). Hence freezing the
marketplace at any point risks entrenching ideas
that will eventually become obsolete, and depriving
the public of superior ideas yet to come. 2
B. State Interference Distorts the Marketplace of
Ideas Through Coercion.
Unlike private participants in the marketplace of
ideas, the state possesses power “to suppress unpopular ideas or information or manipulate the public
debate through coercion rather than persuasion.”
Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 641
(1994). This power arises from the government’s
unique capacity to compel behavior and impede personal freedom. See Charles Fried, The New First
Amendment Jurisprudence: A Threat to Liberty, 59
U. Chi. L. Rev. 225, 236 (1992) (“The state is the law,
and the law is final—even when the law appears in
the humble guise of a municipal ordinance.”).
2 Many subjects of discussion in the marketplace of ideas,
such as the arts, are a matter of preference. The pluralism of
the marketplace is better suited than is the state to meeting the
diverse preferences of market participants on these subjects
too. See Tyler Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture 1 (1998)
(“The capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated
institutional framework for supporting a plurality of coexisting
artistic visions . . . .”).
8
This coercive power enables the state to “distort
the market for ideas” in a way that private parties
cannot. Leathers v. Medlock, 499 U.S. 439, 448
(1991). 3 The state’s power does not just clash with
private speech in the marketplace—it tilts the entire
marketplace itself. When the state elects to support
certain speech, its coercive power disproportionately
elevates that speech in the marketplace. See
Edmund Burke, Letter No. 1. On the Overtures of
Peace (1796), in 3 Select Works of Edmund Burke 59,
148 (Liberty Fund, Inc. 1999), https://tinyurl.com/
ydecpqyx (“Reason, clearly and manfully delivered,
has in itself a mighty force; but reason, in the mouth
of legal authority, is, I may fairly say, irresistible.”).
Similarly, when the state elects to suppress
certain speech, its coercive power disproportionately
quiets—and in some cases, silences—that speech in
the marketplace. See Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S.
Ct. 2218, 2234 (2015) (Breyer, J., concurring)
(“[W]henever government disfavors one kind of
speech, it places that speech at a disadvantage,
potentially interfering with the free marketplace of
ideas . . . .”); Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of
3 This is similar to the distortive effect of state interference
in economic markets. See, e.g., Murray N. Rothbard, Man,
Economy, and State with Power and Market 1061 (Ludwig von
Mises Inst. 2d ed. 2009), https://tinyurl.com/y8nrn4t9 (“Coercive
intervention . . . signifies per se that the individual or individuals coerced would not have done what they are now doing were
it not for the intervention.”); A. Barton Hinkle, Government Incentives to Business Distort Free Market Forces, Reason.com,
https://reason.com/archives/2015/07/27/government-incentivesto-business-distor (July 27, 2015) (“Government incentives to
business interfere with [the free market] process. They take resources out of the economy and redirect them in ways they
would not otherwise go.”).
9
N.Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 116
(1991) (“[T]he government’s ability to impose
content-based burdens on speech raises the specter
that the government may effectively drive certain
ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace.”).
“[T]he people lose when the government is the one
deciding which ideas should prevail.” NIFLA, 138 S.
Ct. at 2375. This is because, among other reasons,
state interference in the marketplace of ideas risks
the acceptance of ideas that the market would
otherwise have rejected, and the rejection of ideas
that the market would otherwise have accepted. 4
Indeed, coercive state interference can influence the
acceptance of an idea in the marketplace without
regard for its “truth.” Such a result runs contrary to
the principle underlying the marketplace of ideas,
that “the best test of truth is the power of the
thought to get itself accepted in the competition of
the market,” Abrams, 250 U.S. at 630 (Holmes, J.,
dissenting).
State interference does more than just directly
alter the marketplace of ideas; it chills future speech.
See Frederick Schauer, Fear, Risk and the First
4 State intervention is undesirable even if the marketplace is
independently inclined towards an idea the state favors. Mill
argued that silencing erroneous speech deprives the marketplace of a “clearer perception and livelier impression of truth,
produced by its collision with error.” Mill, supra, at 229.
Moreover, as discussed infra at 9–10, state intervention sets
a precedent that chills speech in the future. Thus, even if the
state’s favorite ideas temporarily align with the marketplace’s,
the risk of distortion remains because the state’s power can entrench ideas that the marketplace otherwise might have replaced.
10
Amendment: Unraveling the “Chilling Effect,” 58
B.U. L. Rev. 685, 693 (1978) (“Deterred by the fear of
punishment, some individuals refrain from saying or
publishing that which they lawfully could, and
indeed, should.”). For example, jailing a speaker for
what he says likely will discourage other potential
speakers from expressing their ideas, for fear of state
retribution. This deprives the marketplace of the
opportunity to consider fully the ideas of these
potential speakers too. See id. (The deterrence of
speech “is to be feared not only because of the harm
that flows from the non-exercise of a constitutional
right, but also because of general societal loss which
results when the freedoms guaranteed by the first
amendment are not exercised.”).
The First Amendment protects the freedom of
speech from state interference. By its very terms, the
provision directs that “Congress shall make no law
. . . abridging the freedom of speech.” When courts
properly interpret the First Amendment to prevent
state interference, the marketplace of ideas is left to
function properly. Thus, “[a]t the heart of the First
Amendment lies the principle that each person
should decide for himself or herself the ideas and
beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and
adherence.” Turner Broad. Sys., 512 U.S. at 641; see
also Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 24 (1971)
(stating that the “right of free expression . . . is designed and intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion,” thereby
“putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced
largely into the hands of each of us, in the hope that
use of such freedom will ultimately pro-duce a more
capable citizenry and more perfect polity”).
11
C. Private Actors Must Have Freedom to Control
Speech Within Their Spheres of Influence.
Concerns about state interference in the marketplace of ideas do not apply when a private actor
lawfully controls speech within its “sphere of
influence” through the exercise of its own rights. For
example, a private billboard owner is free not to rent
billboard space for a political message with which
she disagrees. The owner has a right to avoid associating with the message, and certainly to avoid
promoting the message. And the potential customer
would have a right to pursue posting the message
elsewhere. Likewise, a private company is free to
insist, as a condition of employment, that employees
not publicly disparage the company’s products. In the
end, a private actor’s message can only exercise the
power of persuasion in the marketplace of ideas;
others remain free to ignore, debate, challenge, or
accept the message.
To be sure, private participants in the marketplace vary in the amount of influence and resources
they possess, but that is categorically different from
the coercive power of the state. See Maimon
Schwarzschild, Value Pluralism and the Constitution: In Defense of the State Action Doctrine, 1988
Sup. Ct. Rev. 129, 138 & n.41 (1988) (distinguishing
private power from government power and stressing
that “even the most powerful corporation cannot
directly control the armed might of the state”). A
private actor lacks the power that the state could
wield to exclude viewpoints from the marketplace of
ideas. See Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Democratic
Nat’l Comm., 412 U.S. 94, 153 (1973) (Douglas, J.,
concurring) (“[F]or one publisher who may suppress
12
a fact, there are many who will print it. But if the
Government is the censor, administrative fiat, not
freedom of choice, carries the day.”). Accordingly, private actors are unable to tilt the marketplace of
ideas in the same manner as state actors.
In fact, the marketplace of ideas functions best
when private actors are left free to control speech
within their spheres of influence. Private actors
participate in the marketplace of ideas through both
what they say and what they elect not to say,
including what they prevent others from saying
within their spheres of influence. Indeed, “individual
decisions about speech—preferring some ideas and
information to others, placing one’s property at the
service of some ideologies and not others—are
central to the concept of a marketplace of ideas.”
Frederick F. Schauer, Hudgens v. NLRB and the
Problem of State Action in First Amendment
Adjudication, 61 Minn. L. Rev. 433, 448–49 (1977).
This is particularly true of private actors who
dedicate their property to expressive functions as
they exercise discretion in determining what ideas
and viewpoints to use their property to publish (and
not to publish). See Miami Herald Publ’g Co. v.
Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241, 258 (1974) (explaining that
“[a] newspaper is more than a passive receptacle or
conduit for news, comment, and advertising” and
that “[t]he choice of material to go into a newspaper,
and the decisions made as to limitations on the size
and content of the paper, and treatment of public
issues and public officials—whether fair or unfair—
constitute the exercise of editorial control and
judgment”).
13
A private actor’s limitations on who may use that
actor’s property for speech and what ideas may be
expressed on the actor’s property stem from the
private actor’s rights of free expression—and
therefore fundamentally differ from state limitations
on speech. See Fried, supra, at 237 (explaining that
“[p]rivate impositions and limitations [on speech]
differ fundamentally from state impositions” because
“they issue from the limiting person’s own exercise of
liberty”).
Moreover, a private actor’s use of his property for
expressive purposes also arises from his possessory
rights in property. See Gary Chartier, An Ecological
Theory of Free Expression 21 (2018) (“Respecting
people’s justly acquired possessions provides a clear,
simple, and robust basis for protecting their freedom
of expression. Possessory rights determine who will
have the right to speak where and using what
media.”); Fried, supra, at 237 (“Private impositions
and limitations [on speech] . . . . derive from other
private rights that the limiter might have: rights to
privacy, or more commonly, rights to property.”).
Accordingly, the state’s enforcement of private
actors’ property rights facilitates their use of
property for expressive purposes and thus their
participation in the marketplace of ideas. See
Chartier, supra, at 13 (“Robust protections for just
possessory rights ground and enable participation in
the ecosystem of expression.”). When the state
properly limits its role to protecting property rights,
“[p]eople’s right to control their justly acquired
possessions provides a powerful safeguard against
interference with expressive activity.” Id. at 14. The
proper role of the state in such circumstances, then,
is to allow private actors to safeguard their property
14
rights—including the right to choose who may use
their property for speech and to express which
ideas—through peaceful rather than violent means.
Treating private parties as state actors—
especially as a constitutional mandate rather than a
legislative condition that the private party may
accept or reject—would require private parties to
adhere to the same content-neutrality norms that
constrain public entities and would consequently
interfere with their free expression of ideas on their
property. Indeed, a property owner subject to the
limits of the First Amendment would be unable to
deny the use of his property when he has legitimate
concerns about the ideas the putative user might
express. And that property owner would face a
constant risk of litigation by those who believe
content played a role in the allocation of finite
resources to potential speakers. Subjecting private
parties to the First Amendment’s proscriptions
would therefore cause them to lose control over what
is expressed within their spheres of influence and
restrict their ability to express views and ideas
freely. Such a result would trivialize the very concept
of the marketplace of ideas because private
individuals,
communities,
and
institutions—
particularly those devoted to expressive functions—
would be deprived of “rights to offer to, and consume
from, the marketplace of ideas.” Julian N. Eule &
Jonathan D. Varat, Transporting First Amendment
Norms to the Private Sector: With Every Wish There
Comes A Curse, 45 UCLA L. Rev. 1537, 1617–18
(1998). In this sense, compelling private actors to
“tolerate the speech of others in a way that the public
sector must allow ultimately forfeits many of the
very values of free expression” itself. Id. at 1606.
15
II. THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS IS BEST PRESERVED WHEN PRIVATE ACTORS, WHO ARE
NOT DOING THE BIDDING OF THE STATE,
RETAIN THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT FREEDOMS.
The values underlying the First Amendment are
best served by limiting government interference with
speech and maintaining a private sphere in which
private actors retain the freedom to choose which
ideas and values to pursue. The “state actor”
requirement is critical to maintaining such a private
sphere by ensuring that the First Amendment’s
proscriptions are only imposed on the state—and not
private parties who act as private parties. As this
Court has explained, “[c]areful adherence to the
‘state action’ requirement preserves an area of
individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal
law and federal judicial power.” Lugar v. Edmonson
Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922, 936 (1982); see also Edmonson
v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 619 (1991)
(stating that the state action doctrine furthers the
constitutional objective of permitting citizens to
structure private relations).
The decision below improperly rewrites the state
action requirement, thus significantly expanding the
circumstances in which private parties may be
subjected to the First Amendment’s proscriptions. In
particular, the decision shifts the focus of the state
action analysis away from whether the state
exercised control over the private party’s speech or
editorial decisions to look instead at the nature of the
forum where the speech occurred.
16
A. A “State Actor” Requirement that Focuses on
Meaningful State Control Over Speech Content Correctly Distinguishes Between State
and Private Actors in the Marketplace of Ideas.
In determining whether a private entity can be
treated as a state actor, this Court has focused on
whether the state exercises meaningful control over
the private entity’s conduct, here the entity’s
editorial decisions. This Court has explained that for
the conduct of a private entity to be “fairly
attributable” to the state, there must be “such a close
nexus between the State and the challenged action
that seemingly private behavior may be fairly
treated as that of the State itself.” Brentwood Acad.
v. Tenn. Secondary Sch. Athletic Ass’n, 531 U.S. 288,
295 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). “The
purpose of” the close-nexus “requirement is to assure
that constitutional standards are invoked only when
it can be said that the State is responsible for the
specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains.”
Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1004 (1982)
(emphasis in original).
This Court has accordingly set forth three tests
for determining whether the requisite control by, or
complicity with, the state exists such that a private
entity may be treated as a state actor: (1) the entity
acts pursuant to the “coercive power” of the state or
is “controlled” by the state (the “compulsion test”);
(2) the state provides “significant encouragement” to
the entity, the entity is a “willful participant in joint
activity with the [s]tate,” or the entity’s functions are
“entwined” with state policies (the “joint action test”);
and (3) the entity “has been delegated a public
17
function by the [s]tate,” (the “public function test”).
Brentwood Acad., 531 U.S. at 296–97, 303 (internal
quotation marks omitted). In contrast, “[a]ction
taken by private entities with the mere approval or
acquiescence of the [s]tate” is not state action. Am.
Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 52
(1999). Similarly, conduct by a private entity is not
fairly attributable to the state merely because the
private entity is a business subject to extensive state
regulation or “affected with the public interest.”
Jackson v. Metro. Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 350–53
(1974) (rejecting argument that a private electricity
provider is a state actor because the state conferred
“monopoly status” upon the company).
By limiting the “state actor” requirement to
circumstances in which the state exercises
meaningful control over the speech and editorial
decisions of private actors, courts can effectively
limit state interference in the marketplace of ideas
while preserving the full expression of ideas by
private actors. Indeed, in circumstances where the
state does not exercise control over what a private
actor says or allows others to say, the private actor’s
limitations on the speech within, and originating
from, that actor’s sphere of influence is an exercise of
that actor’s rights of free expression. The First
Amendment should not interfere with a private
actor’s speech decisions, including which speech it
does not permit.
Focusing on meaningful state control over content
resolves the related concern of state actors skirting
their constitutional obligations by enlisting private
actors to do their bidding. Cf. Lebron v. Nat’l R.R.
Passenger Corp., 513 U.S. 374, 397 (1995) (“It surely
18
cannot be that government, state or federal, is able
to evade the most solemn obligations imposed in the
Constitution by simply resorting to the corporate
form.”). Meaningful control in this context would
mean that the state imposed its editorial views on
the private actor, much like the monkey’s use of a
cat’s paw in Jean de La Fontaine’s fable. See Jean de
La Fontaine, A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine 140–
41 (London, The Bodley Head 2d ed. n.d.). So long as
a private actor in the marketplace of ideas is not
doing the state’s bidding on which ideas should be
promoted or demoted, the First Amendment has no
role to play.
B. The Decision Below Failed to Consider
Whether Petitioners Exercise Meaningful
State Control.
The panel majority below concluded that Petitioners engaged in “state action” when they suspended Respondents from airing programs on MNN’s
public access channels. However, in reaching this
conclusion, the panel majority did not apply any of
this Court’s “state actor” tests.
Instead of looking for meaningful state control,
the majority below found state action by focusing on
the nature of the forum. The majority first concluded
that public access channels are public forums because “[a] public access channel is the electronic version of the public square,” and then reasoned backward to draw a conclusion about whether Petitioners
are state actors. Pet. App. 13a. Moreover, the
majority treated its public forum holding as all but
dispositive of the state action question. Pet. App. 14a
(“Because facilities or locations deemed to be public
19
forums are usually operated by governments, determining that a particular facility or location is a public forum usually suffices to render the challenged
action taken there to be state action subject to First
Amendment limitations.”). The majority reasoned
that “whether the First Amendment applies to the
individuals who have taken the challenged actions in
a public forum depends on whether they have a
sufficient connection to governmental authority to be
deemed state actors,” and concluded this standard
was satisfied because the borough president designated MNN to run public access channels—a merely
nominal connection between MNN and the state.
Pet. App. 14a–15a (reasoning that the mere fact
“that the Manhattan Borough President designated
MNN to run the public access channels” creates “a
sufficient connection to governmental authority” for
employees of MNN “to be deemed state actors”). This
cannot even be called “adherence,” let alone “[c]areful
adherence,” Lugar, 457 U.S. at 936 (emphasis added), to the “state actor” requirement as established
by this Court’s precedents.
The majority’s decision erroneously shifts the
focus of the “state actor” requirement away from
determining whether there is evidence of meaningful
state control over a private party’s editorial decisions. Instead, the majority’s reasoning assumes it is
the nature of the forum—rather than state control
over how that forum decides who speaks or what
they say—that determines whether the First Amendment’s restrictions apply. Focusing the state actor
question on the public nature of the forum—rather
than meaningful state control of the speech itself—
significantly dilutes the test for what constitutes
state action and potentially subjects a wide range of
20
private actors to First Amendment regulations.
Under the majority’s decision, if a private actor
opens its property for public use and owes the
availability of its forum to the good graces of the
state, the private actor will lose its freedom to choose
the speech and ideas that may be expressed in that
forum.
Such a result would undermine the editorial discretion of private actors who hold open their property
for expressive purposes. These actors necessarily
make editorial decisions about the speech and
viewpoints that will and won’t be expressed in a
finite space. A public access channel, for example,
cannot air every and any proposed content. A
channel operator’s decision to host certain content is
therefore a decision to exclude all else. See Freedom
of Expression Act of 1983: Hearing on S. 1917 Before
the S. Comm. On Commerce, Sci., and Transp., 98th
Cong. 90 (1984) (statement of Roy M. Fisher,
Professor and Dean Emeritus, Univ. of Mo. School of
Journalism) (“[T]ime for a broadcaster is a finite
property. Something else must go if the broadcaster
is taxed to provide more complete coverage of an
issue.”). If the ruling below stands, the private
actor’s editorial decisions—including which speech to
host—would expose that actor to lawsuits by those
who assert that their views have been disfavored.
This risk of costly litigation could chill the editorial
process, preventing (indeed, forbidding) such private
actors from exercising their First Amendment right
to select which speech to express based on its content
or viewpoint. Faced with the threat of liability for the
mere exercise of editorial control, some private actors
may abstain from dedicating their property to
expressive purposes, and in the case of public access
21
channels, which are required by law to be held open
to the public, the threat of constitutional liability
may dissuade private actors from agreeing to operate
the channels in the first place.
In sum, allowing this decision to stand would
shrink the sphere in which private actors are free to
pursue diverse ideas and values, thus allowing the
First Amendment’s proscriptions to undermine the
values embodied in its protections.
III. FAILURE TO ENFORCE THE “STATE ACTOR”
REQUIREMENT PROPERLY COULD HAVE
UNINTENDED FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES FOR OTHER PLATFORMS AND
MEDIA.
The rule enunciated in the decision below diverges from established law in a way that could ultimately endanger a wide range of other platforms, particularly digital and web-based media. The Second Circuit’s reasoning—that the designation of a private
company to operate a public forum can be sufficient
to render the company a state actor—logically applies to an array of other media operators, such as
internet service and content providers. Indeed, such
platforms are arguably “the electronic version of the
public square,” which the decision below treats as all
but dispositive of the state action inquiry. Pet. App.
13a. The “state actor” requirement should not be
used to treat private digital and web-based media
platforms as governmental actors merely because the
forum in which they operate appears to be public in
nature. But the Second Circuit’s decision opens the
door to applying the state action doctrine in this way.
22
The Court should not lightly endorse a new constitutional test that could affect the ever-evolving
world of web-based media:
While we now . . . realiz[e] that the Cyber Age
is a revolution of historic proportions, we cannot appreciate yet its full dimensions and vast
potential to alter how we think, express ourselves, and define who we want to be. The
forces and directions of the Internet are so
new, so protean, and so far reaching that
courts must be conscious that what they say
today might be obsolete tomorrow.
Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1736
(2017).
The risk of civil liability is not an abstract hypothetical for internet service and content providers. To
the contrary, academic commentary and recent lawsuits have already raised the possibility of relaxing
the “state actor” requirement as applied to internet
service providers and social media platforms. Some
commentators have proposed modifying the state actor requirement, along the lines of the decision below, such that private internet service providers and
social media platforms could be treated as state actors for First Amendment purposes. See, e.g., Jonathan Peters, The “Sovereigns of Cyberspace” and
State Action: The First Amendment’s Application—
Or Lack Thereof—To Third-Party Platforms, 32
Berkeley Tech. L.J. 989, 1022–26 (2018); Dawn C.
Nunziato, The Death of the Public Forum in Cyberspace, 20 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1115, 1160–70 (2005).
Moreover, litigants have been emboldened in arguing that private owners and administrators of
23
online platforms, such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook, are state actors. So far, courts have rejected
these arguments and held that private online service
providers and social media platforms are not state
actors for First Amendment purposes. See, e.g.,
Prager Univ. v. Google LLC, No. 17-cv-06064, 2018
WL 1471939, at *8 (N.D. Ca. Mar. 26, 2018) (dismissing Section 1983 claim against Google because it did
not amount to state actor); Shulman v. Facebook.com, No. 17-cv-00764, 2017 WL 5129885, at *4
(D.N.J. Nov. 6, 2017) (rejecting arguments that Facebook is a state actor for constitutional purposes);
see also Howard v. Am. Online Inc., 208 F.3d 741,
754 (9th Cir. 2000) (rejecting argument that AOL
should be deemed a state actor because it is a “quasipublic utility” that involves “a public trust”).
Some courts, however, have used the public forum
doctrine to hold that the First Amendment applies to
specific “accounts” or “pages” on social media sites.
See, e.g., Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia
Univ. v. Trump, 302 F. Supp. 3d 541, 565–75
(S.D.N.Y. 2018) (holding that a Twitter account operated by a public office constitutes a public forum);
Davison v. Plowman, 247 F. Supp. 3d 767, 776 (E.D.
Va. 2017) (holding that a Facebook page operated by
a county attorney’s office serves as a limited public
forum). These decisions, when combined with the
majority’s diluted “state actor” requirement in public
forums, raise the specter of potential liability for private owners of these sites.
Relaxing the “state actor” requirement could have
serious unintended consequences for digital and webbased enterprises. In fact, it is difficult to believe
these innovations would exist today had their crea-
24
tors thought constitutional liability was part of the
bargain. Most of these platforms’ business models
are based on individualizing content so that users
are presented with information useful and relevant
to them, which necessarily entails restricting the
flow of speech from a wide array of other speakers.
See Kate Klonick, The New Governors: The People,
Rules and Processes Governing Online Speech, 131
Harv. L. Rev. 1598, 1599 (2018) (“[W]hile it might
appear that any internet user can publish freely and
instantly online, many platforms actively curate the
content posted by their users.”). Introducing the risk
of liability now will discourage present and future
innovation in these marketplaces.
Regulation of content in these private spaces
should be left to their owners rather than litigated
under the auspices of the First Amendment. The private sector has already designed creative, marketbased solutions to moderate content consistent with
the wishes of their customers. See Klonick, supra, at
1635–48 (exploring the various facets of content
moderation in social media). The imposition of constitutional liability would deprive private enterprises
of the full right to choose how to participate in the
marketplace of ideas. The Court should clarify that
private actors risk such liability only where their
speech and editorial decisions are subject to meaningful state control.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court should reject
the Second Circuit’s analysis and reaffirm that the
“state actor” requirement for First Amendment lia-
25
bility necessitates meaningful state control over the
decisions of the actor in question.
Respectfully submitted,
ILYA SHAPIRO
TREVOR BURRUS
CATO INSTITUTE
1000 Mass. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
DAVID DEBOLD
Counsel of Record
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
1050 Conn. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 955-8500
ddebold@gibsondunn.com
VINCE EISINGER
GRACE HART
CLIFFORD HWANG
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
200 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10166
Counsel for Amicus Curiae
December 11, 2018
This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.