Pleasant Grove City v. Summum: The Supreme Court Finds a Public Display of Ten Commandments to Be Permissible Government Speech

The Supreme Court Review - Cato Institute, 2009

29 Pages Posted: 20 Sep 2013

See all articles by Patrick M. Garry

Patrick M. Garry

University of South Dakota - School of Law

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2009

Abstract

In Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, the Supreme Court reversed a Tenth Circuit decision to grant an obscure religion’s request to display a permanent religious monument in a city park which contained other privately-donated monuments, including a Ten Commandments monument. In granting the request, the Tenth Circuit found that the city had engaged in viewpoint discrimination by refusing to include the proffered monument in its park.

By ruling that public parks constitute, for free speech purposes, traditional public forums irrespective of the particular means of communication sought — e.g., permanent monuments versus public gatherings or leaflet distributions — the Tenth Circuit had undercut a city’s authority to determine what monuments it would place in public parks, leaving municipalities with an all-or-nothing choice. They either had to prohibit all monuments or permit all monuments unconditionally. But in reality this is not a choice, since no government would be so careless as to open a public park to any monument, knowing that it then had no subsequent ability to deny any other monument.

Finally, even though no Establishment Clause issue was involved in the litigation or ruled on by the Court, this case does present various Establishment Clause implications for future cases. Indeed, these implications may well turn out to have the most significant impact on the legacy of Pleasant Grove City v. Summum.

Keywords: First Amendment rights, Free Speech Clause, Establishment Clause

JEL Classification: K1, K10, K19, K30

Suggested Citation

Garry, Patrick M., Pleasant Grove City v. Summum: The Supreme Court Finds a Public Display of Ten Commandments to Be Permissible Government Speech (2009). The Supreme Court Review - Cato Institute, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2328405

Patrick M. Garry (Contact Author)

University of South Dakota - School of Law ( email )

414 E. Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069
United States

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