Opinion of the Court
(1977) (per curiam) (upholding free-speech rights of participants in a Nazi parade); Snyder, 562 U. S., at 456–457 (same for protestors of a soldier’s funeral).[1]
Failing all else, Colorado suggests that this Court’s decision in FAIR supports affirmance. See also post, at 25–26 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.) (making the same argument). In FAIR, a group of schools challenged a law requiring them, as a condition of accepting federal funds, to permit military recruiters space on campus on equal terms with other potential employers. 547 U. S., at 51–52, 58. The only expressive activity required of the law schools, the Court found, involved the posting of logistical notices along these lines: “ ‘The U. S. Army recruiter will meet interested students in Room 123 at 11 a.m.’ ” Id., at 61–62. And, the Court reasoned, compelled speech of this sort was “incidental” and a “far cry” from the speech at issue in our “leading First Amendment precedents [that] have established the principle that freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.” Ibid.; see also NIFLA, 585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8).
It is a far cry from this case too. To be sure, our cases have held that the government may sometimes “requir[e]
- ↑ The dissent labels the distinction between status and message “amusing” and “embarrassing.” Post, at 32. But in doing so, the dissent ignores a fundamental feature of the Free Speech Clause. While it does not protect status-based discrimination unrelated to expression, generally it does protect a speaker’s right to control her own message—even when we may disapprove of the speaker’s motive or the message itself. The dissent’s derision is no answer to any of this. It ignores, too, the fact that Colorado itself has, in other contexts, distinguished status-based discrimination (forbidden) from the right of a speaker to control his own message (protected). See App. 131, 137, 140, 143–144, 149, 152, 154. (Truth be told, even the dissent acknowledges “th[is] distinction” elsewhere in its opinion. Post, at 31, n. 11.) Nor is the distinction unusual in societies committed both to nondiscrimination rules and free expression. See, e.g., Lee v. Ashers Baking Co. Ltd., [2018] UKSC 49, p. 14 (“The less favourable treatment was afforded to the message not to the man.”). Does the dissent really find all that amusing and embarrassing?
