Government Property Becomes Government Speech, Threatening Public Forum Rights
The relationship between government property and government speech is complex. Courts and scholars struggle to understand if property can be expressive itself or just a means of expression. In the context of government, this creates a problem for public forums. While the First Amendment limits the government's right to exclude private speakers, government property doctrine allows the government to exclude speakers by claiming it as expressive conduct. This raises the question of whether all property is expressive or if all government speech is exempt from scrutiny. The article argues that property enables and is expression, but in government cases, the focus should be on the government's right to exclude speakers, not on the expressive nature of that exclusion.