Cite as: 504 U. S. 191 (1992)
Kennedy, J., concurring
Discerning the justification for a restriction of expression, however, is not always so straightforward as it was, or should have been, in Simon & Schuster. In some cases, a censorial justification will not be apparent from the face of a regulation which draws distinctions based on content, and the government will tender a plausible justification unrelated to the suppression of speech or ideas. There the compelling-interest test may be one analytical device to detect, in an objective way, whether the asserted justification is in fact an accurate description of the purpose and effect of the law. This explanation of the compelling-interest analysis is not explicit in our decisions; yet it does appear that in time, place, and manner cases, the regulation's justification is a central inquiry. See, e. g., Ward v. Rock Against Racism, supra, at 791; Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, supra, at 293; Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640, 648-649, and n. 12 (1981). And in those matters we do not apply as strict a requirement of narrow tailoring as in other contexts, Ward v. Rock Against Racism, supra, at 797, although this may be because in cases like Ward, Clark, and Heffron, content neutrality was evident on the face of the regulations once the justification was identified and became itself the object of examination.
The same use of the compelling-interest test is adopted today, not to justify or condemn a category of suppression but to determine the accuracy of the justification the State gives for its law. The outcome of that analysis is that the justification for the speech restriction is to protect another constitutional right. As I noted in Simon & Schuster, there is a narrow area in which the First Amendment permits freedom of expression to yield to the extent necessary for the accommodation of another constitutional right. 502 U. S., at 124, 128. That principle can apply here without danger that the general rule permitting no content restriction will be engulfed by the analysis; for under the statute the State acts
213
Page: Index Previous 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007