694
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgments
forum doctrine ought not to be a jurisprudence of categories rather than ideas or convert what was once an analysis protective of expression into one which grants the government authority to restrict speech by fiat. I believe that the Court's public forum analysis in these cases is inconsistent with the values underlying the Speech and Press Clauses of the First Amendment.
Our public forum analysis has its origins in Justice Roberts' rather sweeping dictum in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 515 (1939); see also ante, at 679. The doctrine was not stated with much precision or elaboration, though, until our more recent decisions in Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37 (1983), and Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788 (1985). These cases describe a three-part analysis to designate government-owned property as either a traditional public forum, a designated public forum, or a nonpublic forum. Perry, supra, at 45-46; ante, at 678-679. The Court today holds that traditional public forums are limited to public property which have as " 'a principal purpose . . . the free exchange of ideas,' " ante, at 679 (quoting Cornelius, supra, at 800); ante, at 686 (O'Connor, J., concurring in No. 91-155 and concurring in judgment in No. 91-339 (hereinafter opinion of O'Connor, J.)); and that this purpose must be evidenced by a longstanding historical practice of permitting speech, ante, at 679; ante, at 686 (opinion of O'Connor, J.). The Court also holds that designated forums consist of property which the government intends to open for public discourse. Ante, at 680, citing Cornelius, supra, at 802; ante, at 686 (opinion of O'Connor, J.). All other types of property are, in the Court's view, nonpublic forums (in other words, not public forums), and government-imposed restrictions of speech in these places will be upheld so long as reasonable and viewpoint neutral. Under this categorical view the application of public forum analysis to airport terminals seems easy. Airports are of course public spaces of recent vintage, and so there can be no time-honored
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