Cite as: 507 U. S. 410 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
erally Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77 (1949). The city contends that its regulation of newsracks qualifies as such a restriction because the interests in safety and esthetics that it serves are entirely unrelated to the content of respondents' publications. Thus, the argument goes, the justification for the regulation is content neutral.
The argument is unpersuasive because the very basis for the regulation is the difference in content between ordinary newspapers and commercial speech. True, there is no evidence that the city has acted with animus toward the ideas contained within respondents' publications, but just last Term we expressly rejected the argument that "discriminatory . . . treatment is suspect under the First Amendment only when the legislature intends to suppress certain ideas." Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S., at 117. Regardless of the mens rea of the city, it has enacted a sweeping ban on the use of news-racks that distribute "commercial handbills," but not "newspapers." Under the city's newsrack policy, whether any particular newsrack falls within the ban is determined by the content of the publication resting inside that newsrack. Thus, by any commonsense understanding of the term, the ban in this case is "content based."
Nor are we persuaded that our statements that the test for whether a regulation is content based turns on the "justification" for the regulation, see, e. g., Ward, 491 U. S., at 791; Clark, 468 U. S., at 293, compel a different conclusion. We agree with the city that its desire to limit the total number of newsracks is "justified" by its interests in safety and esthetics. The city has not, however, limited the number of newsracks; it has limited (to zero) the number of newsracks distributing commercial publications. As we have explained, there is no justification for that particular regulation other than the city's naked assertion that commercial speech has "low value." It is the absence of a neu-
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