Cite as: 515 U. S. 819 (1995)
Souter, J., dissenting
cordingly, the Court recognizes that the relevant enquiry in this case is not merely whether the University bases its funding decisions on the subject matter of student speech; if there is an infirmity in the basis for the University's funding decision, it must be that the University is impermissibly distinguishing among competing viewpoints, ante, at 829-830, citing, inter alia, Perry, supra, at 46; see also Lamb's Chapel, 508 U. S., at 392-393 (subject-matter distinctions permissible in controlling access to limited public forum if reasonable and viewpoint neutral); Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 806 (1985) (similar); Regan, supra, at 548.12
The issue whether a distinction is based on viewpoint does not turn simply on whether a government regulation happens to be applied to a speaker who seeks to advance a particular viewpoint; the issue, of course, turns on whether the burden on speech is explained by reference to viewpoint. See Cornelius, supra, at 806 ("[T]he government violates the First Amendment when it denies access to a speaker solely
cative element inherent in the very act of funding itself, cf. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 15-19 (1976) (per curiam), and although it is the student speakers who choose which particular messages to advance in the forum created by the University, the initial act of defining the boundaries of the forum is a decision attributable to the University, not the students. In any event, even assuming that private and state speech always may be separated by clean lines and that this case involves only the former, I believe the distinction is irrelevant here because, as is discussed infra, this case does not involve viewpoint discrimination.
12 I do not decide that all viewpoint discrimination in a public university's funding determinations would violate the Free Speech Clause. If, however, the determinations are made on the basis of a reasonable subject-matter distinction, but not on a viewpoint distinction, there is no violation. In a limited-access forum, a speech restriction must be " 'reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum' " as well as viewpoint neutral. E. g., Lamb's Chapel, 508 U. S., at 392-393, quoting Cornelius, 473 U. S., at 806. Because petitioners have not challenged the University's Guideline as unreasonable, I express no opinion on that or on the question whether the reasonableness criterion applies in speech funding cases in the same manner that it applies in limited-access forum cases.
893
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