Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727, 73 (1996)

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Cite as: 518 U. S. 727 (1996)

Opinion of Kennedy, J.

ern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546 (1975) (municipal theater). Although a State is not required to indefinitely retain the open character of the facility, as long as it does so it is bound by the same standards as apply in a traditional public forum. Reasonable time, place, and manner regulations are permissible, and a content-based prohibition must be narrowly drawn to effectuate a compelling state interest." Perry, 460 U. S., at 45-46 (footnote omitted).

In Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972), we made clear that selective exclusions from a public forum were unconstitutional. Invoking the First and Fourteenth Amendments to strike down a city ordinance allowing only labor picketing on any public way near schools, we held the "government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views." Id., at 96.

"Once a forum is opened up to assembly or speaking by some groups, government may not prohibit others from assembling or speaking on the basis of what they intend to say. Selective exclusions from a public forum may not be based on content alone, and may not be justified by reference to content alone." Ibid.

Since the same standard applies to exclusions from limited or unlimited designated public fora as from traditional forums, Lee, 505 U. S., at 678, there is no reason the kind of selective exclusion we condemned in Mosley should be tolerated here.

The plurality acknowledges content-based exclusions from the right to use a common carrier could violate the First Amendment. It tells us, however, that it is wary of analogies to doctrines developed elsewhere, and so does not address this issue. Ante, at 749. This newfound aversion to analogical reasoning strikes at a process basic to legal analy-

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