Cite as: 518 U. S. 727 (1996)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
compels strict scrutiny; rather, it simply militates against recognizing an exception to the normal rule.
Perhaps, as the plurality suggests, ante, at 749-750, § 10(a) should be treated as a limitation on a forum rather than an exclusion from it. This would not change the analysis, however. If Government has a freer hand to draw content-based distinctions in limiting a forum than in excluding someone from it, the First Amendment would be a dead letter in designated public fora; every exclusion could be recast as a limitation. See Post, Between Governance and Management: the History and Theory of the Public Forum, 34 UCLA L. Rev. 1713, 1753 (1987). We have allowed content-based limitations of public fora, but only when necessary to serve specific institutional ends. See Perry, 460 U. S., at 48 (school mailboxes, if considered designated public fora, could be limited to mailings from "organizations that engage in activities of interest and educational relevance to students"); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 267-268, n. 5 (1981) (recognizing a public university could limit the use of its facilities by reasonable regulations compatible with its mission of education); Madison Joint School Dist. No. 8 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 429 U. S. 167, 175, n. 8 (1976) (in assessing a teacher's right to speak at a school board meeting, considering it obvious that "public bodies may confine their meetings to specified subject matter"). The power to limit or redefine fora for a specific legitimate purpose, see Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 829-830, does not allow the government to exclude certain speech or speakers from them for any reason at all.
Madison Joint School Dist., supra, illustrates the point. The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission had ordered a school board to prohibit school employees other than union representatives from speaking at its meetings on matters subject to collective bargaining between the board and the union. Id., at 173. While recognizing the power of a State to limit school board meetings to certain subject mat-
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