Denver Area Ed. Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727, 80 (1996)

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806

DENVER AREA ED. TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONSORTIUM, INC. v. FCC

Opinion of Kennedy, J.

is not forced speech of the operator. Turner Broadcasting, supra, at 655-656; PruneYard, 447 U. S., at 87. Second, the discretion conferred by the law is slight. The operator is not authorized to place programs of its own liking on the leased access channels, nor to remove other speech (racist or violent, for example) that might be offensive to it or to viewers. The operator is just given a veto over the one kind of lawful speech Congress disdains.

Congress does have, however, a compelling interest in protecting children from indecent speech. Sable Communications, 492 U. S., at 126; Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U. S. 629, 639-640 (1968). See also Pacifica, 438 U. S., at 749-750 (same). So long as society gives proper respect to parental choices, it may, under an appropriate standard, intervene to spare children exposure to material not suitable for minors. This interest is substantial enough to justify some regulation of indecent speech even under, I will assume, the indecency standard used here.

Sections 10(a) and (c) nonetheless are not narrowly tailored to protect children from indecent programs on access channels. First, to the extent some operators may allow indecent programming, children in localities those operators serve will be left unprotected. Partial service of a compelling interest is not narrow tailoring. FCC v. League of Women Voters of Cal., 468 U. S. 364, 396 (1984) (asserted interest in keeping noncommercial stations free from controversial or partisan opinions not served by ban on station editorials, if such opinions could be aired through other programming); Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524, 540-541 (1989) (selective ban on publication of rape victim's name in some media but not others not narrowly tailored). Cf. Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U. S. 60, 73 (1983) (restriction that "provides only the most limited incremental support for the interest asserted" cannot pass muster under commercial-speech standards). Put another way, the

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