The Misleading Nature of Public Forum Analysis: Content and Context in First Amendment Adjudication

of the Burger Court's first amendment decisions focus on the scope of governmental power to regulate speech based upon its content. 1 The Court has had little trouble with traditional content regulation cases that involve outright proscription of certain types of speech. 2 Similarly, it has had little trouble with traditional time, place, or manner regulations, which relate only to the physical context of speech and do not involve content regulation at all. 3 The Court has had a great deal of difficulty, however, with hybrid regulations involving governmental limitations on speech in a specific context.Such hybrid regulations relate to content, but they are limited to certain locations, media, or speakers.'Although the government may be pursuing some goal unrelated to the proscription of a message, these hybrid regulations often directly impair some people's ability to communicate a message in a certain *