Law Review: Pleasant Grove City v. Summum and the Government Speech DoctrineThe Government’s Ten Commandments: Pleasant Grove City v. Summum and the Government Speech Doctrine (An excerpt is below. To view the full text, please use Westlaw, Lexis, a law library or alternative source.) Until recently, the United States Supreme Court had never considered the status of a permanent monument on public property as speech or such a monument’s constitutionality under the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. In February 2009, in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, the Supreme Court categorically settled that issue, holding that a city’s installation of a permanent monument in a public park constitutes the government’s own speech, which is unconstrained by traditional free speech principles and is therefore constitutional under the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. This Article explores the Supreme Court’s holding in Pleasant Grove City and the litigation leading up to the Court’s monumental decision. In addition to reviewing the Court’s opinion this Article seeks to go beyond what the Court said in its opinion, in an effort to develop a deeper understanding of why the Court held as it did and to provide additional support to bolster the Court’s ruling.
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