Laycock's post on Santa Fe

[MSternAJC at AOL.COM]

Once again, I am troubled by the exclusive focus on the rights of the
speaker. In the ordinary public forum case the speaker seeks only to speak to
those who would stop and listen. Here the school provides something of a
captive audience (How captive of course depends on the importance of the
event. Would those who think that the importance of the event irrelevant
think that a school rule allowing students to vote on whether to have an
invocation or prayer at assemblies would also be constitutional? What about
in a classroom.) The Supreme Court has to the best of my knowledge never
upheld a free speech claim as against the rights of a captive audience (as
for example in the abortion clinic picketing cases, the seven dirty words
case,  and Shaker Heights).Some religious speech amy to fleeting to capture
the audience,but that hardly seems to be the case here.
Marc Stern