United States Fifth Circuit

In a First Amendment challenge to the City of San Antonio's imposition of fees on the organizers of marches on its streets, as a means of ensuring that march organizers pay for the expense of providing traffic control and cleanup for these events, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) the city's financial support for certain processions was not government speech exempt from First Amendment scrutiny; and 2) San Antonio's decision to selectively subsidize a limited number of events could be permissible, as long as the City did not discriminate invidiously in its subsidies in such a way as to aim at the suppression of dangerous ideas, or leverage its power to award subsidies into a penalty on disfavored viewpoints.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/09/2010
• Published 09/09/2010

Judges

• Fortunato P. Benavides

Court

• United States Fifth Circuit

Counsel