Distinguishing Government Suppression of Speech from Government Support of Speech

Abstract

It is occasionally argued that governmental limitations on support of speech—including the expression of groups that the government chooses to support with public funds, such as nonprofit organizations—should be the same as governmental limitations on forbidding speech, namely that content must be irrelevant. It is the thesis of this paper that approaching free speech in this manner ultimately would be destructive of free speech and that, in the long run, speech will be subject to greater limitations if it is rejected than if that congruity is maintained.