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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 91-2024
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LAMB'S CHAPEL and JOHN STEIGERWALD, PETI-
TIONERS v. CENTER MORICHES UNION FREE
SCHOOL DISTRICT et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the second circuit
[June 7, 1993]

  Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court.
  Section 414 of the New York Education Law (McKinney
1988 and Supp. 1993), authorizes local school boards to
adopt reasonable regulations for the use of school property
for 10 specified purposes when the property is not in use
for school purposes.  Among the permitted uses is the
holding of -social, civic and recreational meetings and
entertainments, and other uses pertaining to the welfare
of the community; but such meetings, entertainment and
uses shall be non-exclusive and open to the general
public.-  414(c).  The list of permitted uses does not
include meetings for religious purposes, and a New York
appellate court in Trietley v. Board of Ed. of Buffalo, 409
N. Y. S. 2d 912, 915 (App. Div. 1978), ruled that local
boards could not allow student bible clubs to meet on
school property because -[r]eligious purposes are not
included in the enumerated purposes for which a school
may be used under section 414.-  In Deeper Life Christian
Fellowship, Inc. v. Sobol, 948 F. 2d 79, 83-94 (1991), the
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit accepted Trietley
as an authoritative interpretation of state law.
Furthermore, the Attorney General of New York supports
Trietley as an appropriate approach to deciding this case.
  Pursuant to 414's empowerment of local school
districts, the Board of Center Moriches Union Free School
District (District) has issued rules and regulations with
respect to the use of school property when not in use for
school purposes.  The rules allow only 2 of the 10
purposes authorized by 414: social, civic, or recreational
uses (Rule 10) and use by political organizations if secured
in compliance with 414 (Rule 8).  Rule 7, however, con-
sistent with the judicial interpretation of state law, pro-
vides that -[t]he school premises shall not be used by any
group for religious purposes.-  App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a.
  The issue in this case is whether, against this
background of state law, it violates the Free Speech
Clause of the First Amendment, made applicable to the
States by the Fourteenth Amendment, to deny a church
access to school premises to exhibit for public viewing and
for assertedly religious purposes, a film dealing with
family and child-rearing issues faced by parents today.

                            I
  Petitioners (Church) are Lamb's Chapel, an evangelical
church in the community of Center Moriches, and its
pastor John Steigerwald.  Twice the Church applied to the
District for permission to use school facilities to show a
six-part film series containing lectures by Doctor James
Dobson.  A brochure provided on request of the District
identified Dr. Dobson as a licensed psychologist, former
associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the University
of Southern California, best-selling author, and radio
commentator.  The brochure stated that the film series
would discuss Dr. Dobson's views on the undermining
influences of the media that could only be counterbalanced
by returning to traditional, Christian family values
instilled at an early stage.  The brochure went on to
describe the contents of each of the six parts of the
series.  The District denied the first application, saying
that -[t]his film does appear to be church related and
therefore your request must be refused.-  App. 84.  The
second application for permission to use school premises
for showing the film, which described it as a -Family
oriented movie-from the Christian perspective,- App. 91,
was denied using identical language.
  The Church brought suit in District Court, challenging
the denial as a violation of the Freedom of Speech and
Assembly Clauses, the Free Exercise Clause, and the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as well as
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.  As to each cause of action, the Church
alleged that the actions were undertaken under color of
state law, in violation of 42 U. S. C. 1983.  The District
Court granted summary judgment for respondents,
rejecting all of the Church's claims.  With respect to the
free-speech claim under the First Amendment, the District
Court characterized the District's facilities as a -limited
public forum.-  The court noted that the enumerated
purposes for which 414 allowed access to school facilities
did not include religious worship or instruction, that Rule
7 explicitly proscribes using school facilities for religious
purposes, and that the Church had conceded that its
showing of the film would be for religious purposes.  770
F. Supp. 91, 92, 98-99 (EDNY 1991).  The District Court
stated that once a limited public forum is opened to a
particular type of speech, selectively denying access to
other activities of the same genre is forbidden.  Id., at 99.
Noting that the District had not opened its facilities to
organizations similar to Lamb's Chapel for religious
purposes, the District Court held that the denial in this
case was viewpoint neutral and, hence, not a violation of
the Freedom of Speech Clause.  Ibid.  The District Court
also rejected the assertion by the Church that denying its
application demonstrated a hostility to religion and
advancement of nonreligion not justified under the
Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment.
736 F. Supp. 1247, 1253 (EDNY 1990).
  The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the
District Court -in all respects.-  Lamb's Chapel v. Center
Moriches Union Free School Dist., 959 F. 2d 381, 389
(CA2 1992).  It held that the school property, when not
in use for school purposes, was neither a traditional nor
a designated public forum; rather, it was a limited public
forum open only for designated purposes, a classification
that -allows it to remain non-public except as to specified
uses.-  Id., at 386.  The court observed that exclusions in
such a forum need only be reasonable and viewpoint
neutral, ibid., and ruled that denying access to the
Church for the purpose of showing its film did not violate
this standard.  Because the holding below was
questionable under our decisions, we granted the petition
for certiorari,  506 U. S. ___ (1992), which in principal
part challenged the holding below as contrary to the Free
Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

                           II
  There is no question that the District, like the private
owner of property, may legally preserve the property
under its control for the use to which it is dedicated.
Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Ed. Fund, Inc.,
473 U. S. 788, 800 (1985); Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local
Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 46 (1983); United States
Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Assns., 453
U. S. 114, 129-130 (1981); Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828,
836 (1976); Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, 47 (1966).
It is also common ground that the District need not have
permitted after-hours use of its property for any of the
uses permitted by 414 of the state education law.  The
District, however, did open its property for 2 of the 10
uses permitted by 414.  The Church argued below that
because under Rule 10 of the rules issued by the District,
school property could be used for -social, civic, and recre-
ational- purposes, the District had opened its property for
such a wide variety of communicative purposes that
restrictions on communicative uses of the property were
subject to the same constitutional limitations as restric-
tions in traditional public fora such as parks and side-
walks.  Hence, its view was that subject-matter or speaker
exclusions on District property were required to be
justified by a compelling state interest and to be narrowly
drawn to achieve that end.  See Perry, supra, at 45;
Cornelius, supra, at 800.  Both the District Court and the
Court of Appeals rejected this submission, which is also
presented to this Court.  The argument has considerable
force, for the District's property is heavily used by a wide
variety of private organizations, including some that
presented a -close question,- which the Court of Appeals
resolved in the District's favor, as to whether the District
had in fact already opened its property for religious uses.
959 F. 2d, at 387.  We need not rule on this issue,
however, for even if the courts below were correct in this
respect-and we shall assume for present purposes that
they were-the judgment below must be reversed.
  With respect to public property that is not a designated
public forum open for indiscriminate public use for
communicative purposes, we have said that -[c]ontrol over
access to a nonpublic forum can be based on subject
matter and speaker identity so long as the distinctions
drawn are reasonable in light of the purpose served by
the forum and are viewpoint neutral.-   Cornelius, supra,
at 806, citing Perry Education Assn., supra, at 49.  The
Court of Appeals appeared to recognize that the total ban
on using District property for religious purposes could
survive First Amendment challenge only if excluding this
category of speech was reasonable and viewpoint neutral.
The court's conclusion in this case was that Rule 7 met
this test.  We cannot agree with this holding, for Rule 7
was unconstitutionally applied in this case.
  The Court of Appeals thought that the application of
Rule 7 in this case was viewpoint neutral because it had
been and would be applied in the same way to all uses
of school property for religious purposes.  That all
religions and all uses for religious purposes are treated
alike under Rule 7, however, does not answer the critical
question whether it discriminates on the basis of
viewpoint to permit school property to be used for the
presentation of all views about family issues and child-
rearing except those dealing with the subject matter from
a religious standpoint.
  There is no suggestion from the courts below or from
the District or the State that a lecture or film about child-
rearing and family values would not be a use for social
or civic purposes otherwise permitted by Rule 10.  That
subject matter is not one that the District has placed off
limits to any and all speakers.  Nor is there any indica-
tion in the record before us that the application to exhibit
the particular film involved here was or would have been
denied for any reason other than the fact that the
presentation would have been from a religious perspective.
In our view, denial on that basis was plainly invalid
under our holding in Cornelius, 473 U. S., at 806, that
-[a]lthough a speaker may be excluded from a non-
public forum if he wishes to address a topic not
encompassed within the purpose of the forum . . . or
if he is not a member of the class of speakers for
whose special benefit the forum was created . . . the
government violates the First Amendment when it
denies access to a speaker solely to suppress the point
of view he espouses on an otherwise includible
subject.-
The film involved here no doubt dealt with a subject
otherwise permissible under Rule 10, and its exhibition
was denied solely because the film dealt with the subject
from a religious standpoint.  The principle that has
emerged from our cases -is that the First Amendment
forbids the government to regulate speech in ways that
favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others.-
City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466
U. S. 789, 804 (1984).  That principle applies in the
circumstances of this case; as Judge Posner said for the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, to discriminate -against
a particular point of view . . . would . . . flunk the test
. . . [of] Cornelius, provided that the defendants have no
defense based on the establishment clause.-  May v.
Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp., 787 F. 2d 1105,
1114 (1986).
  The District, as a respondent, would save its judgment
below on the ground that to permit its property to be
used for religious purposes would be an establishment of
religion forbidden by the First Amendment.  This Court
suggested in Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 271
(1981), that the interest of the State in avoiding an
Establishment Clause violation -may be [a] compelling-
one justifying an abridgment of free speech otherwise
protected by the First Amendment; but the Court went on
to hold that permitting use of University property for
religious purposes under the open access policy involved
there would not be incompatible with the Court's Estab-
lishment Clause cases.
  We have no more trouble than did the Widmar Court
in disposing of the claimed defense on the ground that the
posited fears of an Establishment Clause violation are
unfounded.  The showing of this film would not have been
during school hours, would not have been sponsored by
the school, and would have been open to the public, not
just to church members.  The District property had
repeatedly been used by a wide variety of private organi-
zations.  Under these circumstances, as in Widmar, there
would have been no realistic danger that the community
would think that the District was endorsing religion or
any particular creed, and any benefit to religion or to the
Church would have been no more than incidental.  As in
Widmar, supra, at 271-272, permitting District property
to be used to exhibit the film involved in this case would
not have been an establishment of religion under the
three-part test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403
U. S. 602 (1971):  The challenged governmental action has
a secular purpose, does not have the principal or primary
effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and does not
foster an excessive entanglement with religion.
  The District also submits that it justifiably denied use
of its property to a -radical- church for the purpose of
proselytizing, since to do so would lead to threats of public
unrest and even violence.  Brief for Respondent Center
Moriches Union Free School District, et al. 4-5, 11-12, 24.
There is nothing in the record to support such a
justification, which in any event would be difficult to
defend as a reason to deny the presentation of a religious
point of view about a subject the District otherwise makes
open to discussion on District property.
  We note that the Attorney General for the State of New
York, a respondent here, does not rely on either the
Establishment Clause or possible danger to the public
peace in supporting the judgment below.  Rather, he
submits that the exclusion is justified because the purpose
of the access rules is to promote the interests of the
public in general rather than sectarian or other private
interests.  In light of the variety of the uses of District
property that have been permitted under Rule 10, this
approach has its difficulties.  This is particularly so since
Rule 10 states that District property may be used for
social, civic, or recreational use -only if it can be non-
exclusive and open to all residents of the school district
that form a homogeneous group deemed relevant to the
event.-  App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a.  At least arguably, the
Rule does not require that permitted uses need be open
to the public at large.  However that may be, this was not
the basis of the judgment that we are reviewing.  The
Court of Appeals, as we understand it, ruled that because
the  District had the power to permit or exclude certain
subject matters, it was entitled to deny use for any
religious purpose, including the purpose in this case.  The
Attorney General also defends this as a permissible
subject-matter exclusion rather than a denial based on
viewpoint, a submission that we have already rejected.
  The Attorney General also argues that there is no
express finding below that the Church's application would
have been granted absent the religious connection.  This
fact is beside the point for the purposes of this opinion,
which is concerned with the validity of the stated reason
for denying the Church's application, namely, that the film
sought to be shown -appeared to be church related.-
  For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of
the Court of Appeals is
                                              Reversed.