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90-7675.ZS
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NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
R. A. V. v. CITY OF ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
certiorari to the supreme court of minnesota
No. 90-7675. Argued December 4, 1991-Decided June 22, 1992
After allegedly burning a cross on a black family's lawn, petitioner
R. A. V. was charged under, inter alia, the St. Paul, Minnesota, Bias-
Motivated Crime Ordinance, which prohibits the display of a symbol
which one knows or has reason to know ``arouses anger, alarm or
resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or
gender.'' The trial court dismissed this charge on the ground that
the ordinance was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content-
based, but the State Supreme Court reversed. It rejected the over-
breadth claim because the phrase ``arouses anger, alarm or resent-
ment in others'' had been construed in earlier state cases to limit the
ordinance's reach to ``fighting words'' within the meaning of this
Court's decision in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568,
572, a category of expression unprotected by the First Amendment.
The court also concluded that the ordinance was not impermissibly
content-based because it was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling
governmental interest in protecting the community against bias-
motivated threats to public safety and order.
Held:The ordinance is facially invalid under the First Amendment.
Pp.2-18.
(a)This Court is bound by the state court's construction of the
ordinance as reaching only expressions constituting ``fighting words.''
However, R. A. V.'s request that the scope of the Chaplinsky formula-
tion be modified, thereby invalidating the ordinance as substantially
overbroad, need not be reached, since the ordinance unconstitutional-
ly prohibits speech on the basis of the subjects the speech addresses.
Pp.2-3.
(b)A few limited categories of speech, such as obscenity, defama-
tion, and fighting words, may be regulated because of their constitu-
tionally proscribable content. However, these categories are not
entirely invisible to the Constitution, and government may not
regulate them based on hostility, or favoritism, towards a nonpro-
scribable message they contain. Thus the regulation of ``fighting
words'' may not be based on nonproscribable content. It may,
however, be underinclusive, addressing some offensive instances and
leaving other, equally offensive, ones alone, so long as the selective
proscription is not based on content, or there is no realistic possibility
that regulation of ideas is afoot. Pp.4-12.
(c)The ordinance, even as narrowly construed by the State Su-
preme Court, is facially unconstitutional because it imposes special
prohibitions on those speakers who express views on the disfavored
subjects of ``race, color, creed, religion or gender.'' At the same time,
it permits displays containing abusive invective if they are not
addressed to those topics. Moreover, in its practical operation the
ordinance goes beyond mere content, to actual viewpoint, discrimina-
tion. Displays containing ``fighting words'' that do not invoke the
disfavored subjects would seemingly be useable ad libitum by those
arguing in favor of racial, color, etc. tolerance and equality, but not
by their opponents. St. Paul's desire to communicate to minority
groups that it does not condone the ``group hatred'' of bias-motivated
speech does not justify selectively silencing speech on the basis of its
content. Pp.12-15.
(d)The content-based discrimination reflected in the ordinance
does not rest upon the very reasons why the particular class of
speech at issue is proscribable, it is not aimed only at the ``secondary
effects'' of speech within the meaning of Renton v. Playtime Theatres,
Inc., 475 U.S. 41, and it is not for any other reason the sort that
does not threaten censorship of ideas. In addition, the ordinance's
content discrimination is not justified on the ground that the ordi-
nance is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest in
ensuring the basic human rights of groups historically discriminated
against, since an ordinance not limited to the favored topics would
have precisely the same beneficial effect. Pp.15-18.
464 N.W.2d 507, reversed and remanded.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist,
C. J., and Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined. White, J., filed
an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Blackmun and
O'Connor, JJ., joined, and in which Stevens, J., joined except as to
Part I-A. Blackmun, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
Stevens, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in Part I of
which White and Blackmun, JJ., joined.