Shurtleff v. Boston, 596 U.S. 243

Three flagpoles stand at Boston City Hall Plaza; the third pole was regularly used for short-term flag-raising ceremonies by private groups in place of the city flag.
From 2005–2017 Boston approved ~50 unique flags for ~284 ceremonies (mostly national flags and various civic or cause flags) and had no written policy restricting content.
In 2017 Harold Shurtleff (Camp Constitution) requested to raise a Christian flag for a plaza event; Boston’s Property Management commissioner denied the request citing Establishment Clause concerns.
Shurtleff and Camp Constitution sued; the District Court and First Circuit held the program constituted government speech, permitting Boston to refuse the flag.
The Supreme Court reversed: it held the city’s flag-raising program was private speech in a public forum and Boston’s denial based on the flag’s religious viewpoint violated the Free Speech Clause.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Boston’s flag-raising program is government speech	Shurtleff: flags raised at City Hall are private expression in a public forum; Boston opened the pole to the public and exercised little control.	Boston: flags at the seat of government and adjacent to governmental flags convey city messages; prior practice communicated city values.	Not government speech — program consists of private expression in a public forum (Court reverses).
Whether denying the Christian flag violated the Free Speech Clause	Shurtleff: denial was viewpoint discrimination because Boston rejected the flag solely for promoting a specific religion.	Boston: denial was permissible because it treated the flag as government speech and sought to avoid Establishment Clause problems.	Denial violated Free Speech Clause — viewpoint discrimination is impermissible where government does not speak for itself.
Whether Establishment Clause concerns justified exclusion	Shurtleff: Establishment concerns do not permit viewpoint discrimination in a public forum open to secular speakers.	Boston: feared that flying a religious flag at City Hall would run afoul of the Establishment Clause, so it excluded religious flags.	Court rejects that justification here; permitting religious and secular flags equally does not itself violate the Establishment Clause.

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009) (public monuments in a park held to be government speech)
Walker v. Texas Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 576 U.S. 200 (2015) (specialty license-plate designs were government speech where the State exercised direct control)
Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. _ (2017) (trademark registrations were not government speech where the agency did not control content)
Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch., 533 U.S. 98 (2001) (government may not exclude speech from a forum because it advances a religious viewpoint)
Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995) (viewpoint discrimination in funding/public forums is unconstitutional)
Johanns v. Livestock Mktg. Assn., 544 U.S. 550 (2005) (government adoption of private messaging can create government speech when government controls the message)
Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788 (1985) (forum analysis: government may create and limit access to different types of public fora)