Good News Club v. Milford Central School

Good News Club v. Milford Central School
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 28, 2001 Decided June 11, 2001
Full case name	Good News Club, et al. v. Milford Central School
Citations	533 U.S. 98 (more) 121 S. Ct. 2093; 150 L. Ed. 2d 151; 2001 U.S. LEXIS 4312; 69 U.S.L.W. 4451; 2001 Cal. Daily Op. Service 4737; 2001 Daily Journal DAR 5858; 2001 Colo. J. C.A.R. 2934; 14 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 337
Case history
Prior	21 F. Supp. 2d 147 (N.D.N.Y. 1998); affirmed, 202 F.3d 502 (2d Cir. 2000); cert. granted, 531 U.S. 923 (2000).
Holding
Restrictions on speech that take place in a limited public forum must not discriminate on the basis of the speaker's viewpoint and be reasonable in light of the forum's purpose. Because the school's exclusion of the Good News Club violated this principle, the school violated the Club's free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Furthermore, the school's claim that allowing the club to meet on its property would violate the Establishment Clause lacked merit and thus was no defense to the club's First Amendment claim.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Thomas, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy; Breyer (in part)
Concurrence	Scalia
Concurrence	Breyer (in part)
Dissent	Stevens
Dissent	Souter, joined by Ginsburg
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; N.Y. Educ. Law § 414

Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that held that, when a government operates a "limited public forum", it may not discriminate against speech that takes place within that forum on the basis of the viewpoint which it expresses—in this case, against religious speech engaged in by an evangelical Christian club for children.^[1]