Law:

Section:

Fundamental Rights--- ----Freedom of speech [First Amendment to the US Constitution]---Limitations---'State actor'---Scope---'State action', doctrine of---Free Speech Clause (of the First Amendment to the US Constitution) prohibited only governmental abridgment of speech; it did not prohibit private abridgment of speech---When the government provided a forum for speech (known as a public forum), the government may be constrained by the First Amendment (freedom of speech), meaning that the government ordinarily may not exclude speech or speakers from the forum on the basis of viewpoint, or sometimes even on the basis of content---By contrast, when a private entity provided a forum for speech, the private entity was not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment because the private entity was not a state actor---Private entity may thus exercise editorial discretion over the speech and speakers in the forum---To draw the line between governmental and private, the Court applied the state-action doctrine---Under said doctrine, a private entity may be considered a state actor when it exercised a function traditionally exclusively reserved to the State---To qualify as a traditional, exclusive public function, the government must have traditionally and exclusively performed the function---Fact that the government licenses, contracts with, or grants a monopoly to a private entity did not convert the private entity into a state actor, unless the private entity was performing a traditional, exclusive public function---Same principle applied if the government funded or subsidized a private entity. Public access station operated by Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) in New York City suspended two of its contributors (employees) from using the station's services and facilities for allegedly harassing and inciting violence against other MNN employees. The contributors then filed a lawsuit claiming that MNN was violating their freedom of speech [First Amendment rights]. Generally, private actors could not violate the constitutional rights of individuals; a finding of a constitutional violation required 'state action.' However, when the government created a private entity…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492