Viewpoint Neutrality

Brettschneider characterizes his view as preserving "the doctrine of viewpoint neutrality in the protection of free speech rights, while rejecting viewpoint neutrality in state speech." (9)  The state thus has to be neutral among the viewpoints that it protects, regardless of how hateful they might be, but it also has an obligation to attempt to persuade those who express viewpoints that conflict with the "ideal of freedom and equality for all citizens," (9), hence not to be viewpoint neutral in its advocacy of these ideals and in its reasoned opposition to views that conflict with them. George Bush was thus right both to protect the Klan's right to express its views, but also to condemn the views that it expresses as fundamentally at odds with the a liberal society's commitment to the freedom and equality of its citizens.  

Consider how complicated this line can get.  Many people have argued that they should be able to put hateful speech on their vanity license plates, because the state has to remain neutral among viewpoints.  But if a license plate is fundamentally state speech, identifying your car to members of the state for state purposes, then the state does not have to be neutral among viewpoints expressed on vanity plates; it can refuse to say, on its license plate, the sexist or racist, for example, speech that someone would like to put on it.  Or consider someone who wants to trademark a racist slur (e.g. in Matal v Tam).  The state has to be viewpoint neutral, on Brettschneider's view, in its protection of speech, but if trademarks are understood to be a form a subsidy by the state, then the state does not have to be viewpoint neutral in the speech that it chooses to subsidize -- to back with its spending power.      

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