Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum
United States Supreme Court
555 U.S. 460 (2009)
Summum (plaintiff), a religious organization, sued Pleasant Grove City (defendant) after the city refused to erect a permanent stone monument bearing Summum's Seven Aphorisms in a public park that already displayed 15 permanent monuments, 11 privately donated, including a Ten Commandments monument from a fraternal organization since 1971. The district court denied Summum's request for an injunction ordering the monument's erection, but a court of appeals panel reversed, holding the city needed a compelling justification to reject the monument and ordering it erected; the city appealed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Whether a city's placement, or refusal to place, a permanent privately-donated monument in a public park is a form of government speech not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.