Families Achieving Independence & Respect v. Nebraska Department of Social Services

HEANEY, Circuit Judge, with whom MeMILLIAN, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges, join,

dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. I do not believe that a state should be permitted to exclude a grass-roots, welfare-rights organization from engaging in speech activity in a welfare office lobby because of a low-level administrator’s determination that the group does not provide a “direct benefit” to the welfare office’s clientele. The constitutionality of FAIR’S exclusion turns not on a labeling of the forum, but rather on the policy employed to decide which groups will have access to the…