Warning the audience

A group called Created Equal will be on FIU's campus tomorrow, apparently as part of a two-week tour of Florida colleges and high schools. Created Equal is one of several anti-choice organization that makes its point with the display of graphic images of terminated fetuses and fetus parts. Last weekend, an email was sent out by the university's VP for Student Affairs, announcing the coming event, recognizing the "distasteful" nature of the signs which have created "controversy" in the past, reiterating the university's commitment to free expression and the exchange of ideas, and encourgaing members of the university community to "take this opportunity to examine and express their views."

Objections to groups such as this often come from women who have had to deal with the choice to terminate a pregnancy, who feel re-traumatized and triggered by the in-your-face and disturbing images (Created Equal's response is that women feel traumatized not by the pictures but by their earlier actions). I believe that concern motivated the email--the administration wanted to warn those who may feel traumatized that the group (and its photos) will be there this week so those women can avoid that part of campus. And it incidentally allowed the administration to preempt the inevitable objections to allowing the group to set up shop by shouting its belief in and commitment to the freedom of speech.

That said, is there something troubling about the university sending out this email? The administration does not ordinarily warn the campus community about every public protest or expressive event happening on campus. It certainly does not warn the community with the apparent goal of notifying listeners how to avoid unwanted speech--and thereby trying to limit the speaker's audience. And the administration certainly does not routinely call on the community to come out and engage in (what it probably expects to be) counter-speech. So it looks like content or viewpoint discrimination at work here: government is taking steps to affect the expressive environment (potential audience size, likelihood of counter-speech, etc.) under which this group--and only this group--will operate.

On the other hand, the email appears to be government speech; the government can take sides in a public debate and be as discriminatory as it wants to be. But can or should government speech take the form of public pronouncement to the effect of "we have no choice but to allow these people to use this public forum, but we think you should avoid this area or turn out in droves to debate them"? Is warning the audience about the (in the government's view) objectionable content of a speaker in the public forum--and, as noted above, changing the expressive environment--legitimate government speech? Is speech that alters the conditions under which a group operates in the debate different than government taking a stance on the substance of some debate?