Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley

In addition to the public forum doctrine, the Supreme Court has developed the time, place, and manner rule for the adjudication of freedom of speech questions. This rule allows for regulation of certain types of speech by reason of its time, place, and manner, for instance, a zoning ordinance regulating the placement of adult theaters and bookstores, while not enabling governments to restrain speech in general. In considering cases under this rule, the Court has invariably held in favor of government regulation of speech only where there is a clear necessity for such regulation to maintain a public interest and such regulation is applied without distinction. As such, the Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals in this case, ruling by a vote of 9-0 that Chicago Municipal Code Chapter 193-1 (i) was unconstitutional in that it exempted peaceful labor picketing from its ban of demonstrations within 150 feet of school grounds. Justice Marshall, writing for the majority, noted that the Court struck down the Chicago ordinance only because, by exempting peaceful labor demonstrations, it did not seek to regulate speech based on that speech's time, place, and manner of conveyance, but rather its content.