International Society for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee

The ISKC advanced the position that "transportation nodes," such as railroad and bus stations, docks, and even Ellis Island are historically established public fora, and that airport terminals fall into the same category. The Court disagreed, and affirmed the decision of the court of appeals by a majority of 5-4. Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the majority, focused on the original definition of a public forum, developed by Justice Roberts in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, (1939):

(locations which) have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.

In the Court's judgement the fact that air travel had only become common within the last 50 years ruled out classification of airports as being used from "time out of mind" for any purpose whatsoever. Furthermore, the use of airports for speech purposes was a recent development in the brief history of air travel. The argument of the ISKC, that airports should be classified in the same manner as traditional transportation nodes, was rejected on the basis that most transportation nodes have been privately owned, and the public forum doctrine can only be applied to publicly owned sites and facilities. The Court also pointed out that airports by their nature differ from other transportation nodes in many ways. For instance, everyone boarding an aircraft is forced to submit to a metal detection search to ensure passenger safety in flight. Finally, the Court observed that publicly owned airport facilities had been established for transportation and defense purposes, without regard for their use as fora for dissemination of information.

Having defined airport terminals as nonpublic fora, the Court had only to determine if the port authority's regulations were reasonable and content neutral. Given the pedestrian congestion at the port authority's air terminals and the rigid deadlines inherent to air travel, the Court ruled that the regulations in question were a reasonable measure to ensure freer flow of foot traffic within the terminals. It also determined that the regulation was content neutral, because it banned all solicitation and distribution of leaflets.