Greer v. Spock
Greer v. Spock is a significant legal case concerning the balance between military authority and free speech rights in the context of political expression on military property. In 1972, Dr. Benjamin Spock, a prominent pediatrician and antiwar activist, sought to hold a political meeting at Fort Dix, a U.S. Army training facility. His request was denied based on existing regulations that prohibited political speeches and the distribution of literature without prior approval. Spock and his fellow activists challenged these regulations, arguing that they violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Initially, an appeals court partially sided with Spock, allowing candidates to speak and distribute literature in publicly accessible areas of the base. However, the Supreme Court ultimately reversed this decision, reaffirming the military's right to enforce regulations restricting political activities. The Court emphasized that the primary function of military installations is training soldiers, and that maintaining a politically neutral military is essential to the American constitutional framework. A dissenting opinion highlighted the possibility of protecting military neutrality without imposing such sweeping restrictions on free speech. This case underscores the complexities of constitutional rights in environments governed by military authority.
Greer v. Spock
Court: U. S. Supreme Court
Date: March 24, 1976
Significance: This case upheld the principal that censorship rules on military bases can differ from those in public forums
Fort Dix, New Jersey, an army training facility, long operated under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, which encompassed all state and county roads passing through the facility. Regulations promulgated by the base commander permitted free and open civilian access to certain areas of the base, but simultaneously prohibited distribution of literature without prior approval by military officials. The regulations also banned partisan political speeches and demonstrations anywhere on military property.
In 1972 Dr. Benjamin Spock, the famous pediatrician, author, and antiwar activist, was the left-leaning People’s Party candidate for president of the United States. Together with his vice-presidential running mate, several political activists who had previously been evicted from the base for distributing unapproved political literature, and the candidates for president and vice-president of the Socialist Workers Party, Spock petitioned Fort Dix’s commanding officers for permission to hold a political meeting on the base and to distribute campaign literature there. Pursuant to standing regulations, the base commander rejected the request and barred the previously evicted activists from re-entering the base. Spock and his cohort filed a lawsuit, seeking to enjoin enforcement of the regulations, alleging violations of the First and Fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They were partially successful when an appeals court enjoined the military from enforcing the regulations to the extent that they prevented the four actual candidates (but not the accompanying activists) from making political speeches and distributing campaign leaflets in the parts of Fort Dix that were otherwise generally open to the public.
On appeal to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Robert Bork (later an unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee) successfully argued the government’s case. Justice Potter Stewart, writing for the majority on the divided court, reversed the appeals court, upholding the right of the military to enforce the regulations that censored political activity and speech on military bases. The Supreme Court ruled that although Fort Dix admitted the public to certain areas of the base, the base had neither abandoned nor ceded control to nonmilitary authorities.
The Court declared that the fundamental business of a military installation was to train soldiers, not to provide a censorship-free public forum. Although municipal streets and parks had “traditionally served as a place for free public assembly and communication of thoughts by private citizens” without government censorship, the Court expressed a fear that if it failed to uphold the military’s authority to insulate itself from any appearance of endorsing partisan political causes, the American constitutional tradition of a politically neutral military establishment under civilian control could be undermined. A vigorous dissent, written by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., and joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall argued that the military’s training mission and the important principle of military neutrality could both be protected without such blanket prohibitions and censorship regulations.