This Note provides a historical background of the courts’ treatment of student rights and expressive activity on university campuses, and explains that courts have traditionally used forum analysis (a method used by courts to determine the permissibility of state regulation of expressive activity on public property) to review university regulation of student expression.

The Note argues that forum analysis is an inappropriate framework within the institutional context; a proper framework should focus on First Amendment aims as they apply in the educational context and protect the university’s regulations that cultivate a marketplace better suited to performing an educational function.  The Note suggests an alternative framework, proposing a two-part test that would allow universities to regulate student publications only if the regulations have the subjective purpose of enhancing the university marketplace of ideas and the regulations actually effectuate this purpose.  The Note illustrates the proposed framework by applying it to a number of hypothetical regulations.