JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether governmental restrictions upon commercial speech are invalid if they go beyond the least restrictive means to achieve the desired end.
I
The State University of New York (SUNY) has promulgated regulations governing the use of school property, including dormitories. One of these, Resolution 66-156 (1979), states:
American Future Systems, Inc. (AFS), is a company that sells housewares, such as china, crystal, and silverware, to college students; it markets its products exclusively by the technique popularly called (after the company that pioneered it) "Tupperware parties." This consists of demonstrating and offering products for sale to groups of 10 or more prospective buyers at gatherings assembled and hosted by one of those prospective buyers (for which the host or hostess stands to receive some bonus or reward).
In October 1982, an AFS representative was conducting a demonstration of the company's products in a student's dormitory room at SUNY's Cortland campus. Campus police asked her to leave because she was violating Resolution 66-156. When she refused, they arrested her and charged her with trespass, soliciting without a permit, and loitering. Respondent Fox, along with several fellow students at SUNY/ Cortland, sued for declaratory judgment that in prohibiting their hosting and attending AFS demonstrations, and preventing their discussions with other "commercial invitees" in their rooms, Resolution 66-156 violated the First Amendment. AFS joined the students as a plaintiff. The District Court granted a preliminary injunction, American Future Systems, Inc. v. State University of New York College at Cortland, 565 F.Supp. 754 (NDNY 1983), but, after a trial, found for the university on the ground that the SUNY dormitories did not constitute a public forum for the purpose of commercial activity and that the restrictions on speech were reasonable in light of the dormitories' purpose, 649 F.Supp. 1393 (1986).
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded. 841 F.2d 1207 (1988). Because
II
In reviewing the reasoning the Court of Appeals used to decide this case,
Riley involved a state-law requirement that in conducting fundraising for charitable organizations (which we have held to be fully protected speech) professional fundraisers must insert in their presentations a statement setting forth the percentage of charitable contributions collected during the previous 12 months that were actually turned over to charities (instead of retained as commissions). In response to the State's contention that the statement was merely compelled commercial speech, we responded that, if so, it was "inextricably intertwined with otherwise fully protected speech," and that the level of First Amendment scrutiny must depend upon "the nature of the speech taken as a whole and the effect of the compelled statement thereon." Ibid. There, of course, the commercial speech (if it was that) was "inextricably intertwined" because the state law required it to be included. By contrast, there is nothing whatever "inextricable" about the noncommercial aspects of these presentations. No law of man or of nature makes it impossible to sell housewares without teaching home economics, or to teach home economics without selling housewares. Nothing in the resolution prevents the speaker from conveying, or the audience from hearing, these noncommercial messages, and nothing in the nature of things requires them to be combined with commercial messages.
Including these home economics elements no more converted AFS' presentations into educational speech, than
We have described our mode of analyzing the lawfulness of restrictions on commercial speech as follows:
The Court of Appeals held, and the parties agree, that the speech here proposes a lawful transaction, is not misleading, and is therefore entitled to First Amendment protection. The Court of Appeals also held, and we agree, that the governmental interests asserted in support of the resolution are substantial: promoting an educational rather than commercial atmosphere on SUNY's campuses, promoting safety and security, preventing commercial exploitation of students, and preserving residential tranquility. The Court of Appeals did not decide, however, whether Resolution 66-156 directly advances these interests, and whether the regulation it imposes
Our cases have repeatedly stated that government restrictions upon commercial speech may be no more broad or no more expansive than "necessary" to serve its substantial interests, see, e. g., Central Hudson, 447 U. S., at 566; Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 507-508 (1981) (plurality opinion); In re R. M. J., 455 U.S. 191, 203 (1982); Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U.S. 626, 644 (1985); Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Company of Puerto Rico, supra, at 343; San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Committee, 483 U.S. 522, 535 (1987); Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Assn., 486 U.S. 466, 472 (1988). If the word "necessary" is interpreted strictly, these statements would translate into the "least-restrictive-means" test used by the Court of Appeals here. There are undoubtedly formulations in some of our cases that support this view — for example, the statement in Central Hudson itself that "if the governmental interest could be served as well by a more limited restriction on commercial speech, the excessive restrictions cannot survive." 447 U. S., at 564. We have indeed assumed in dicta the validity of the "least-restrictive-means" approach. See Zauderer, supra, at 644, 651, n. 14. However, as we long ago had occasion to observe with respect to the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, see McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), the word "necessary"
Our jurisprudence has emphasized that "commercial speech [enjoys] a limited measure of protection, commensurate with its subordinate position in the scale of First Amendment values," and is subject to "modes of regulation that might be impermissible in the realm of noncommercial expression." Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 456 (1978). The ample scope of regulatory authority suggested by such statements would be illusory if it were subject to a least-restrictive-means requirement, which imposes a heavy burden on the State. See Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 488 (1960); see also Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 467 (1977). Cf. Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 279, n. 3 (1981) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment).
We have refrained from imposing a least-restrictive-means requirement — even where core political speech is at issue — in assessing the validity of so-called time, place, and manner restrictions.
In sum, while we have insisted that " `the free flow of commercial information is valuable enough to justify imposing on would-be regulators the costs of distinguishing . . . the harmless from the harmful,' " Shapero, supra, at 478, quoting Zauderer, supra, at 646, we have not gone so far as to impose upon them the burden of demonstrating that the distinguishment is 100% complete, or that the manner of restriction is absolutely the least severe that will achieve the desired end. What our decisions require is a " `fit' between the legislature's ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends," Posadas, supra, at 341 — a fit that is not necessarily perfect, but reasonable; that represents not necessarily the single best disposition but one whose scope is "in proportion to the interest served," In re R. M. J., supra, at 203; that employs not necessarily the least restrictive means but, as we have put it in the other contexts discussed above, a means narrowly tailored to achieve the desired objective. Within those bounds we leave it to governmental decisionmakers to judge what manner of regulation may best be employed.
We reject the contention that the test we have described is overly permissive. It is far different, of course, from the "rational basis" test used for Fourteenth Amendment equal protection analysis. See, e. g., Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 109-110 (1949). There it suffices if the law could be thought to further a legitimate governmental goal, without reference to whether it does so at inordinate cost. Here we require the government goal to be substantial, and the cost to be carefully calculated. Moreover, since the State bears the burden of justifying its restrictions, see Zauderer, supra, at 647, it must affirmatively establish the reasonable fit we require. By declining to impose, in addition, a least-restrictive-means requirement, we
III
Finally, we must address respondents' objection that, even if the principal First Amendment interests they asserted involve commercial speech and have not improperly been restricted, Resolution 66-156 must nonetheless be invalidated as overbroad, since it prohibits as well fully protected, noncommercial speech. Although it is true that overbreadth analysis does not normally apply to commercial speech, see Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, supra, at 380-381; Ohralik, supra, at 462, n. 20; Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 496-497 (1982), that means only that a statute whose overbreadth consists of unlawful restriction of commercial speech will not be facially invalidated on that ground — our reasoning being that commercial speech is more hardy, less likely to be "chilled," and not in need of surrogate litigators. See Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, supra; Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., supra. Here, however, although the principal attack upon the resolution concerned its application to commercial speech, the alleged overbreadth (if the commercial-speech application is assumed to be valid) consists of its application to noncommercial speech, and that is what counts. Cf. Bigelow v. Virginia,
On the record before us here, Resolution 66-156 must be deemed to reach some noncommercial speech. A stipulation entered into by the university stated that the resolution reaches any invited speech "where the end result is the intent to make a profit by the invitee." App. 87. More specifically, a SUNY deponent authorized to speak on behalf of the university under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) testified that the resolution would prohibit for-profit job counseling in the dormitories, id., at 133; and another SUNY official testified that it would prohibit tutoring, legal advice, and medical consultation provided (for a fee) in students' dormitory rooms, see id., at 162, 181-183. While these examples consist of speech for a profit, they do not consist of speech that proposes a commercial transaction, which is what defines commercial speech, see Virginia Pharmacy Board, 425 U. S., at 761 (collecting cases). Some of our most valued forms of fully protected speech are uttered for a profit. See, e. g., New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) (per curiam).
In addition to being clear about the difference between commercial and noncommercial speech, it is also important to be clear about the difference between an as-applied and an overbreadth challenge. Quite obviously, the rule employed in as-applied analysis that a statute regulating commercial speech must be "narrowly tailored," which we discussed in the previous portion of this opinion, prevents a statute from being overbroad. The overbreadth doctrine differs from that rule principally in this: The person invoking the commercial-speech narrow-tailoring rule asserts that the acts of his that are the subject of the litigation fall outside what a properly drawn prohibition could cover. As we put it in Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U. S., at 462, he "attacks the validity of [the statute] not facially, but as applied to his acts of solicitation," whereas the person invoking overbreadth "may
Ordinarily, the principal advantage of the overbreadth doctrine for a litigant is that it enables him to benefit from the statute's unlawful application to someone else. Respondents' invocation of the doctrine in the present case is unusual in that the asserted extensions of Resolution 66-156 beyond commercial speech that are the basis for their overbreadth challenge are not hypothetical applications to third parties, but applications to the student respondents themselves, which were part of the subject of the complaint and of the testimony adduced at trial. Perhaps for that reason, the overbreadth issue was not (in the District Court at least) set forth in the normal fashion — viz., by arguing that even if the commercial applications of the resolution are valid, its noncommercial applications are not, and this invalidates its commercial applications as well. Rather, both commercial and
The First Amendment doctrine of overbreadth was designed as a "departure from traditional rules of standing," Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 613 (1973), to enable persons who are themselves unharmed by the defect in a statute nevertheless "to challenge that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to others, in other situations not before the Court," id., at 610. We see no reason, however, why the doctrine may not be invoked in the unusual situation, as here, where the plaintiff has standing to challenge all the applications of the statute he contends are unlawful, but his challenge to some of them (here, the commercial applications of the statute, assuming for the moment they are valid) will fail unless the doctrine of overbreadth is invoked. It would make little sense to reject these plaintiffs' as-applied attack upon the statute's restriction of commercial speech (on the ground that in its commercial-speech applications the statute is narrowly tailored) and to preclude them from attacking that restriction on grounds that the statute is overbroad (because they have standing to attack its overbroad applications directly and therefore cannot invoke the overbreadth doctrine) — and then, next week, to permit some person whose noncommercial speech is not restricted (so that he has no standing to attack that aspect of the statute directly) to succeed in his attack on the commercial applications because the statute is overbroad. In other words, while the overbreadth doctrine was born as an expansion of the law of standing, it would produce absurd results to limit its application strictly to that context.
It is not the usual judicial practice, however, nor do we consider it generally desirable, to proceed to an overbreadth
In the present case, it has not yet been properly determined that the restrictions on respondents' commercial speech are valid as applied. In fact, neither the legal issues nor the factual questions involved in that portion of the case have been separately addressed by either of the courts below. As we have described, the District Court held that the restrictions on both types of speech were valid without specifically considering (or apparently even recognizing the presence of) noncommercial speech; and the Court of Appeals reversed, again without separate analysis of noncommercial speech, for failure to apply the least-restrictive-means test — which, as we have held, was error. We decline to resolve those as-applied challenges here, not only for reasons of economy but also because a holding for respondents would produce a final judgment in their favor, according them more relief than they obtained from the Court of Appeals (which entered only a remand). Such a result is generally impermissible where, as here, respondents have not filed a cross-petition for certiorari. See R. Stern, E. Gressman, & S. Shapiro, Supreme Court Practice 382-387 (6th ed. 1986). For the same reasons,
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE MARSHALL join, dissenting.
The majority holds that "least-restrictive-means" analysis does not apply to commercial-speech cases, a holding it is able to reach only by recasting a good bit of contrary language in our past cases.
That Resolution 66-156 is substantially overbroad in its potential application to noncommercial speech is readily apparent. As the university interprets the resolution, any speech in a dormitory room for which the speaker receives a profit is speech by a "private commercial enterprise," prohibited by the resolution. See ante, at 482-483. As the majority correctly observes, ante, at 482, the resolution so interpreted prohibits not only commercial speech (i. e., speech proposing a commercial transaction), but also a wide range of speech that receives the fullest protection of the First Amendment. We have been told by authoritative university officials that the resolution prohibits a student from meeting with his physician or lawyer in his dorm room, if the doctor or lawyer is paid for the visit. We have similarly been told that the resolution prohibits a student from meeting with a tutor or job counselor in his dorm room. Ibid. Presumably, then, the resolution also forbids a music lesson in the dorm, a form of tutoring. A speech therapist would be excluded, as would an art teacher or drama coach.
More important, the resolution's overbreadth is undoubtedly "substantial" in relation to whatever legitimate scope the resolution may have. See Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 458 (1987); Board of Airport Comm'rs of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569, 574 (1987). Even assuming that the university may prohibit all forms of commercial speech from a student's dorm (a proposition that is by no means obvious under our precedents),
In this respect, the resolution here is equivalent to the one struck down on overbreadth grounds in Jews for Jesus, supra, a resolution that banned all "First Amendment activities" within the central terminal area of a major urban airport. By prohibiting all speech in a dorm room if the speaker receives a fee, the resolution in this case, like the resolution in Jews for Jesus, indiscriminately proscribes an entire array of wholly innocuous expressive activity, and for that reason is substantially overbroad. I therefore would hold Resolution 66-156 unconstitutional on its face now, in order to avoid chilling protected speech during the pendency of proceedings on remand.
FootNotes
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Advertising Federation, Inc., by David S. Versfelt, William W. Rogal, and Gilbert H. Weil; for the Landmark Legal Foundation by Mark J. Bredemeier, Jerald L. Hill, and Jonathan W. Emord; and for the Student Association of the State University of New York, Inc., et al. by Lanny E. Walter.
Marsha S. Berzon and Laurence Gold filed a brief for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations as amicus curiae.
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