In turning down Camp Constitution, Boston had said that raising the cross flag could appear to violate another part of the First Amendment that bars governmental endorsement of a particular religion.Īs a result of the litigation, Boston last October halted the program to ensure that the city cannot be compelled to 'publicize messages antithetical to its own.'īoston has said that requiring it to open the flagpole to 'all comers' could force it to raise flags promoting division or intolerance, such as a swastika or a terrorist group. The city approved 284 applications in a row to fly flags before rejecting a flag with a Christian cross. President Joe Biden's administration backed Camp Constitution in the case.īoston's flag-raising program was aimed at promoting diversity and tolerance among the city's different communities. The decision overturned a lower court's ruling that the rejection of the flag did not violate their rights to freedom to speech under the U.S. Breyer added: 'The city's lack of meaning­ful involvement in the selection of flags or the crafting of their messages leads us to classify the flag raisings as pri­vate, not government, speech - though nothing prevents Boston from changing its policies going forward.'