Even when the government does not fund the dissemination of a particular government message, the First Amendment generally permits government, subject to the constraints of viewpoint neutrality, to create public institutions such as art museums and state universities, dedicated to facilitating the dissemination of private speech that the government believes to have particular merit.  Thus, in NEA v.  Finley, 524 U.S. 569 (1998), the Court upheld the use of content-based restrictions in a federal program awarding grants to artists on the basis of, inter alia, artistic excellence.  “The very assumption of the NEA is that grants will be awarded according to the artistic worth of competing applications, and absolute neutrality is simply inconceivable.”  Id. at 585 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).  Similarly, as Justice Stevens explained in his concurring opinion in Widmar v.  Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981), the First Amendment does not necessarily subject to strict scrutiny a state university’s use of content-based means of allocating scarce resources, including limited public fora such as its meeting facilities:  Because every university’s resources are limited, an educational institution must routinely make decisions concerning the use of the time and space that is available for extracurricular activities.  In my judgment, it is both necessary and appropriate for those decisions to evaluate the content of a proposed student activity.  I should think it obvious, for example, that if two groups of 25 students requested the use of a room at a particular time – one to view Mickey Mouse cartoons and the other to rehearse an amateur performance of Hamlet – the First Amendment would not require that the room be reserved for the group that submitted its application first.  Nor do I see why a university should have to establish a “compelling state interest” to defend its decision to permit one group to use the facility and not the other.  Id. at 278 (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment).

The more broadly the government facilitates private speech, however, the less deference the First Amendment accords to the government’s content-based restrictions on the speech that it facilitates.  Thus, where the government creates a designated public forum to facilitate private speech representing a diverse range of viewpoints, the government’s decision selectively to single out particular viewpoints for exclusion is subject to strict scrutiny.  Compare Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 834 (applying heightened First Amendment scrutiny to viewpoint-based restrictions on the use of a limited public forum where the government “does not itself speak or subsidize transmittal of a message it favors but instead expends funds to encourage a diversity of views from private speakers"), with Finley, 524 U.S. at 586 ("In the context of arts funding, in contrast to many other subsidies, the Government does not indiscriminately encourage a diversity of