Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox

In Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox (492 U.S. 469 (1989), a corporation and students brought action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the Board of Trustees of the New York State university system (SUNY) based upon the refusal of the university and its officials to permit the corporation to conduct product demonstrations, which the Court likened to Tupperware parties, in campus dormitory rooms. In a decision written by Justice Scalia, the Court held that speech involved in product demonstrations in campus dormitory rooms was "commercial speech," for purposes of First Amendment analysis, even though the seller also touched upon other subjects such as being financially responsible and running an efficient home. The Fox Court substantially relaxed the fourth prong of the Central Hudson test (Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of N.Y), holding that governmental restrictions upon commercial speech need not be the absolute least restrictive means to achieve the desired end; rather, restrictions require only a reasonable fit between government's ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends. "What our decisions require is a ' "fit" between the legislature's ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends'--a fit that is not necessarily perfect, but reasonable." (Fox, 492 US at 480.)