A number of forum cases emphasize the importance of these objective indicia of intent and the fact that consistent practice can on occasion overcome a bare statement of intent to the contrary. In Perry, supra, the Court stated that
460 U.S. at 47, 103 S.Ct. at 956 (emphasis added). Rather than relying solely on the school district's assertions, the Court looked for indications
in the record that “permission has been granted as a matter of course to all who seek to distribute material.”
Id. Finding no such indications, the Court held that the mail system was not a public forum. Similarly, in
Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828, 96 S.Ct. 1211, 47 L.Ed.2d 505 (1976), the Court looked to the factual record before rejecting public forum status for the Fort Dix military base. It found that there was a “considered Fort Dix policy, objectively and evenhandedly
applied,”
424 U.S. at 839, 96 S.Ct. at 1218 (emphasis added), of preventing political campaigning on the base, that “no candidate of any political stripe had ever been permitted to campaign there,”
id., and that there was a regular pattern of controlling access to the base,
id. at 830, 90 S.Ct. at 1214. In
Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298, 94 S.Ct. 2714, 41 L.Ed.2d 770 (1974), the Court relied on “uncontradicted testimony at the trial that during the 26 years of public operation, the Shaker Heights system ... had not accepted or permitted
any political or public issue advertising on its vehicles” in finding the advertising space on public buses to be a nonpublic forum.
Id. at 300–01, 94 S.Ct. at 2715–16 (emphasis in original). And in
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 108 S.Ct. 562, 98 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988), the Court found a school newspaper published by a journalism class to be a nonpublic forum on the basis of the district court's “
factual findings” about the degree to which the class instructor actually controlled the details of publication.
108 S.Ct. at 568–69 (emphasis added).