The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Texas law requiring age verification for accessing online pornography, giving the green light to similar laws in more than a dozen states.
The high court ruled 6-3 in favor of the law, rejecting the adult entertainment industry’s argument that the law infringes on privacy rights. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion.
“The power to require age verification is within a State’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content. H. B. 1181 is a constitutionally permissible exercise of that authority,” Thomas wrote.
“The statute advances the State’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content. And, it is appropriately tailored because it permits users to verify their ages through the established methods of providing government-issued identification and sharing transactional data,” Thomas said, affirming the lower court’s ruling.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kagan rejected the majority’s conclusion upholding the law, arguing it unlawfully burdens adults from seeking constitutionally protected sexually explicit material.
“The First Amendment protects those sexually explicit materials for every adult. So a State cannot target that expression, as Texas has here, any more than is necessary to prevent it from reaching children. That is what we have held in cases indistinguishable from this one. And that is what foundational First Amendment principles demand,” Kagan wrote.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the Friday decision as a “majority victory for children, parents, and the ability of states to protect minors from the damaging effects of online pornography.”
“Companies have no right to expose children to pornography and must institute reasonable age verification measures. I will continue to enforce the law against any organization that refuses to take the necessary steps to protect minors from explicit materials,” Paxton said.
The Free Speech Coalition, an adult entertainment industry group that sued Texas over the law at the center of Friday’s decision, expressed its disappointment with the outcome.
“As it has been throughout history, pornography is once again the canary in the coal mine of free expression,” Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden said. “The government should not have the right to demand that we sacrifice our privacy and security to use the internet.”
“This law has failed to keep minors away from sexual content, yet continues to have a massive chilling effect on adults. The outcome is disastrous for Texans and for anyone who cares about freedom of speech and privacy online,” Boden added.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The justices heard arguments in the case on Jan. 16 and appeared open to upholding the age verification laws at the center of the case.
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Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson defended the law by arguing to the justices that it protects minors without infringing on the rights of adults who wish to view the content. Derek Shaffer, a lawyer representing the adult entertainment industry, argued before the high court that the age verification laws infringe on adults’ rights to view the content by requiring them to submit personal information to view pornography. Shaffer argued that families can filter content on their own devices if they wish to protect their children from it.
The Supreme Court’s decision will have implications beyond Texas, as it will determine the fate of 19 states with similar laws.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
