The Latest Breaking News from Free Speech Coalition

While considering a First Amendment case about access to explicit websites online, Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito appeared to be unfamiliar with websites such as PornHub, asking representing attorneys about the kinds of content available on such websites.

The Supreme Court justice wondered if the porn site was like "old Playboy" during oral arguments

Jane Bambauer and I discuss the various rules the Court applies in obscenity cases and the forthcoming Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton decision, which deals with "obscene-as-to-minors" material (not to be confused with child pornography). Fun fact: Associate Justice Potter Stewart, who wrote the "I know it when I see…

From Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Rokita, decided Friday by Judges Frank Easterbrook and Amy St. Eve: Indiana seeks a stay of the preliminary injunction that a district court entered preventing the enforcement of Ind. Code § 24-4-23, which requires web sites to limit minors' access to certain sexual materials.…

And the Supreme Court agrees to weigh in.

The Court just agreed to hear this case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. You can read the majority and dissenting opinions in the Fifth Circuit here, and the petition, response, and reply here. Here's the issue in a nutshell: 1. Ginsberg v. N.Y.(1968) held (in a majority opinion by Justice…

I was delighted to sign on to this amicus brief supporting the challenge to Texas's S.B. 12 (Woodlands Pride, Inc. v. Paxton (5th Cir.)), which was filed on behalf of Prof. Dale Carpenter (SMU), Dean Erwin Chemerinsky (Berkeley), the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic at Vanderbilt Law School, and me.…