Does Texas’ Age-Verification Requirement for Adult Websites Violate the Constitution?
Free Speech Coalition et al., Petitioners
In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which would have required adult websites to verify the age of their visitors to ensure no minors accessed pornographic content. Nineteen years later, Texas enacted H.B. 1181, which placed similar requirements on any website with more than one-third of its content deemed “harmful to minors” because of its sexual nature. A First Amendment advocacy organization, the Free Speech Coalition, joined a group of adult website publishers to sue Texas, alleging that H.B. 1181 violates the U.S. Constitution. After a district court blocked the law from going into effect, the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that it was valid. The Free Speech Coalition then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari on July 2, 2024. The following is excerpted from the Brief for Petitioners as submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 16, 2024.
