- Law & Policy
- Politics, Institutions, and Public Opinion
- Judiciary
- Revitalizing American Institutions
Jane Bambauer and Eugene Volokh analyze the US Supreme Court’s new Chiles v. Salazar decision, which struck down (by an 8-1 vote) a law banning sexual orientation/gender identity conversion therapy, including therapy that consists entirely of speech.
The Court held that the First Amendment protects professional-client speech, including counselors’ use of conversion therapy with minor patients when that therapy consists solely of speech. In the process, the 8-justice majority rejected the state’s argument that such speech can be regulated as “speech integrally related to unlawful conduct” – and in the process, cited Volokh’s discussion of the speech integral to unlawful conduct exception in a friend-of-the-court brief that he filed.
RELATED SOURCES
- Chiles v. Salazar, No. 24-539, slip op. (U.S. Mar. 31, 2026).
- Eugene Volokh, The Speech Integral to Criminal Conduct Exception, 101 Cornell L. Rev. 981 (2016)
ABOUT THE SERIES
Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh is the co-founder of The Volokh Conspiracy and one of the country’s foremost experts on the 1st Amendment and the legal issues surrounding free speech. Jane Bambauer is a distinguished professor of law and journalism at the University of Florida. On Free Speech Unmuted, Volokh and Bambauer unpack and analyze the current issues and controversies concerning the First Amendment, censorship, the press, social media, and the proverbial town square. They explain in plain English the often confusing legalese around these issues and explain how the courts and government agencies interpret the Constitution and new laws being written, passed, and decided will affect Americans' everyday lives.
