2025: The Year In Free Speech

Quick Overview

The 2025 free speech year in review highlights key Supreme Court decisions, specifically the unanimous upholding of the TikTok divestment law based on content-neutral national security grounds, and the likely unconstitutionality of the Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors due to viewpoint discrimination in professional speech, alongside discussions of Trump administration actions impacting law firms and university funding.

Key Points: The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the TikTok divestment law, focusing solely on the content-neutral rationale that the law prevents the Chinese government from spying on American users, thus avoiding the content-based rationale. The Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to the Texas age verification law for pornographic websites in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, upholding it under intermediate scrutiny because it targets unprotected material for minors and is analogous to ID checks for alcohol or tobacco sales. The Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors, which includes banning talk therapy, is expected to be held unconstitutional in Charlton v. Salazar because it constitutes an impermissible, viewpoint-specific restriction on professional client speech, even though licensing and malpractice laws are generally permissible. The Trump administration's executive orders penalizing law firms for their positions in legal actions were largely found unconstitutional by trial courts as they interfered with the firms' First Amendment rights to petition the government and represent clients, citing precedent like NRA v. Vullo. The Trump administration's attempt to condition research grants on viewpoint neutrality, exemplified by actions against Harvard for alleged Title VI violations leading to demands concerning speech and curriculum, was deemed a coercive and unconstitutional use of federal funding by a district court. The Ninth Circuit concluded that terminating federal grants based on DEI or sexual minority matters constitutes a First Amendment violation because government cannot impose viewpoint-based restrictions on broad funding programs intended to promote a diversity of views, referencing the precedent set in Rosenberger v. Rector. The review identified seven total items for the 2025 review, starting with two Supreme Court decisions and one pending case, followed by three matters involving the Trump administration and one concerning employee speech (though the latter was not detailed in the provided transcript segment).