IN JUNE, THE U.S. Supreme Court came down 5–4 on the side of free speech in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra. It is noteworthy that the Court’s holding supports PLF’s view of professional speech—that the First Amendment protects the rights of individuals—regardless of their profession—to speak or not speak their minds without government retribution.

The professional speech doc- trine, essentially an exception to the First Amendment carved out by lower courts, focuses on the speech of individuals who provide personalized service to clients, such as real estate agents, dieticians, and financial advisors. Where courts have applied the doctrine, professionals subject to licensing and regulatory schemes have their speech regulated—and even compelled, as in this case—without full First Amendment protections.

The Brookings Institution recently estimated that one-quarter of American workers must obtain a license to work in their profession, making the potential reach of the “professional speech” exception to the First Amendment broad indeed.

Writing for the Court in NIFLA, Justice Clarence Thomas rejected the notion that certain people, because of their chosen occupation, are due less constitutional protection for their speech. In doing so, Thomas pointed to Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida, an Eleventh Circuit case that upheld the free speech rights of medical doctors in Florida. In that case, PLF attorneys Deborah La Fetra and Caleb Trotter submitted a friend-of- the-court brief setting out that there is no principled reason to distinguish between professional and non-pro- fessional speech. PLF has also advocated for full First Amendment protection for veterinarians (Hines v. Alldredge) and tour guides (Kagan v. City of New Orleans).

“Freedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy

In NIFLA, Justice Anthony Kennedy authored a concurrence comparing the California law at issue to the laws proposed by “relentless authoritarian regimes” known throughout history to stifle free speech. Kennedy concluded that “[f]reedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief.”

This conclusion should reassure all Americans. But the closeness of the 5–4 decision reminds us once again that, as American abolitionist Wendell Phillips said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”