The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision has affirmed a requirement in the state of Texas that pornography sites online verify the age of their users.
The fight was brought by organizations that objected to the new law, adopted in 2023.
That, in Texas, requires that “certain commercial websites publishing sexually explicit content that is obscene to minors to verify that visitors are 18 or older.”
Violations can include injunctions and civil penalties.
“Petitioners—representatives of the pornography industry—sued the Texas attorney general to enjoin enforcement as facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. They alleged that adults have a right to access the covered speech, and that the statute impermissibly hinders them.”
The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs weren’t likely to succeed on that claim, so they did not deserve an injunction.
“The court viewed H. B. 1181 as a ‘regulatio[n] of the distribution to minors of materials obscene for minors.’ It therefore determined that the law is not subject to any heightened scrutiny under the First Amendment.”
The ruling, delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, who was joined by Justices Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, affirmed.
Justice Elena Kagan disagreed, contending that porn should be readily accessed by children.
She was joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, who earned a spot in America’s history books during her Senate confirmation by being unable, or refusing, to define “woman.”
The majority opinion said the required standard for the case is “intermediate scrutiny” and under that the law survives.
“To determine whether a law that regulates speech violates the First Amendment, the court considers both the nature of the burden imposed by the law and the nature of the speech at issue. Laws that target protected speech ‘based on its communicative content’ are presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if ‘they satisfy strict scrutiny.’ Laws that only incidentally burden protected speech are subject to intermediate scrutiny.”
“History, tradition, and precedent establish that sexual content that is obscene to minors but not to adults is protected in part and unprotected in part. States may prevent minors from accessing such content, but may not prevent adults from doing the same. H.B. 1181 has only an incidental effect on protected speech, and is therefore subject to intermediate scrutiny. The First Amendment leaves undisturbed states’ traditional power to prevent minors from accessing speech that is obscene from their perspective. That power includes the power to require proof of age before an individual can access such speech.”
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has UPHELD Texas’ age-verification law for pornogaphy #txlege pic.twitter.com/8rx5stQbiu
— Brandon Waltens (@bwaltens) June 27, 2025
“It follows that no person—adult or child—has a First Amendment right to access such speech without first submitting proof of age. The power to verify age is part of the power to prevent children from accessing speech that is obscene to them. Where the Constitution reserves a power to the states, that power includes ‘the ordinary and appropriate means’ of exercising it,” the ruling said.
Annie Chestnut Tutor, policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Technology and the Human Person, said, “The Supreme Court’s decision is a historic victory for the fight to protect children from obscenity. Texas’s age verification requirement is constitutional, and states nationwide have a clear pathway forward to implement similar safeguards.
“Exposure to pornography does irrefutable harm to children, and this ruling holds online platforms accountable for willfully providing access to children. Age verification is the only technical solution to consistently and reliably keep children off adult websites. The state not only has a compelling interest to protect children from obscenity—it has a duty.”
“Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, said, “This ruling rightly places the power in the hands of the people and their elected lawmakers to protect children from sexually explicit content online. The decision is a step toward grounding free speech law in the Constitution, not in decades of judicial invention, and allowing parents and lawmakers to act in the best interests of the next generation.”
