Speech, Not “Conduct”: Supreme Court Rules On Conversion Talk Therapy

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.

Cast

Eugene Volokh

Eugene Volokh

Related

Articles

“What Do We Do Now?”

This final line in a long-ago movie about a fictional California race seems to fit our real, post-election Sacramento. The capital mood is stranger than fiction, with its outgoing governor who won’t cede the spotlight and a governor-elect who’s short on specifics.

November 12, 2026

Videos

“Extinction Level Event”: Jonah Goldberg On The Midterm Elections

Jonah Goldberg discusses the aftermath of this week’s midterm election in the US – a shocking repudiation of the Trump presidency and arguably the harshest setback for Republican candidates nationwide since 1974’s Watergate backlash. 

November 6, 2026

Articles

The Dawn Of The Post-Trump Era

Donald Trump remains in the White House, but the midterms have made him a lame duck.

November 5, 2026