October Term 2025 · Decided 2026

Chiles v.
Salazar

No. 24-539 · 606 U.S. ___ (2026) · Read the full opinion ↗

The Holding

The Supreme Court ruled, 8–1, that Colorado's ban on so-called “conversion therapy” for minors, as applied to a licensed counselor's voluntary talk therapy, regulates speech on the basis of viewpoint and must therefore survive strict First Amendment scrutiny — a standard the lower courts had not applied.

In plain terms

Colorado has a law that says licensed counselors can't try to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity through talk therapy. A counselor sued, saying the law tells her what she can and can't say in a counseling session, which violates free speech. The Supreme Court agreed that the lower courts didn't take the free-speech problem seriously enough, and sent the case back for them to look at it again under a much tougher legal standard. The Court did not strike down the law — it just said the lower courts used the wrong test.

Section 01

The Question Presented

What was
at stake

Kaley Chiles is a Colorado-licensed professional counselor whose practice includes minors who seek her help with goals related to sexuality and gender. Some clients want support accepting their sexual orientation or gender identity. Others want help reducing certain attractions or behaviors. Colorado law permits the first kind of conversation but prohibits the second when it occurs between a licensed counselor and a minor — defining the latter as “conversion therapy.”

Chiles brought a First Amendment challenge, arguing that her work consists of speech — conversation between counselor and client — and that the State has selected one viewpoint to permit and the opposing viewpoint to forbid. The Tenth Circuit applied and upheld the law, treating it as a regulation of professional conduct rather than speech.

The question before the Supreme Court was whether that lower-court framing was correct. If the regulation reaches speech and discriminates by viewpoint, it must clear — the most demanding standard in constitutional law.

Section 02

The Bench

Who joined
which side

The decision was lopsided in vote count but produced several separate writings. Justice Gorsuch wrote for the Court. Justice Kagan filed a concurrence joined by Justice Sotomayor. Justice Jackson dissented alone.

The Roberts Court · Vote 8–1

Gorsuch
Author
Roberts
Chief
Thomas
Joined
Alito
Joined
Kavanaugh
Joined
Barrett
Joined
Kagan
Concurred
Sotomayor
Concurred
Jackson
Dissented
Majority (6)
Concurrence (2)
Dissent (1)
✦ Opinion author

A professional license does not strip a counselor of First Amendment protection when the regulated activity is, in substance, a conversation.

Paraphrased from the majority opinion

Section 03

The Reasoning

Two
positions

Both the majority and the dissent built coherent legal arguments. They disagree about a foundational question: when does speech that occurs in the course of a licensed profession remain speech for First Amendment purposes, and when does it become something the State may regulate as professional conduct?

The Majority

The law regulates speech by viewpoint, and must therefore meet strict scrutiny.

  1. Talk therapy is speech. The therapeutic interaction at issue consists of words exchanged in a counseling session. The First Amendment applies when the State restricts what may be said in those conversations.
  2. The statute picks a side. Colorado expressly permits counseling that affirms a minor's stated identity and prohibits counseling oriented toward change. A regulation that allows one position on a contested question and forbids the opposing position is viewpoint-based on its face.
  3. Licensure does not lower the bar. Earlier suggestions that “professional speech” receives reduced scrutiny were rejected in NIFLA v. Becerra (2018). The Court reaffirmed that holding here.
  4. Remand for the correct standard. Because the lower courts applied rational basis review, the case returns to them to consider whether the statute survives strict scrutiny — a question the majority did not itself resolve.
Justice Jackson, dissenting

The State is regulating medical treatment of minors, not the marketplace of ideas.

  1. Healthcare regulation is core state authority. States have long set the standards under which licensed clinicians may treat patients, including minors. The fact that a treatment uses words does not remove it from the State's traditional regulatory domain.
  2. Professional consensus matters. Every major medical and mental health association has concluded that change-directed interventions are ineffective and harmful for minors. Colorado is permitted to act on that consensus to protect a vulnerable population.
  3. The viewpoint framing obscures the conduct. The statute targets a specific therapeutic intervention with documented harms, not a viewpoint about sexuality. A surgeon's words during surgery are speech in a literal sense, but the State may still regulate the surgery.
  4. The majority's rule unsettles licensure broadly. If any speech-based intervention by a licensed professional becomes presumptively unregulable, the dissent warns, States lose meaningful authority over the practice of mental health care.
Section 04

What the Court Did Not Decide

Read this
carefully

This is the section students most often skip and most often need. A Supreme Court opinion resolves a specific legal question; it does not endorse a clinical position, settle a scientific debate, or rewrite professional ethics. The same is true here.

Common misreads to avoid

The Court did not endorse conversion therapy, and it did not strike down the Colorado statute.

  • It did not find the statute unconstitutional. The Court reversed the Tenth Circuit's framework and remanded. The statute's ultimate fate depends on what the lower courts decide under strict scrutiny.
  • It did not address clinical effectiveness or ethics. The opinion is a First Amendment ruling. The clinical consensus condemning change-directed interventions for minors remains the position of the major professional associations.
  • It did not eliminate state regulation of counseling. States retain authority to license, discipline, and set conduct standards. The ruling concerns viewpoint-based restrictions on the content of professional speech.
  • It did not change NASW Code of Ethics obligations. Social workers' ethical duties to clients, to the profession, and to avoid harm are unchanged by this decision.
Section 05

How It Got Here

The path
to SCOTUS

Cases don't just show up at the Supreme Court. They climb a ladder. Almost every case starts in a lower court, and only a tiny fraction ever reach the Supreme Court — out of roughly 7,000 requests each year, the Justices agree to hear about 70. Knowing which courts a case passed through, and what each said, tells you how settled (or contested) the legal question was on its way up.

2019 · Colorado State Legislature
Colorado passes the law
The state legislature makes it illegal for licensed mental health professionals in Colorado to provide conversion therapy to anyone under 18, including through talk therapy.
2022 · Federal Trial Court (Colorado)
The trial court sides with Colorado
Kaley Chiles sues, arguing the law violates her free speech. The first court to hear the case disagrees. It says the law regulates medical treatment, not speech, so the state can do it.
2023 · Federal Appeals Court (10th Circuit)
The appeals court agrees with the trial court
Chiles appeals. The next court up — which oversees federal cases from Colorado and nearby states — reaches the same conclusion. The law is upheld again. Chiles then asks the Supreme Court to take the case.
2026 · Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court reverses, 8–1
The Justices say both lower courts treated this as a medical-regulation case when they should have treated it as a free-speech case. They send it back down to be reconsidered using the stricter free-speech standard. The case is not over — it's restarting with new rules.
Section 06

For Practice

The social
work bridge

This case sits at an unusual intersection: First Amendment doctrine, mental health regulation, professional ethics, and the well-being of LGBTQ+ minors. For social work students, three distinct lenses are worth holding separately.

Legal Lens

Viewpoint discrimination is doctrinally fragile.

Laws that permit one position on a contested question and prohibit the other face the strictest constitutional review. Practice-regulating legislation drafted in viewpoint-neutral terms is more defensible than legislation that targets a particular therapeutic orientation by name.

Clinical Lens

Ethics outlasts constitutional doctrine.

The NASW Code of Ethics, state licensure boards, and clinical evidence continue to govern what a social worker may ethically offer. A constitutional ruling about state legislative authority is not a green light to abandon evidence-based practice or duty to client welfare.

Policy Lens

Expect legislative redrafting.

States with similar bans will likely revisit their statutes to ground prohibitions in evidence of harm and consumer protection rather than restrictions on counseling viewpoints. Watch for shifts toward conduct-focused language and informed-consent frameworks.

Section 07

A Working Vocabulary

Legal
terms

You don't need to be a law student to read a Supreme Court opinion, but a handful of terms recur. Here are the ones used above, defined for the way they're used in this case.

Frequently Used in This Opinion
As-applied challenge

An argument that a law, while perhaps valid in some applications, is unconstitutional as applied to the specific facts of the plaintiff's situation. Chiles did not seek to invalidate the entire statute; she challenged it as applied to her speech-only counseling.

Pre-enforcement challenge

A lawsuit brought before the plaintiff has actually been punished under the law. Allowed when the threat of future punishment is real enough that it changes the plaintiff's behavior right now.

Strict scrutiny

The hardest constitutional test a law has to pass. The government has to prove the law serves a really important goal and is the narrowest way to achieve it. Most laws fail this test.

Rational basis review

The easiest constitutional test. The government only has to show the law makes basic sense for some legitimate reason. Almost every law passes this test.

Viewpoint discrimination

When the government allows one position on an issue but bans the opposite position on that same issue. This is the specific problem the majority found with the Colorado law.

Reversed and remanded

The Supreme Court has thrown out the lower court's decision and sent the case back down for the lower court to redo using the correct legal rules.