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Legal Principle at Issue

Whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Action

In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the web designer, 303 Creative LLC, writing that the state of Colorado cannot compel the designer to create work that violates her values.

Facts/Syllabus

Lorie Smith wants to expand her graphic design business, 303 Creative LLC, to include services for couples seeking wedding websites. But Smith worries that Colorado will use the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act to compel her — in violation of the First Amendment — to create websites celebrating marriages she does not endorse. To clarify her rights, Smith filed a lawsuit in a federal district court seeking an injunction to prevent the state of Colorado from forcing her to create websites celebrating marriages that defy her belief that marriage should be reserved to unions between one man and one woman. The district court held that Smith was not entitled to the injunction she sought, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.

Importance of Case

The Court’s opinion reaffirms decades of precedent protecting our First Amendment rights to speak and think free of government compulsion. Freedom of conscience is a fundamental individual right: The First Amendment protects our right not to speak, too, and the government cannot force Americans to voice its preferred message on pain of punishment. The decision recognizes that just as the First Amendment protects students in our public schools from discipline for refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag, so too does it protect the right of artists to voice only those messages they wish to express, without risking government-imposed fines and “remedial training.”

As the Court made clear, nothing in the decision allows businesses like restaurants or movie theaters to refuse service to customers on the basis of protected class status. While the First Amendment “does not protect status-based discrimination unrelated to expression,” wrote Justice Gorsuch for the majority, “generally it does protect a speaker’s right to control her own message — even when we may disapprove of the speaker’s motive or the message itself.” 

FIRE is pleased by the Court’s recognition of the necessity of an evenhanded, unfailing commitment to free expression, without regard to the speaker’s viewpoint.