Agency for International Development, et al., Petitioners v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc., et al. (570 U.S. 205)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 20, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 570 U.S. 205 · 133 S. Ct. 2321
- Docket
- No. 12-10
- Argued
- April 22, 2013
- Decided
- June 20, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2012
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Roberts (wrote), Justice Kennedy, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor
- Dissenting
- Justice Scalia (wrote), Justice Thomas
Oral argument transcript and advocates · Opinion on Justia
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. The United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 (Leadership Act), 117 Stat. 711, as amended, 22 U.S.C. § 7601 et seq., outlined a comprehensive strategy to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS around the world. As part of that strategy, Congress authorized the appropriation of billions of dollars to fund efforts by nongovernmental organizations to assist in the fight. The Act imposes two related conditions on that funding: First, no funds made available by the Act "may be used to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking." § 7631(e). And second, no funds may be used by an organization "that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking." § 7631(f). This case concerns the second of these conditions, referred to as the Policy Requirement. The question is whether that funding condition violates a recipient's First Amendment rights. I Congress passed the Leadership Act in 2003 after finding that HIV/AIDS had "assumed pandemic proportions, spreading from the most severely affected regions, sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, to all corners of the world, and leaving an unprecedented path of death and devastation." 22 U.S.C. § 7601(1). According to congressional findings, more than 65 million people had been infected by HIV…
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