SCOTUS Rules 8-1 Against Colorado's Conversion Therapy Ban

The Supreme Court has issued a landmark ruling in a case involving bans on conversion therapy. The 8-1 ruling in Chiles v. Salazar says Colorado's ban on talk conversion therapy likely violates free speech. This strongly signals that the law is unconstitutional as applied to talk therapy and that the lower courts therefore applied the wrong standard in reviewing it. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for the lower courts to apply strict scrutiny to it. But this ruling did not strike down the statute.

The court's first and only opinion for the day is in Chiles v. Salazar, on whether a Colorado law barring conversion therapy violates free speech. The opinion is from Justice Gorsuch and the vote is 8-1, with Justice Jackson dissenting.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 31, 2026

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenting vote.

The court holds that Colorado's law banning conversion therapy, as applied to a counselor's talk therapy, regulates speech based on viewpoint, and the lower courts should have applied a more rigorous standard of review. https://t.co/4143Vc80aQ
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 31, 2026

This ruling applies to talk therapy, and the ruling asserts that the ban on conversion therapy regulates speech based on viewpoint.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Colorado counselor who challenged a state law that bans "conversion therapy" for minors. https://t.co/s0bESo1g91
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 31, 2026

Here's more:

The high court ruled 8-1 that Colorado's law, when applied to talk therapy provided by counselor Kaley Chiles, regulates speech based on viewpoint. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter. She read her dissenting opinion from the bench.
The ruling reverses a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that found the law did not violate Chiles' free-speech rights. The appeals court instead concluded that it regulates professional conduct and only incidentally burdens speech.
The decision from the high court is a narrow one and does not overturn Colorado's law outright. It requires the lower courts to apply a more stringent level of review when evaluating its constitutionality.
"Colorado's law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions. In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. "Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country."