Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-177_b97c.pdf
Page Number: 16

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

HIV/AIDS abroad.  Id., at 209–211. 

But Leadership Act funding comes with strings attached.
Two, in particular.  First, no Leadership Act funds “ ‘may be
used to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of
prostitution  or  sex  trafficking.’ ”    Id.,  at  210  (quoting
§7631(e)).  Second, with some exceptions not relevant here,
any recipient of Leadership Act funds must have “ ‘a policy 
explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.’ ”  Id., at 
210  (quoting  §7631(f )).    The  first  condition  limiting  how
Leadership  Act  funds  may  be  spent  has  never  been  chal-
lenged in this litigation.  Id., at 210.  What has driven this 
decades-long dispute is the second condition, the “Policy Re-
quirement”  that  requires  recipients  to  espouse  a  govern-
ment message.  Ibid. 

Concerned  that  “adopting  a  policy  explicitly  opposing 
prostitution” could “alienate certain host governments” and 
“mak[e]  it  more  difficult  to  work  with  prostitutes  in  the 
fight  against  HIV/AIDS,”  respondents  sued.  Id.,  at  211. 
They asserted that the Policy Requirement put an uncon-
stitutional condition on the receipt of federal funds and was 
thus unenforceable.  Id., at 212.  Accordingly, as the case 
came to us in AOSI I, the question was whether this fund-
ing  condition  violated  respondents’  First  Amendment
rights.  Id., at 211. 

B 
The answer, we held in AOSI I, was yes.  Our reasoning

then demands close inspection now. 

To begin, we observed in AOSI I that “the Policy Require-
ment would plainly violate the First Amendment” if it op-
erated “as a direct regulation of speech.”  Id., at 213.  Com-
manding  someone  to  speak  a  government  message
contravenes  the  “basic  First  Amendment  principle  that
‘freedom  of  speech  prohibits  the  government  from  telling 
people  what  they  must  say.’ ”    Ibid.  (quoting  Rumsfeld  v. 
Forum  for  Academic  and  Institutional  Rights,  Inc.,  547