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AGENCY FOR INT’L DEVELOPMENT v. ALLIANCE FOR 
OPEN SOCIETY INT’L, INC. 
Opinion of the Court 

would blur a clear rule of American law: Foreign organiza-
tions operating abroad do not possess rights under the U. S. 
Constitution.  Plaintiffs’  carve-out  not  only  would  deviate 
from  that  fundamental  principle,  but  also  would  enmesh
the  courts  in  difficult  line-drawing  exercises—how  closely 
identified  is  close  enough?—and  leave  courts  without  any
principled basis for making those judgments.  We discern 
no good reason to invent a new and legally unmoored excep-
tion to longstanding principles of American constitutional 
and corporate law. 

Second, plaintiffs argue that the Court’s 2013 decision in
this case encompassed both plaintiffs’ American organiza-
tions and their foreign affiliates, meaning that, in plaintiffs’ 
view,  the  Court  has  already  resolved  the  issue  before  us. 
That  is  not  correct.  The  plaintiffs  in  the  2013  case  were 
these  same  American  organizations.  It  is  true  that  the 
Court considered the possibility that an American organi-
zation could work through affiliates to potentially avoid the 
burdens  of  the  otherwise-unconstitutional  application  of 
the Policy Requirement.  But the Court rejected that alter-
native, which in essence would have compelled the Ameri-
can organizations to affiliate with other organizations.  The 
Court instead ruled that the Policy Requirement may not
be applied to plaintiffs’ American organizations.  Therefore, 
plaintiffs’ current affiliations with foreign organizations are 
their  own  choice,  not  the  result  of  any  U. S.  Government
compulsion.

Stated simply, in the prior decision, the Court did not fa-
cially invalidate the Act’s condition on funding.  The Court 
did not hold or suggest that the First Amendment requires
the  Government  to  exempt  plaintiffs’  foreign  affiliates  or 
other  foreign  organizations  from  the  Policy  Requirement.
And the Court did not purport to override the longstanding 
constitutional law principle that foreign organizations op-
erating abroad do not possess constitutional rights, or the
elementary corporate law principle that each corporation is