Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-1140_5368.pdf
Page Number: 12

8 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FAMILY AND 
LIFE ADVOCATES v. BECERRA
 
Opinion of the Court 

232; Pickup, supra, at 1230.  “Professional speech” is then 
defined as any speech by these individuals that is based on
“[their]  expert  knowledge  and  judgment,”  King,  supra,  at 
232,  or  that  is  “within  the  confines  of  [the]  professional 
relationship,”  Pickup,  supra,  at  1228.    So  defined,  these 
courts except professional speech from the rule that content-
based  regulations  of  speech  are  subject  to  strict  scru-
tiny.  See  King,  supra,  at  232;  Pickup,  supra,  at  1053– 
1056; Moore-King, supra, at 569. 

But this Court has not recognized “professional speech”
as  a  separate  category  of  speech.   Speech  is  not  unpro-
tected merely because it is uttered by “professionals.”  This 
Court  has  “been  reluctant  to  mark  off  new  categories  of
speech  for  diminished  constitutional  protection.”  Denver 
Area  Ed.  Telecommunications  Consortium,  Inc.  v.  FCC, 
518  U. S.  727,  804  (1996)  (KENNEDY,  J.,  concurring  in
part,  concurring  in  judgment  in  part,  and  dissenting  in 
part).  And it has been especially reluctant to “exemp[t] a
category of speech from the normal prohibition on content-
based  restrictions.”    United  States  v.  Alvarez,  567  U. S. 
709,  722  (2012)  (plurality  opinion).    This  Court’s  prece-
dents do not permit governments to impose content-based 
restrictions on speech without “ ‘persuasive evidence . . . of 
a  long  (if  heretofore  unrecognized)  tradition’ ”  to  that
effect.  Ibid.  (quoting  Brown  v.  Entertainment  Merchants 
Assn., 564 U. S. 786, 792 (2011)).

This  Court’s  precedents  do  not  recognize  such  a  tradi-
tion for a category called “professional speech.”  This Court 
has afforded less protection for professional speech in two 
circumstances—neither  of  which  turned  on  the  fact  that 
professionals  were  speaking.    First,  our  precedents  have
applied more deferential review to some laws that require
professionals  to  disclose  factual,  noncontroversial  infor-
mation in their “commercial speech.”  See, e.g., Zauderer v. 
Office  of  Disciplinary  Counsel  of  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio, 
471  U. S.  626,  651  (1985);  Milavetz,  Gallop  &  Milavetz,