Opinion ID: 220365
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendants' Initial Implementation of the Policy Requirement

Text: The defendant Agencies implement the Leadership Act by, in part, funding U.S.-based NGOs involved in the international fight against HIV/AIDS. AOSI and Pathfinder are two such organizations. AOSI runs a program in Central Asia that aims to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by reducing injection drug use, while Pathfinder works to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS by providing family planning and reproductive health services in more than twenty countries. Both receive funding from sources other than the Agencies and neither supports prostitution. But their work does involve engaging, educating, and assisting groups, such as prostitutes, that are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, as well as advocating approaches and discussing strategies for fighting HIV/AIDS among prostitutes at, among other places, policy conferences and forums. After the Leadership Act was enacted, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) warned that applying the Policy Requirement to U.S.-based organizations would be unconstitutional. Heeding that warning, Defendants initially refrained from enforcing it against U.S.-based NGOs. OLC subsequently changed course and withdrew what it characterized as its prior tentative advice, asserting that there are reasonable arguments to support the[] constitutionality of applying the Policy Requirement to U.S.-based organizations, and, starting in mid-2005, the Agencies began applying the Requirement to U.S.-based grantees. Specifically, USAID issued a directive requiring that U.S.-based organizations, as a condition of receiving funding under the Act, must have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution. Defendants also construed the Policy Requirement as prohibiting grantees from engaging in activities that were inconsistent with a policy opposing prostitution. In an effort to remain eligible for Leadership Act funding, both AOSI and Pathfinder adopted policy statements. Pathfinder's, for example, stated that it opposes prostitution and sex trafficking because of the harm they cause primarily to women.