Whether a government prohibition on communicating a message is exempt from First Amendment scrutiny simply because that prohibition flows from a statute that governs the practice of an occupation

QUESTION PRESENTED In National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra, this Court declined to treat socalled “professional speech” as a “unique category that is exempt from ordinary First Amendment principles.” 138 S. Ct. 2361, 2375 (2018). In the wake of that decision, the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits have abandoned their pre-NIFLA professional-speech cases to hold that ordinary First Amendment principles govern as-applied challenges to laws that regulate entry into an occupation. In the decision below, the Eleventh Circuit split from these courts to hold that its pre-NIFLA precedent remained good law and that a “statute that governs the practice of an occupation” is exempt from First Amendment scrutiny, even if its application is triggered solely by the act of communicating a message. The question presented is: Whether a government prohibition on communicating a message is exempt from First Amendment scrutiny simply because that prohibition flows from a statute that governs the practice of an occupation.