Bench Marks

In Chiles v. Salazar, the Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy, ruling that the law unconstitutionally restricted a licensed counselor’s speech based on viewpoint. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting alone, leaned heavily on Professor Claudia Haupt’s 2016 Yale Law Journal article “Professional Speech” to argue that the majority ignored the distinctive constitutional status of speech that occurs within professional relationships.

“Professional speech is unique in both its structure and content,” said Haupt, faculty co-director of the law school’s Center for Health Policy and Law. “It’s different from other types of speech because it structurally occurs within a distinctive social relationship marked by knowledge asymmetries and a basis in trust.” Haupt’s forthcoming book Professional Speech: Knowledge Communities and the Regulation of Expertise (Cambridge University Press) expands on the theory Jackson drew upon in her dissent.