The Supreme Court declined an emergency request on Thursday to halt enforcement of a Mississippi law requiring age-verification for social media websites, allowing the statute to be enforced as litigation continues in a lower court.
The unsigned unanimous order issued by the high court included a concurrence from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who argued NetChoice, the internet trade group that brought the petition to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, failed to show that the “balance of harms and equities favors it at this time with its request.” While he and the other eight justices denied the emergency stay, Kavanaugh said he believes NetChoice is likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
“In short, under this Court’s case law as it currently stands, the Mississippi law is likely unconstitutional,” Kavanaugh wrote in his concurring opinion. “Nonetheless, because NetChoice has not sufficiently demonstrated that the balance of harms and equities favors it at this time, I concur in the Court’s denial of the application for interim relief.”
NetChoice said it was “disappointed” by the decision Thursday but called it an “unfortunate procedural delay” and said it remains confident it will ultimately win the case.
“Although we’re disappointed with the Court’s decision, Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed in defending the First Amendment — not just in this case but across all NetChoice’s ID-for-Speech lawsuits,” NetChoice Litigation Center Co-Director Paul Taske said in a statement.
