What are the First Amendment rights of minors? You might imagine two extreme positions:
- Minors have the same rights as adults. Friendly amendment: Restrictions on their rights have to be judged under the same tests (such as "strict scrutiny") applicable to restrictions on adults' rights, even if the tests might sometimes practically play out slightly differently for minors and for adults.
- Minors have basically no First Amendment rights, just as they have basically no Second Amendment rights, no constitutional right to marry, and no constitutional right to choose to have sex (even though Lawrence v. Texas has held that adults do have sexual autonomy rights). Friendly amendment: Minors only have a constitutional right to access speech through their parents' express choices (e.g., when a parent buys the minor a book or a video game).
But it turns out that the Court hasn't accepted either of those positions (though Justice Thomas in the violent video game case, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n (2011), dissented in an opinion that adopted a version of the amended position 2).
