CNN
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Like millions of American teens, Kylie Corum is savvy about the dangers of TikTok, but she’s also concerned about the government’s efforts to shut it down.
The Virginia high school student uses the platform to follow the news, listen to music, and discover cooking tips. She chooses her words carefully when describing whether she trusts the Supreme Court to decide the fate of an application 17% of teens say this Using ‘almost continuously’.
“I don’t put my full faith in this,” Corum, a first-year student, said as she stood outside the Supreme Court after a recent tour of the building with her classmates. “But there’s not much I can do personally.”
In the coming months, the Supreme Court will decide a series of blockbuster cases that could dramatically change the lives of the country’s teens — potentially limiting access to e-cigarette products, upholding bans on transgender sponsorship of minors, and determining whether the controversial TikTok law can… Apply it or not. Squared with the first amendment.
The appeals have reached the justices — including two who still have teenage children — at a time when lawmakers are engaged in fierce cultural battles over textbook bans, transgender student athletes, and the teaching of American history — sparking a flood of lawsuits that are already making their way from Through the federal courts.
Disagreements are escalating despite indications that young people in particular are disillusioned with Washington in general and the Supreme Court in particular. A Marquette Law School poll last week It found that Supreme Court approval among Americans ages 18 to 29 is 44%, lower than any other age group.
“The big cases seem to be those that will directly impact the interests of children,” said Aaron Tang, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in education law. “I don’t think we should be surprised that more and more cases will come to court that directly involve youth while many state and local legislators are legislating with morality and youth in mind.”
The Supreme Court added to the “teen term” on Wednesday by agreeing to hear arguments in the fast-moving challenge to the broad TikTok ban signed by President Joe Biden’s bipartisan in April. The law came after years of concern that TikTok’s Chinese parent company posed a national security risk. TikTok will be allowed to continue operating in the US if a US-based subsidiary spins off from Chinese ownership.
Pediatricians and other experts have warned for years about social media’s potential harms to teens, but it was national security — not social science — that ostensibly prompted Congress to approve a TikTok ban. For this reason, the questions now pending in the Supreme Court do not address how young people will interact with the app, even though they will be most affected by the court’s decision.
The ban is scheduled to take effect on January 19.
“I don’t think the court is thinking about this in terms of children,” said Leslie Garfield Tenzer, a law professor at Pace University who focuses on social media.
“We all think that TikTok is essential for teens and creating content — that Ariana Grande is doing the ‘Wicked’ dance and everyone is emulating it — but the reason we have the ban is not because of this type of content,” Tenzer said. . “It’s because of the fear that the People’s Republic of China could manipulate us.”
This disconnect between the legal questions raised in the case and the potential impact on young people and their parents is a theme that runs through several of the major cases this chapter. A majority of the court’s justices signaled this month that they were willing to uphold a contentious Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors. Much of that argument Dec. 4 focused on whether courts should defer to state lawmakers in making those difficult choices. Significantly less time was spent on transgender minors who described care as essential.
In particular, the court declined to consider the question of whether parents have the right to direct care for their children.
At the same time, a pending case over the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to remove e-cigarette products from shelves has less to do with the health risks to youth and more to do with whether the agency followed proper legal protocols when it stepped in to regulate the multibillion-dollar industry. . The FDA says nineteen percent of high school students smoked e-cigarettes in 2020, a much higher percentage than the percentage of students who smoke.
At the heart of both disputes are questions about whether state lawmakers and agencies went too far when they enacted policies they say are necessary to protect youth. At least one of the conservatives — Justice Clarence Thomas — appears convinced by Tennessee’s argument that its transgender care ban applies to people based on age, not sex, and on their medical choices — a distinction that would make it easier for the state to defend the law in federal court.
“So why isn’t this just a case of age-stratification when it comes to these treatments rather than a ban?” Thomas asked a Biden administration lawyer.
Texas is making similar arguments in a case the court is scheduled to hear next month regarding a state law requiring age verification for sexually explicit websites. Opponents, including the porn industry, say the law violates the First Amendment by making it harder for adults to access adult content online. But supporters say the law is first and foremost about protecting minors.
“Texas seeks to protect children from some of the most graphic sexual content imaginable,” state attorneys wrote in court papers. “Texas has only taken on sites dedicated to pornography, allowed them to comply using common age verification technology, and has not imposed criminal penalties. Such a modest but important law satisfies any level of scrutiny.”
Because of the way lawsuits move through the federal judiciary, the Supreme Court is limited in how it formulates its cases and who will be heard. While the justices did not grant a separate appeal from transgender minors and their families affected by Tennessee’s ban, the court did allow their attorneys to make arguments earlier this month.
However, experts say the cases affecting teens that are pending now give young people only secondhand attention.
“The court does not directly evaluate what it thinks is best for the youth,” Tang said. “The court is evaluating whether state lawmakers — or the Food and Drug Administration, in the e-cigarette case — were correct in their assessment of what is best for young people.”
That’s worrying advocates who work with teens, who fear that some of the most contentious battles being fought in Congress and statehouses across the country are more about politics than protecting minors. A Gallup-Walton Family Foundation survey earlier this year found that 44% of voting-age Gen Z members said they had “very little” trust in the Supreme Court, while 20% said they had “a very much” or “a great deal.” Great confidence in the court.
“What we heard from them is an increase in mistrust and an increase in disillusionment with government institutions,” said Diana Thu Thao Rhodes, vice president of Defenders for Youth, a reproductive and sexual rights organization.
“The impact is directly on young people, yet we don’t necessarily hear the voices of young people,” she said.
Spencer Rahim, also a high school student from Virginia, said most teens he knows manage to find ways to overcome the fears many have about TikTok. Some, for example, simply avoid posting personal material.
“For me, it’s not a big concern,” he said.
But what is less certain for Rahim is how the judges will handle the case.
“They need to listen to people a little more,” he added.
