The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a pair of emergency petitions filed by activist groups to stop the implementation of a Texas law requiring app stores to verify users’ ages.
The high court did not elaborate on its decision to reject the petitions, and there were no noted dissents to the emergency docket ruling. Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, a left-wing education activist group, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a lobbying group for the technology industry, asked the high court last month to halt enforcement of Senate Bill 2420, which imposes the age verification requirement on app stores and requires parental permission for minors to download apps, alleging it was a violation of the First Amendment.
A federal district court blocked enforcement of the law in December 2025, days before it was set to go into effect, finding it likely violated the First Amendment. A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit lifted the injunction on the law in May, finding that Texas was likely to succeed in the First Amendment lawsuit, leading to the pair of unsuccessful petitions to the Supreme Court. With the high court declining to intervene, the state will be permitted to enforce the law.
The two groups had claimed in their petition to the justices that the law was an unprecedented overreach that curbed First Amendment rights for both adults and minors.
“No State has ever required its citizens to prove their age before reading a newspaper, entering a bookstore, or even accessing the internet,” the CCIA petition to the Supreme Court said.
“Texas Senate Bill 2420 does exactly that — for every mobile app on every mobile phone. Under SB2420, before a Texan may download the Wall Street Journal — or even a weather app or calculator — he must first verify his age. And any Texan under 18 must link his account to a verified parent’s account (another verification hurdle) and obtain express parental consent for any app download or any in-app purchase — every audiobook, every movie, and so on — without any possibility of blanket consent,” the petition continued.
Texas officials had urged the Supreme Court not to block the law, noting that states “have long protected minors from alcohol, cigarettes, and other harmful products” and claiming that apps were just a “dangerous modern” product the law was designed to protect children from.
“To protect parents’ ability to make decisions concerning their children’s upbringing in the modern world, S.B. 2420 requires disclosures to parents and parental consent for minors to acquire software applications from ‘app stores,’ which ‘distribute[] software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device,’” Texas’s response to the petitions said.
“With narrow exceptions for one provision, S.B. 2420 applies to all software applications, regardless of their content and regardless [of] whether they would receive any First Amendment protection. The Texas State Legislature consciously ‘[did] not want to discriminate against apps,’” the Lone Star State’s filing continued.
TEXAS URGES SUPREME COURT TO REJECT EFFORT TO HALT APP STORE AGE VERIFICATION LAW
The Supreme Court concluded its term last week with rulings in its final slate of high profile cases, including striking down President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order, expanding the president’s firing power over much of the executive branch, and upholding a pair of state laws banning biological men from women’s sports.
The high court’s next term is scheduled to begin in October, with oral arguments set to start on Oct. 5. Among the cases the Supreme Court will hear next term is a challenge to a pair of state “assault weapons” bans.