CNN
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Like millions of American teenagers, Kailey Corum is no stranger to the dangers of TikTok – but she is also wary of government efforts to shut it down.
The high school student from Virginia 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 app that 17% of adolescents declare using ‘almost constantly’.
“I don’t really trust it,” Corum, a junior, said as she stood in front of Supreme Court after a recent tour of the building with her classmates. “But personally, there’s not much I can do.”
In the coming months, the Supreme Court will decide a series of blockbuster cases that could significantly transform the lives of the nation’s teenagers – potentially limit access to vaping productsby confirming the ban on transgender care for minors and deciding whether the controversial law on TikTok can be reconciled with the First Amendment.
The calls came to judges — including two who still have teenage children — at a time when lawmakers are waging a fierce culture war over school book banstransgender student athletes and teaching American history – causing a flood of litigation that is already making its way through the federal courts.
The conflicts are intensifying even as it appears that young people are particularly disillusioned with Washington in general and the Supreme Court in particular. A Marquette Law School Poll Last Week found that the high court’s approval rate among Americans ages 18 to 29 stands at 44 percent, lower than any other age category.
“There’s a sense that the most important cases are the ones that directly involve 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 are coming to court, directly involving young people, when so many state and local legislators are legislating with morality and young people in mind. ”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday extended its “teenage term” by agreeing to hear arguments in the rapid challenge to the law. largely bipartisan ban on TikTok President Joe Biden signed it in April. The law follows years of concerns that TikTok’s Chinese parent company poses a national security risk. This would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States if its U.S.-based subsidiary permanently breaks away from Chinese ownership.
Pediatricians and other experts have been warning for years about the potential harms of social media for teens, but it was national security — not social science — that apparently prompted Congress to approve the TikTok ban. For this reason, the issues currently pending before the Supreme Court do not address how young people interact with the app, even though they are the ones who will be most affected by the court’s decision.
The ban is expected to come into effect on January 19.
“I don’t think the court is looking at this in terms of children,” said Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer, a law professor at Pace University who focuses on social media.
“We all think TikTok is essential for teens and content creation – and Ariana Grande does the “Wicked” dancing and everyone imitates it – but the reason the ban is in place 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 issues raised in the case and the potential impact on young people and their parents is a recurring theme in several of this term’s major cases. The majority of the court’s justices indicated this month that they were prepared to support a divisive decision Tennessee law bans gender-affirming care for minors. Much of this argument Dec. 4 focused on whether courts should defer to state lawmakers to make these difficult choices. Much less time was spent on transgender minors who described care as essential.
In particular, the court refused to examine the question of whether parents have the right to receive direct care for their children.
An ongoing case regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to remove vaping products from shelvesmeanwhile, has less to do with the health risks to young people and more to do with whether the agency followed proper legal protocols when it stepped in to regulate this multi-billion dollar industry. Nineteen percent of high school students vaped in 2020, according to the FDA, a much higher share than students who smoked.
At the center of both disputes are questions about whether state lawmakers and agencies have overstepped when adopting policies they say are necessary to protect young people. At least one conservative — Justice Clarence Thomas — seemed potentially convinced by Tennessee’s argument that its ban on transgender care applies to people based on their age rather than their gender and medical choices — a distinction that would make it easier for the state to defend the law in federal court.
“So why isn’t it just an age rating when it comes to these treatments rather than a ban?” Thomas asked the Biden administration lawyer.
Texas is making similar arguments in a case the court is scheduled to hear next month regarding a state law that requires 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 its supporters say the law aims above all to protect minors.
“Texas seeks to protect children from some of the most lascivious sexual content imaginable,” state lawyers wrote in court papers. “Texas only addressed pornography websites, allowed them to comply using common age verification technology, and did not impose criminal penalties. Such a modest but important law satisfies any level of scrutiny.
Because of the way lawsuits move through the federal court system, the Supreme Court is limited in how it frames its cases and who is heard. Although the justices did not grant a separate appeal to transgender minors and their families affected by Tennessee’s ban, the court allowed their attorney to present their arguments earlier this month.
Yet experts say the cases affecting teens currently pending pay secondary attention to young people.
“The court does not directly evaluate what it thinks is best for the young people,” Tang said. “The court is evaluating whether state lawmakers – or the FDA, in the vaping case – were correct in their assessment of what would be best for young people.”
That worries advocates who work with teens, who worry that some of the most contentious fights playing out in Congress and in states across the country are more about politics than protecting minors. A Gallup-Walton Family Foundation survey from the beginning of this year found that 44% of voting-age members of Generation Z said they had “very little confidence” in the Supreme Court, while 20% said they had “a lot” or “a lot” of confidence in the Court .
“What we’ve heard from them is an increase in distrust and an increase in disillusionment with government institutions,” said Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes, vice president of Advocates for Youth, an organization defending reproductive and sexual rights.
“The impact is felt directly on young people,” she said, “and yet we don’t necessarily hear young people’s voices. »
Spencer Rahim, also a high school student in Virginia, said most teens he knows manage to find ways around the concerns many have about TikTok. Some, for example, simply avoid posting personal material.
“To me,” he said, “it’s not really a big deal.”
What is less certain for Rahim, however, is how the judges will approach the issue.
“They need to listen to people a little more,” he said.