Ginsberg v. New York

Citation: Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968)(full-text).

Supreme Court Proceedings
In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that the "power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults," that the claim of parents "to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society," and that the state "has an independent interest in the well-being of its youth." With these factors in mind, the Court held that the government can constitutionally prohibit "the sale to minors . . . of material defined to be obscene on the basis of its appeal to them whether or not it would be obscene to adults." In other words, the government can prohibit children from having access to certain types of sexually explicit material that it cannot constitutionally ban for adults.