Free Speech Challenges to Professional Regulation: Suing Over Dietetics Licensure

This product is free for those who attended FNCE^® 2018.

Nutrition and dietetics licensure—and other professional regulation—protects the public from physical, financial, and other harm. However, these licensure laws are facing multiple challenges in legislatures, regulatory agencies, and now in the courts, frequently based on claims of free speech rights of unlicensed practitioners. How can the public be protected when these consumer safeguards are weakened? Does an unqualified individual seeking to provide certain nutrition services (such as medical nutrition therapy) have a First Amendment right to do so that supersedes a state’s ability to protect the public?

Join us for a conversation with Paul Sherman, a lawyer representing the Institute for Justice, an organization presently suing Florida on behalf of an unlicensed provider of nutrition services. This session will examine the rationale of the Institute's challenge of Florida's nutrition and dietetics licensure law on free speech grounds.

CPEU: 1.0
CPE Level: 2
Learning Codes: 1080, 5410, 4120

Learning Objectives

• Describe how licensure is designed to protect the public.
• Explain the rationale of licensure's opponents.
• Interpret licensure legislation within the context of free speech.

Planned with the Consumer Protection and Licensure Subcommittee.