AOSI coordinates, administers, and advises national and regional programs in Central Asia and elsewhere on a range of public health, education, and general civil society issues.
[2] In the United States it works with the U.S. federal government on charitable projects that address challenges facing urban communities and centers.
The requirement covered recipient organizations as a whole, and therefore restricted speech or activity that took place outside the government-funded program and was paid for with entirely private funds.
At issue in the case is a requirement that public health groups receiving U.S. funds pledge their "opposition to prostitution" in order to continue their life-saving HIV prevention work.
Under this "pledge requirement", recipients of U.S. funds are forced to censor even their privately funded speech regarding the most effective ways to engage high-risk groups in HIV prevention.Just prior to this case, the non-profit organization DKT International had brought a similar lawsuit, prevailing in District Court but losing on appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
[6] With the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, AOSI sued the United States Agency for International Development, the financial backers of its Central Asian drug rehabilitation programs.
During the oral argument in the case, the government stated that it intended to issue regulations that would allow legally and physically separate affiliates of recipient organizations to engage in the prohibited speech.