Five Things You Need to Know About the Texas Supreme Court Ruling Protecting Economic Liberty

After the Institute for Justice's landmark victory before the Texas Supreme Court, eyebrow threaders in Texas are free to practice their trade without obtaining a useless state cosmetology license.

This case began in 2009, when the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) demanded that eyebrow threaders obtain expensive and irrelevant licenses in Western-style cosmetology. TDLR insisted that threaders (some of them with 20 years of experience) stop working and pay as much as $9,000 to go to private beauty schools for 750 hours. But private beauty schools do not spend even a minute teaching threading. Threaders had to quit their jobs and spend 750 hours learning every beauty technique except the one they actually use in their jobs. Threaders were also required to pass two cosmetology exams, neither of which tests threading. Still, inspectors imposed $2,000 fines on threaders who did not immediately stop working and obtain the state's useless license. This scheme certainly protected licensed cosmetologists from honest competition, but it did nothing to help consumers or small businesses.

Happily, the Texas Supreme Court struck down TDLR's actions.

Learn more:
http://ij.org/case/patel-v-tx-department-of-licensing-and-regulation/
Donate to IJ: https://ij.org/support/give-now/