For over a half-century, legislatures have struggled to close the pay gap between men and women. Although the gap has shrunk substantially since Congress passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, in recent years, progress has slowed to a near standstill. Why has the residual gap remained so persistent? Some argue that employers—by asking applicants to reveal their wage histories and then relying on that information to set future wages—have forced women to carry wage discrimination from job to job. Reacting to this argument, some states and cities have provided a simple solution: ban salary-history inquiries.

This Comment addresses whether these salary-history bans are constitutional. Responding to recent claims that these bans unconstitutionally burden employers’ right to free speech—namely, by restricting the questions that employers are allowed to ask applicants—I argue that these bans permissibly restrict only the commercial speech of employers. In making this argument, I seek to prove that—in any jurisdiction—salary-history bans should withstand the intermediate scrutiny afforded to commercial speech restrictions. By assessing the structure, function, and (critically) effectiveness of salary-history bans, this Comment finds that there is sufficient evidence to show that these bans directly and materially serve to shrink the gender-wage gap. Therefore, I conclude that such laws are safely within the constitutional authority of the governments that enact them.

半个多世纪以来，立法机构一直在努力缩小男女之间的薪酬差距。尽管自 1963 年国会通过《同工同酬法案》以来，这一差距已大幅缩小，但近年来，进展已放缓至几近停滞。为什么剩余差距如此持久？一些人争辩说，雇主通过要求求职者披露他们的工资历史，然后依靠这些信息来设定未来的工资——迫使女性在不同的工作岗位上进行工资歧视。针对这一论点，一些州和城市提供了一个简单的解决方案：禁止查询工资历史。

本评论解决了这些工资历史禁令是否符合宪法。最近声称这些禁令违宪地加重了雇主的言论自由权——即通过限制雇主可以向申请人提出的问题——我认为这些禁令仅允许限制雇主的商业言论。在提出这个论点时，我试图证明——在任何司法管辖区——工资历史禁令都应该经得起商业言论限制的中间审查。通过评估工资历史禁令的结构、功能和（关键）有效性，本评论发现有足够的证据表明这些禁令直接和实质性地有助于缩小性别工资差距。所以，