A federal judge spanked the state of Kentucky for trying to censor a prominent parenting columnist in a First Amendment ruling handed down this week.

The Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology engaged in an unconstitutional "exercise of regulatory zeal" when it ordered syndicated advice columnist John Rosemond to stop referring to himself as a psychologist in the state, ruled U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove.

As Law Blog reported earlier, Kentucky officials accused Mr. Rosemond of giving parenting advice without a proper license. In 2013, at the behest of the state psychology board, the Kentucky attorney general’s office issued a cease-and-desist affidavit to Mr. Rosemond in response to a Feb. 2013 column he wrote.

The article, which ran in the Lexington Herald-Leader and dozens of other papers, concerned a couple who sought his advice on dealing with their “highly spoiled” underachieving teenage son. Mr. Rosemond wrote that the kid was in “dire need of a major wake-up call” and urged the parents to take away his cell phone and and driving privileges.

The state objected to Mr. Rosemond identifying himself as a family psychologist and giving individualized parenting advice, citing a law that makes it a crime to present oneself as a psychologist in Kentucky without a board-issued license. Mr. Rosemond is a licensed “psychological associate” in his home state of North Carolina. But because he's not licensed in Kentucky, the state claimed he was engaging in “unlawful practice of psychology."