Accessible Voting is Under Attack 35 Years After the ADA
Editor's Note: Shayla Mitchell is the election protection organizer for the ACLU of Alabama. She works every day to ensure Alabamians can access the polls freely, safely, and fairly. Her motto is “Local is Vocal.” As a Black organizer and disability advocate, she has seen how local attacks on voter access can become a national precedent. Consider her your “Election Protection Bestie” if you ever visit Alabama.
The Civil Rights Movement began in humble living rooms, at busy lunch counters, and across church pews in Alabama where people gathered to demand a voice in democracy. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law on July 26, 1990, is part of that same tradition. The ADA stands on the shoulders of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, carving out legal protections so people with disabilities could fully participate in public life, whether that’s gaining employment or casting a ballot.
This July, the ACLU commemorates the 35th anniversary of the ADA, recognizing it as a living civil-rights protection that we will never stop fighting to uphold. The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. It promises access to employment, government services, public spaces, and crucially, the ballot box. Yet here in Alabama, and across the country, these promises are fragile.
"At the ACLU of Alabama, we know that voting rights are disability rights."
At the ACLU of Alabama, we know that voting rights are disability rights. In 2024, nearly 30 percent of Alabama’s electorate fell under the ADA’s protection. Nationally, one in five eligible voters live with a disability. But the simple act of voting, from accessing a polling place to mailing a ballot, remains a battleground.
The ACLU of Alabama, works every day to ensure that the promise of the ADA reaches the voting booth. And this year’s anniversary is a call to action. From restrictive legislation to inaccessible polling places, barriers still undermine the rights of voters with disabilities. Right now,three major threats could affect us all on Election Day and highlight why defending the ADA remains crucial.
The Fight Against Alabama’s SB1
One of the most urgent threats came in March 2024, when Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed Senate Bill 1 (SB1) into law. Under SB1, organizations assisting a voter with requesting, filling out, or delivering an absentee ballot application could face criminal charges, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison. The law’s vague language labels even small acts of kindness (like giving a neighbor gas money to drive their ballot to the post office) as potential “gifts” and criminal offenses.
During public hearings, the law’s sponsors made it clear: they intend to criminalize the assistance on which voters with disabilities often rely. Ironically, these same lawmakers represent districts where absentee voting has historically been common, with averages as high as 72 percent. In the months since SB1 passed, absentee voting participation in Alabama has plummeted.
Nationally, SB1 has sent a chilling message: helping people exercise their right to vote, even when required by federal law like the ADA, could now carry legal risk. For voters with disabilities, who frequently rely on trusted friends or organizations for ballot assistance, this legislation amounts to voter suppression by another name.
The Ongoing Crisis of Inaccessible Polling Places
In 2024, the Alabama Election Protection Coalition identified polling sites with broken or absent ramps, doors that couldn’t be opened without significant force, hazardous mold, and inadequate lighting. These conditions violated the ADA and deterred voter participation.
Through direct advocacy, counties across Alabama were compelled to conduct ADA compliance audits of their polling places. But we quickly discovered another gap: there was no centralized, reliable public list of polling locations anywhere in the state. Even the secretary of state’s office lacked a comprehensive listing six months before the primary election.
To fill this gap, the ACLU of Alabama partnered with the Legal Defense Fund’s Black Voters on the Rise Program and Rollin’ to the Polls to create a Nonpartisan Statewide Polling Location Directory. This resource now informs voter mobilization efforts, helps protect against disenfranchisement, and guides our targeted advocacy for ADA compliance in underperforming counties.
We’re pushing forward with strategies to ensure every voter can safely and confidently access their polling place, especially in Alabama’s Black Belt, where infrastructure often lags behind. That means relocating inaccessible polls, consolidating polling places for efficiency, and ensuring compliance through direct engagement with local election officials.
Rising Obstacles to Vote Across The Country
The threats to voters with disabilities aren’t confined to Alabama. The Trump administration’s March 2025 executive order on “Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” and the House’s passage of the "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act," or the SAVE Act,have both raised alarms among disability rights advocates. These measures expand avenues for disenfranchisement, with consequences for voters covered under the ADA.
In May 2025, a federal court ruled in Milligan v. Allen that Alabama’s legislative maps intentionally disenfranchised Black voters, yet similar fights continue in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and beyond. Voter ID laws and inaccessible government buildings further compound the barriers. For many, updating voter registration requires physical access to offices they can’t safely enter.
We Must Defend the ADA’s Legacy
These threats underscore why the ADA’s 35th anniversary is more than ceremonial. In Alabama and across the Deep South, we’ve seen how local attacks on disability access become the national precedent. Safe, fair, and accessible elections aren’t a privilege. They're a right protected by the ADA. For 35 years, this law has been a lifeline. Our job now is to ensure it stays that way for the next 35 years and beyond.
At the ACLU, we are proud to stand alongside advocates from REV UP (AAPD), Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP), League of Women Voters (LWV), NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Stand Up Mobile, Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM), and Restore Your Vote to fight for our voting rights in courtrooms, legislatures, and at every polling place. Together, we remind people that democracy is for everyone.
"Together, we remind people that democracy is for everyone."
Published July 26, 2025 at 05:30PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/DMPqhbJ
Accessible Voting is Under Attack 35 Years After the ADA
Editor's Note: Shayla Mitchell is the election protection organizer for the ACLU of Alabama. She works every day to ensure Alabamians can access the polls freely, safely, and fairly. Her motto is “Local is Vocal.” As a Black organizer and disability advocate, she has seen how local attacks on voter access can become a national precedent. Consider her your “Election Protection Bestie” if you ever visit Alabama.
The Civil Rights Movement began in humble living rooms, at busy lunch counters, and across church pews in Alabama where people gathered to demand a voice in democracy. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law on July 26, 1990, is part of that same tradition. The ADA stands on the shoulders of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, carving out legal protections so people with disabilities could fully participate in public life, whether that’s gaining employment or casting a ballot.
This July, the ACLU commemorates the 35th anniversary of the ADA, recognizing it as a living civil-rights protection that we will never stop fighting to uphold. The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. It promises access to employment, government services, public spaces, and crucially, the ballot box. Yet here in Alabama, and across the country, these promises are fragile.
"At the ACLU of Alabama, we know that voting rights are disability rights."
At the ACLU of Alabama, we know that voting rights are disability rights. In 2024, nearly 30 percent of Alabama’s electorate fell under the ADA’s protection. Nationally, one in five eligible voters live with a disability. But the simple act of voting, from accessing a polling place to mailing a ballot, remains a battleground.
The ACLU of Alabama, works every day to ensure that the promise of the ADA reaches the voting booth. And this year’s anniversary is a call to action. From restrictive legislation to inaccessible polling places, barriers still undermine the rights of voters with disabilities. Right now,three major threats could affect us all on Election Day and highlight why defending the ADA remains crucial.
The Fight Against Alabama’s SB1
One of the most urgent threats came in March 2024, when Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed Senate Bill 1 (SB1) into law. Under SB1, organizations assisting a voter with requesting, filling out, or delivering an absentee ballot application could face criminal charges, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison. The law’s vague language labels even small acts of kindness (like giving a neighbor gas money to drive their ballot to the post office) as potential “gifts” and criminal offenses.
During public hearings, the law’s sponsors made it clear: they intend to criminalize the assistance on which voters with disabilities often rely. Ironically, these same lawmakers represent districts where absentee voting has historically been common, with averages as high as 72 percent. In the months since SB1 passed, absentee voting participation in Alabama has plummeted.
Nationally, SB1 has sent a chilling message: helping people exercise their right to vote, even when required by federal law like the ADA, could now carry legal risk. For voters with disabilities, who frequently rely on trusted friends or organizations for ballot assistance, this legislation amounts to voter suppression by another name.
The Ongoing Crisis of Inaccessible Polling Places
In 2024, the Alabama Election Protection Coalition identified polling sites with broken or absent ramps, doors that couldn’t be opened without significant force, hazardous mold, and inadequate lighting. These conditions violated the ADA and deterred voter participation.
Through direct advocacy, counties across Alabama were compelled to conduct ADA compliance audits of their polling places. But we quickly discovered another gap: there was no centralized, reliable public list of polling locations anywhere in the state. Even the secretary of state’s office lacked a comprehensive listing six months before the primary election.
To fill this gap, the ACLU of Alabama partnered with the Legal Defense Fund’s Black Voters on the Rise Program and Rollin’ to the Polls to create a Nonpartisan Statewide Polling Location Directory. This resource now informs voter mobilization efforts, helps protect against disenfranchisement, and guides our targeted advocacy for ADA compliance in underperforming counties.
We’re pushing forward with strategies to ensure every voter can safely and confidently access their polling place, especially in Alabama’s Black Belt, where infrastructure often lags behind. That means relocating inaccessible polls, consolidating polling places for efficiency, and ensuring compliance through direct engagement with local election officials.
Rising Obstacles to Vote Across The Country
The threats to voters with disabilities aren’t confined to Alabama. The Trump administration’s March 2025 executive order on “Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” and the House’s passage of the "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act," or the SAVE Act,have both raised alarms among disability rights advocates. These measures expand avenues for disenfranchisement, with consequences for voters covered under the ADA.
In May 2025, a federal court ruled in Milligan v. Allen that Alabama’s legislative maps intentionally disenfranchised Black voters, yet similar fights continue in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and beyond. Voter ID laws and inaccessible government buildings further compound the barriers. For many, updating voter registration requires physical access to offices they can’t safely enter.
We Must Defend the ADA’s Legacy
These threats underscore why the ADA’s 35th anniversary is more than ceremonial. In Alabama and across the Deep South, we’ve seen how local attacks on disability access become the national precedent. Safe, fair, and accessible elections aren’t a privilege. They're a right protected by the ADA. For 35 years, this law has been a lifeline. Our job now is to ensure it stays that way for the next 35 years and beyond.
At the ACLU, we are proud to stand alongside advocates from REV UP (AAPD), Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP), League of Women Voters (LWV), NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Stand Up Mobile, Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM), and Restore Your Vote to fight for our voting rights in courtrooms, legislatures, and at every polling place. Together, we remind people that democracy is for everyone.
"Together, we remind people that democracy is for everyone."
Published July 26, 2025 at 01:00PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/zMNZe2t
Court Strikes Down NIH's Unlawful Termination of Research Grants on Topics Including DEI and Gender Identity
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research — began an ideological purge of its grants in February. Without warning, hundreds of research projects were abruptly cancelled.
The NIH targeted research that was purportedly connected to “gender identity” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), or other topics such as vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 based on sweeping, unsubstantiated, and politically-driven claims that the research was not scientific and would not benefit Americans. The NIH also systematically purged training grants designed to facilitate the entry of historically underrepresented groups into the biomedical field as mandated by Congress. This jeopardized opportunities for the best and the brightest of the next generation of scientists and particularly harmed racial and ethnic minorities, women, people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and those from rural communities. Along with Protect Democracy and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the ACLU sued.
In June, the court found that this purge violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), noting that, without proper reasoning, the NIH unlawfully targeted research involving “disfavored” topics and populations along with training grants designed to enhance diversity in the biomedical field, and failed to define terms such as “DEI." District Judge William G. Young said that these terminations were not only illegal, but also represent “racial discrimination, and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community,” he said. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years … and I have never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable.”
The court will next address the hundreds of submitted applications NIH left in limbo. We are working to ensure those proposals are fairly reviewed and that NIH can’t bury the next generation of life-saving research.
Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health and ACLU client in APHA v. NIH.
Kelly Blanchard
For now, Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, one of our clients in this case, reflects on why the NIH grant that was terminated is critical to their work addressing the health needs of LGBTQ and gender-diverse people.
Fighting for Rigorous Science and Inclusive Research
Since our founding, Ibis has worked in partnership with providers, communities, community-based organizations, and advocates to conduct rigorous research to not only advance sexual and reproductive health care access, but also to shift power and advance human rights and racial justice. As a small research nonprofit, grant funding is critical to executing our mission, and receiving an NIH grant is crucial.
Successfully passing the NIH's rigorous review process is a marker of high-quality work that will have a significant impact. After years of preparation and revision, we were thrilled to receive a grant in 2023. The project was designed to identify and test inclusive and more accurate questions on sexual and reproductive health for research to ensure that all people seeking sexual and reproductive health care can access it. While this research would benefit all of us, it was structured to focus on the gaping hole in our knowledge about sexual and reproductive health experiences of trans and gender-diverse people. The NIH itself said that these populations were underserved in sexual health research.
This March, as we learned NIH grants were being terminated, we began planning for the worst. But that did not prepare us for the shock of reading our termination letter, which claimed that our grant was “unscientific,” focused on “gender identity,” and likely to “do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.” This is contrary to the conclusions a panel of independent scientists drew when they reviewed and scored the grant as being in the top 2 percent of all applications submitted to the NIH.
Our decision to join this lawsuit was not only about the arbitrary and hurtful termination, but also about the need for rigorous science to improve all of our lives so everyone can be healthy and build the families they choose. As the panel of experts that reviewed our proposal said, the research was not only needed to better understand the reproductive health needs of trans and gender-diverse people, it also was “exceptionally high impact” with “a high likelihood of profound and sustained impact on public health research and clinical practice.” We need this type of high-impact research across so many public health topics to continue to identify new treatments and care strategies. It also allows us to address the glaring differences in health outcomes and experiences based on gender, sexual orientation, geography, race, and income that determine how healthy we are and what access to care we have in the U.S.
During the recent ruling, it was heartening to hear Young push back against the terminations, call out the way that ideology was driving the process, and confirm that there was no evidence that the terminations followed the rigorous science and review process that NIH is known for. We are glad to continue to fight for the rigorous science, inclusive research, and health care that our families, loved ones, and communities need and deserve.
Published July 22, 2025 at 01:21AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/WZ9G8jK
Court Strikes Down NIH's Unlawful Termination of Research Grants on Topics Including DEI and Gender Identity
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research — began an ideological purge of its grants in February. Without warning, hundreds of research projects were abruptly cancelled.
The NIH targeted research that was purportedly connected to “gender identity” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), or other topics such as vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 based on sweeping, unsubstantiated, and politically-driven claims that the research was not scientific and would not benefit Americans. The NIH also systematically purged training grants designed to facilitate the entry of historically underrepresented groups into the biomedical field as mandated by Congress. This jeopardized opportunities for the best and the brightest of the next generation of scientists and particularly harmed racial and ethnic minorities, women, people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and those from rural communities. Along with Protect Democracy and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the ACLU sued.
In June, the court found that this purge violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), noting that, without proper reasoning, the NIH unlawfully targeted research involving “disfavored” topics and populations along with training grants designed to enhance diversity in the biomedical field, and failed to define terms such as “DEI." District Judge William G. Young said that these terminations were not only illegal, but also represent “racial discrimination, and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community,” he said. “I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years … and I have never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable.”
The court will next address the hundreds of submitted applications NIH left in limbo. We are working to ensure those proposals are fairly reviewed and that NIH can’t bury the next generation of life-saving research.
Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health and ACLU client in APHA v. NIH.
Kelly Blanchard
For now, Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, one of our clients in this case, reflects on why the NIH grant that was terminated is critical to their work addressing the health needs of LGBTQ and gender-diverse people.
Fighting for Rigorous Science and Inclusive Research
Since our founding, Ibis has worked in partnership with providers, communities, community-based organizations, and advocates to conduct rigorous research to not only advance sexual and reproductive health care access, but also to shift power and advance human rights and racial justice. As a small research nonprofit, grant funding is critical to executing our mission, and receiving an NIH grant is crucial.
Successfully passing the NIH's rigorous review process is a marker of high-quality work that will have a significant impact. After years of preparation and revision, we were thrilled to receive a grant in 2023. The project was designed to identify and test inclusive and more accurate questions on sexual and reproductive health for research to ensure that all people seeking sexual and reproductive health care can access it. While this research would benefit all of us, it was structured to focus on the gaping hole in our knowledge about sexual and reproductive health experiences of trans and gender-diverse people. The NIH itself said that these populations were underserved in sexual health research.
This March, as we learned NIH grants were being terminated, we began planning for the worst. But that did not prepare us for the shock of reading our termination letter, which claimed that our grant was “unscientific,” focused on “gender identity,” and likely to “do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans.” This is contrary to the conclusions a panel of independent scientists drew when they reviewed and scored the grant as being in the top 2 percent of all applications submitted to the NIH.
Our decision to join this lawsuit was not only about the arbitrary and hurtful termination, but also about the need for rigorous science to improve all of our lives so everyone can be healthy and build the families they choose. As the panel of experts that reviewed our proposal said, the research was not only needed to better understand the reproductive health needs of trans and gender-diverse people, it also was “exceptionally high impact” with “a high likelihood of profound and sustained impact on public health research and clinical practice.” We need this type of high-impact research across so many public health topics to continue to identify new treatments and care strategies. It also allows us to address the glaring differences in health outcomes and experiences based on gender, sexual orientation, geography, race, and income that determine how healthy we are and what access to care we have in the U.S.
During the recent ruling, it was heartening to hear Young push back against the terminations, call out the way that ideology was driving the process, and confirm that there was no evidence that the terminations followed the rigorous science and review process that NIH is known for. We are glad to continue to fight for the rigorous science, inclusive research, and health care that our families, loved ones, and communities need and deserve.
Published July 21, 2025 at 08:51PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/H6t0LdU
60 Years Later: How a Civil Rights-Era Defamation Case Empowers the Press
The United States used to set the standard for press freedom. Now, it’s dropped its status as a worldwide leader, according to Reporters Without Borders.
President Donald Trump has spearheaded a historic attack on press freedom in the United States, filing three lawsuits against news companies such as ABC, CBS, and the Des Moines Register in the past few months alone. The president’s litigious approach to the press challenges long-standing legal protection for journalists under a landmark Supreme Court case from 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan.
The ruling originally protected The New York Times against expensive defamation lawsuits brought by southern government officials during the Civil Rights Movement. Since then, the case has become a crucial precedent for press freedom. It has served to protect journalists who speak truth to power, and has allowed news organizations to publish landmark stories, like the Washington Post’s Watergate investigation, as well as reporting on corporate malfeasance by tobacco and petrochemical companies among others, without fear of reprisal.
In the first installment of “Press in Peril,” an ACLU blog series on free press, we explore arguably the most important case for press freedom.
Civil Rights Roots
New York Times v. Sullivan stems from an advertisement that ran in The New York Times during the Civil Rights Movement. Sponsored by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King, the advertisement accused officials in Montogomery, Alabama and other southern states of inflicting violence on civil rights protestors. The advertisement contained several factual inaccuracies irrelevant to the substance of the accusations, including incorrect names of songs protestors had sung on Alabama’s capitol steps and the false claim that Montgomery officials had padlocked the dining hall of Alabama State College.
Public officials in Alabama did not take kindly to the advertisement's criticism. Although the advertisement did not mention any officials by name, the commissioner of the Montgomery Police Department, L.B. Sullivan, sued The New York Times for damages, claiming that the advertisement defamed, or made false statements against, him and other Montogomery officials. Alabama court ruled that The New York Times was at fault, ordering the paper to pay $500,000 to Sullivan.
In mid-century America, defamation cases against the press were not uncommon. Public officials in the South often used such cases strategically against the press to damage reputations and silence criticism. As news outlets sent reporters to cover civil rights protests, they often faced hostility, physical attacks, civil libel suits, and even criminal libel prosecutions for their reporting.
Apart from Sullivan, more than 10 other Alabama officials sued The New York Times for defamation stemming from the same advertisement. As a result, The New York Times faced millions of dollars in expected damages. Considering the newspaper’s small presence in the South and the threat of bankruptcy if they had to pay such high damages, the newspaper ordered all of its reporters to leave Alabama until the suit was settled. Fearing the same fate as the New York Times, other outlets contemplated doing the same.
A Win for Free Speech and Press Freedom
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of The New York Times in 1964. The court reasoned that Sullivan’s status as a public official required a new standard of review to avoid censorship of the press when covering stories of public interest.
Before this historic ruling, state law largely governed defamation cases. But the Supreme Court held that, to provide breathing space for true speech and ensure that public debate remains uninhibited, the First Amendment protects reporting on public officials and public figures even when it contains inaccuracies. The Supreme Court held that defamation liability could be imposed only when the speaker knows the speech is false or intentionally disregarded a high risk of material inaccuracy. This became known as the actual malice standard. As the Supreme Court recognized, if powerful people could sue the media every time they made a mistake or said something critical, a robust media landscape would cease to exist. Most outlets cannot afford lengthy litigation or damages, and the high price would scare them away from investigative or critical reporting.
By requiring public officials and public figures to prove actual malice, the ruling made it harder to punish newspapers for good faith reporting on controversial issues. This emboldened a new generation of journalists, who could now investigate public officials across the country without fear of retaliation for their reporting.
Sullivan Expands to Public Figures
Sullivan established robust First Amendment protections for speech about public officials, leaving speech about powerful and prominent individuals outside of government vulnerable to defamation suits.
The Supreme Court addressed this discrepancy and created a broader category of “public figures” in 1967 to include people with a role of prominence, fame, or notoriety in society. Since
then, courts have applied the actual malice standard to defamation cases against media outlets brought by A-list celebrities, corporate leaders, and activists. For example, rapper Drake sued Universal Music Group in January, alleging the song “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar defamed Drake — but as a public figure, he will need to prove actual malice, a high legal bar, to win.
Although deeply embedded in American culture, Sullivan has still generated controversy. In 2021, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch made headlines when they wrote separate dissents to the majority’s decision not to hear a defamation case, Berisha v. Lawson. The case surrounded a defamation lawsuit filed by Shkelzen Berisha, son of a well-known Albanian politician, against the author of “Arms and Dudes,” a book that was popularized by the 2016 film “War Dogs.” Berisha alleged the author falsely associated him with the Albanian mafia.
Disagreeing with the lower courts’ application of Sullivan and the precedent as a whole, Thomas and Gorsuch called for the case to be reviewed and overturned. By calling for Sullivan to be reviewed, Thomas and Gorsuch challenged decades of precedent and alarmed journalists and First Amendment experts across the country.
New York Times v. Sullivan Faces Renewed Challenge
In his latest attack against the press, Trump is now testing the limits of defamation law by suing media organizations such as ABC, CBS, and more
Trump sued ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos for stating on-air that Trump was liable for rape, arguing that he had instead been found liable for sexual abuse. ABC News and Stephanopoulos reached a settlement for 15 million dollars and an issuance of an editor’s note of regret rather than going to trial.
Despite recent challenges in the Supreme Court and by the current presidential administration, New York Times v. Sullivan remains a bedrock case for freedom of the press in the United States 60 years later. The higher standard that applies to public officials and public figures remains essential to the First Amendment, keeping speech on matters of public concern uninhibited and enabling the press to seek truth to the best of their ability. The actual malice standard is particularly crucial as a new wave of independent journalists, most of whom lack funds for legal defense, call out public officials online and pursue stories that shine a light on government abuses of power.
The ACLU is committed to fighting for reporters’ right to hold those in power accountable. Through “Press in Peril,” our ongoing series, we’re highlighting the challenges facing the press in a democracy under pressure.
Published July 17, 2025 at 10:27PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/kgpw41y
60 Years Later: How a Civil Rights-Era Defamation Case Empowers the Press
The United States used to set the standard for press freedom. Now, it’s dropped its status as a worldwide leader, according to Reporters Without Borders.
President Donald Trump has spearheaded a historic attack on press freedom in the United States, filing three lawsuits against news companies such as ABC, CBS, and the Des Moines Register in the past few months alone. The president’s litigious approach to the press challenges long-standing legal protection for journalists under a landmark Supreme Court case from 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan.
The ruling originally protected The New York Times against expensive defamation lawsuits brought by southern government officials during the Civil Rights Movement. Since then, the case has become a crucial precedent for press freedom. It has served to protect journalists who speak truth to power, and has allowed news organizations to publish landmark stories, like the Washington Post’s Watergate investigation, as well as reporting on corporate malfeasance by tobacco and petrochemical companies among others, without fear of reprisal.
In the first installment of “Press in Peril,” an ACLU blog series on free press, we explore arguably the most important case for press freedom.
Civil Rights Roots
New York Times v. Sullivan stems from an advertisement that ran in The New York Times during the Civil Rights Movement. Sponsored by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King, the advertisement accused officials in Montogomery, Alabama and other southern states of inflicting violence on civil rights protestors. The advertisement contained several factual inaccuracies irrelevant to the substance of the accusations, including incorrect names of songs protestors had sung on Alabama’s capitol steps and the false claim that Montgomery officials had padlocked the dining hall of Alabama State College.
Public officials in Alabama did not take kindly to the advertisement's criticism. Although the advertisement did not mention any officials by name, the commissioner of the Montgomery Police Department, L.B. Sullivan, sued The New York Times for damages, claiming that the advertisement defamed, or made false statements against, him and other Montogomery officials. Alabama court ruled that The New York Times was at fault, ordering the paper to pay $500,000 to Sullivan.
In mid-century America, defamation cases against the press were not uncommon. Public officials in the South often used such cases strategically against the press to damage reputations and silence criticism. As news outlets sent reporters to cover civil rights protests, they often faced hostility, physical attacks, civil libel suits, and even criminal libel prosecutions for their reporting.
Apart from Sullivan, more than 10 other Alabama officials sued The New York Times for defamation stemming from the same advertisement. As a result, The New York Times faced millions of dollars in expected damages. Considering the newspaper’s small presence in the South and the threat of bankruptcy if they had to pay such high damages, the newspaper ordered all of its reporters to leave Alabama until the suit was settled. Fearing the same fate as the New York Times, other outlets contemplated doing the same.
A Win for Free Speech and Press Freedom
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of The New York Times in 1964. The court reasoned that Sullivan’s status as a public official required a new standard of review to avoid censorship of the press when covering stories of public interest.
Before this historic ruling, state law largely governed defamation cases. But the Supreme Court held that, to provide breathing space for true speech and ensure that public debate remains uninhibited, the First Amendment protects reporting on public officials and public figures even when it contains inaccuracies. The Supreme Court held that defamation liability could be imposed only when the speaker knows the speech is false or intentionally disregarded a high risk of material inaccuracy. This became known as the actual malice standard. As the Supreme Court recognized, if powerful people could sue the media every time they made a mistake or said something critical, a robust media landscape would cease to exist. Most outlets cannot afford lengthy litigation or damages, and the high price would scare them away from investigative or critical reporting.
By requiring public officials and public figures to prove actual malice, the ruling made it harder to punish newspapers for good faith reporting on controversial issues. This emboldened a new generation of journalists, who could now investigate public officials across the country without fear of retaliation for their reporting.
Sullivan Expands to Public Figures
Sullivan established robust First Amendment protections for speech about public officials, leaving speech about powerful and prominent individuals outside of government vulnerable to defamation suits.
The Supreme Court addressed this discrepancy and created a broader category of “public figures” in 1967 to include people with a role of prominence, fame, or notoriety in society. Since
then, courts have applied the actual malice standard to defamation cases against media outlets brought by A-list celebrities, corporate leaders, and activists. For example, rapper Drake sued Universal Music Group in January, alleging the song “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar defamed Drake — but as a public figure, he will need to prove actual malice, a high legal bar, to win.
Although deeply embedded in American culture, Sullivan has still generated controversy. In 2021, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch made headlines when they wrote separate dissents to the majority’s decision not to hear a defamation case, Berisha v. Lawson. The case surrounded a defamation lawsuit filed by Shkelzen Berisha, son of a well-known Albanian politician, against the author of “Arms and Dudes,” a book that was popularized by the 2016 film “War Dogs.” Berisha alleged the author falsely associated him with the Albanian mafia.
Disagreeing with the lower courts’ application of Sullivan and the precedent as a whole, Thomas and Gorsuch called for the case to be reviewed and overturned. By calling for Sullivan to be reviewed, Thomas and Gorsuch challenged decades of precedent and alarmed journalists and First Amendment experts across the country.
New York Times v. Sullivan Faces Renewed Challenge
In his latest attack against the press, Trump is now testing the limits of defamation law by suing media organizations such as ABC, CBS, and more
Trump sued ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos for stating on-air that Trump was liable for rape, arguing that he had instead been found liable for sexual abuse. ABC News and Stephanopoulos reached a settlement for 15 million dollars and an issuance of an editor’s note of regret rather than going to trial.
Despite recent challenges in the Supreme Court and by the current presidential administration, New York Times v. Sullivan remains a bedrock case for freedom of the press in the United States 60 years later. The higher standard that applies to public officials and public figures remains essential to the First Amendment, keeping speech on matters of public concern uninhibited and enabling the press to seek truth to the best of their ability. The actual malice standard is particularly crucial as a new wave of independent journalists, most of whom lack funds for legal defense, call out public officials online and pursue stories that shine a light on government abuses of power.
The ACLU is committed to fighting for reporters’ right to hold those in power accountable. Through “Press in Peril,” our ongoing series, we’re highlighting the challenges facing the press in a democracy under pressure.
Published July 17, 2025 at 05:57PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/KAOY6CP
Rümeysa Öztürk On How We Can All Support Immigrants
President Donald Trump’s second term has been nothing short of a disaster for the immigrant community.
Masked federal agents have arrested people outside schools and homes. President Trump has violated due process rights to “disappear” people to a mega-prison in El Salvador notorious for torture. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents have abducted people from courthouses as they attended their own immigration hearings. The Trump administration has also targeted immigrants like Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi,Dr. Badar Khan Suri, and Rümeysa Öztürk for their political speech.
Ms. Öztürk was taken by plain-clothes ICE agents outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts on March 25. For nearly 24 hours, Ms. Öztürk’s attorney was unable to locate her as ICE quickly and quietly moved her to three separate locations across state lines before finally sending her to Louisiana. The ACLU joined her legal team to fight for her freedom. After 45 days in detention, a federal court finally ordered her to be released, allowing her to return home to Massachusetts and continue her studies while the case proceeds.
Ms. Öztürk recently shared her experience with Vanity Fair. While her story is harrowing, she hopes that it can inspire people to recognize their capacity to create change. Although many people and communities are directly affected and harmed, there are things you can do. Together, Ms. Öztürk and the ACLU have compiled this resource to offer some guidelines to start advocating and supporting immigrant communities right now.
Here are ways that you can take action and support immigrants’ rights:
1. Write your member of Congress and demand that they vote no on any bill that would punish noncitizens for exercising their First Amendment rights. Citizens and noncitizens alike have the right to free speech – but when the government tries to withhold the rights of some, all of our rights are at risk.
3. Know your rights when encountering ice agents to help keep our communities safe:learn more about how you can protect yourself and your immigrant neighbors, share resources with your networks, and organize a know your rights workshop in your community.
4. Join protests or other actions in your community. Now more than ever, we must continue to raise our voices and support our immigrant neighbors and loved ones. Take action with organizations like the ACLU and sign-up to stay informed about events in your area.
5. Volunteer with trusted organizations protecting immigrants’ rights. If you speak more than one language, you can volunteer as an interpreter or translator with organizations like Kids in Need of Defense or the Amica Center. Navigating the immigration system is scary and even more overwhelming for people who do not speak English – translators help bridge that gap by providing language assistance to people in detention or during their court proceedings.
Published July 17, 2025 at 03:30PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/pBaKeik
Rümeysa Öztürk On How We Can All Support Immigrants
President Donald Trump’s second term has been nothing short of a disaster for the immigrant community.
Masked federal agents have arrested people outside schools and homes. President Trump has violated due process rights to “disappear” people to a mega-prison in El Salvador notorious for torture. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents have abducted people from courthouses as they attended their own immigration hearings. The Trump administration has also targeted immigrants like Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi,Dr. Badar Khan Suri, and Rümeysa Öztürk for their political speech.
Ms. Öztürk was taken by plain-clothes ICE agents outside her home in Somerville, Massachusetts on March 25. For nearly 24 hours, Ms. Öztürk’s attorney was unable to locate her as ICE quickly and quietly moved her to three separate locations across state lines before finally sending her to Louisiana. The ACLU joined her legal team to fight for her freedom. After 45 days in detention, a federal court finally ordered her to be released, allowing her to return home to Massachusetts and continue her studies while the case proceeds.
Ms. Öztürk recently shared her experience with Vanity Fair. While her story is harrowing, she hopes that it can inspire people to recognize their capacity to create change. Although many people and communities are directly affected and harmed, there are things you can do. Together, Ms. Öztürk and the ACLU have compiled this resource to offer some guidelines to start advocating and supporting immigrant communities right now.
Here are ways that you can take action and support immigrants’ rights:
1. Write your member of Congress and demand that they vote no on any bill that would punish noncitizens for exercising their First Amendment rights. Citizens and noncitizens alike have the right to free speech – but when the government tries to withhold the rights of some, all of our rights are at risk.
3. Know your rights when encountering ice agents to help keep our communities safe:learn more about how you can protect yourself and your immigrant neighbors, share resources with your networks, and organize a know your rights workshop in your community.
4. Join protests or other actions in your community. Now more than ever, we must continue to raise our voices and support our immigrant neighbors and loved ones. Take action with organizations like the ACLU and sign-up to stay informed about events in your area.
5. Volunteer with trusted organizations protecting immigrants’ rights. If you speak more than one language, you can volunteer as an interpreter or translator with organizations like Kids in Need of Defense or the Amica Center. Navigating the immigration system is scary and even more overwhelming for people who do not speak English – translators help bridge that gap by providing language assistance to people in detention or during their court proceedings.
Published July 17, 2025 at 11:00AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/0NwE4tp
On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court took hard right turns in two major First Amendment cases, lashed out at so-called “universal injunctions” in cases challenging President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, and punted on a major congressional redistricting case. Over the broader course of the term, the conservative 6-3 majority made a show of force—to the detriment of LGBT Americans’ rights, free speech on the internet, and longstanding precedents on the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. But the court also sided with civil-rights plaintiffs and criminal defendants in consequential lower-profile cases.
In its emergency docket, the court fulfilled its core constitutional role as a check on the president’s abuses at critical moments during the term. In two ACLU cases challenging the invocation of an 18th-century wartime statute to deport people without due process, the court unanimously rejected President Trump’s extremist arguments that his actions are unreviewable by the courts, and a majority blocked the deportations pending further litigation. In many other cases, however, the court overrode lower courts to let Trump administration policies proceed.
The ACLU brought three cases before the court this term. We lost two, and the court set the third—Louisiana v. Callais, which considers the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional redistricting map—for re-argument next term. The ACLU also filed friend-of-the-court briefs in 11 cases and was on the winning side in six of those cases.
Losses in Major Cases on LGBTQ Rights, Free Speech on the Internet, and Religion
In perhaps the biggest case of the term, Skrmetti v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, upheld a Tennessee law, SB 1, that bans gender-affirming health care for transgender adolescents. Both the U.S. Justice Department and the ACLU challenged SB 1 on the grounds that it discriminates on the basis of sex and violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The court upheld SB 1, refusing to apply the constitutional standard that has long applied in sex discrimination cases.
The court’s decision in Skrmetti has devastating consequences for our clients—three Tennessee families with trans teens whose essential medical care has been stripped away by their state legislature—and countless other families in Tennessee and 25 other states that have enacted similar health care bans. The ACLU has challenged 11 of those laws. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a powerful dissent, the majority’s analysis “invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight. It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them.”
One silver lining in the Skrmetti decision, however, is that the court did not reach the question of whether laws discriminating against transgender people are subject to less scrutiny from courts than other forms of sex discrimination. Chief Justice Roberts avoided that question on the rationale that SB 1 categorizes based on age and medical use, and not sex or transgender status. This means challenges to other state and federal laws that discriminate against transgender
Americans will continue, including the ACLU’s lawsuits against President Trump’s anti-trans executive orders.
ACLU attorney Chase Strangio speaks to the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court after arguing against the ban gender-affirming health care for transgender children in Skrmetti v. the United States.
WILL OLIVER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The court slashed civil liberties again in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a First Amendment case in which the ACLU challenged a Texas law that requires users to verify their age to access websites whose content is more than one-third sexually explicit and considered obscene for minors. The law deters adults from accessing vast amounts of First Amendment-protected content, including not just pornography but other materials state officials might deem obscene for minors, such as information on sexual health or LGBTQ issues. In upholding the Texas law, the 6-3 majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas upended settled precedents in prior ACLU cases—Ashcroft v. ACLU and Reno v. ACLU—in which the court held that laws that limit adults’ access to First Amendment-protected, sexually explicit materials must meet the highest constitutional standard of strict scrutiny, even if the government’s stated purpose is to protect minors. The court’s decision paves the way for more state legislatures—and Congress—to enact laws that limit free speech online.
The court also partially abandoned longstanding precedents on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which parents with religious objections sued for the right to opt their children out of parts of a public school district’s English Language Arts curriculum that was designed to foster an inclusive learning environment for all students and help them work across differences. The ACLU’s friend-of-the-court brief argued that the school district’s no-opt-out policy—issued after an initial period of opt-outs led to rampant absenteeism and stigmatizing of students who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQ family members—did not violate the Free Exercise Clause. In a 6-3 majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, the court held for the first time that parents may pick and choose from a secular public-school curriculum based on their religious objections. This ruling will undoubtedly sow chaos, stigmatize marginalized students, and interfere with educators’ ability to achieve their secular educational goals.
Quiet Wins for Civil Rights Plaintiffs and Criminal Defendants
While the court took a hard right turn in its marquee constitutional cases this term, it quietly issued common-sense rulings in favor of civil rights plaintiffs in lower-profile cases in which the ACLU filed briefs.
In Martin v. United States, the court rejected the government’s immunity defense and held that a couple who were the victims of a violent wrong-house raid by the FBI could proceed with their claim for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act. In another pair of cases, the court rejected defendants’ Kafkaesque arguments seeking to block civil-rights plaintiffs from pursuing justice in the courts. In Williams v. Reed, plaintiffs sued in state court under a federal civil rights statute, Section 1983, claiming that the state labor agency illegally delayed decisions on their unemployment claims. Putting plaintiffs in a Catch-22 situation, the state court rejected the claims on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not sue about their delayed unemployment claims until the agency decided the claims. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for a 5-4 majority, held that state courts cannot use this state-law rule to shield state officials from lawsuits.
In Perttu v. Richards, an incarcerated mansued a prison officer for sexually abusing him and then retaliating against him for attempting to file an administrative grievance about the abuse. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a 5-4 majority, rejected the prison officer’s argument that the plaintiff’s claim should be dismissed for failure to file an administrative grievance first, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Instead, the court ruled that the plaintiff had the right to a jury trial because the facts concerning his access to the grievance process were intertwined with his retaliation claim.
In two other cases where the ACLU filed briefs, the court ruled in favor of criminal defendants. In Glossip v. Oklahoma, the court reversed Richard Glossip’s conviction and death sentence on the grounds that prosecutors hid evidence suggesting that another man had committed the crime and that prosecution witnesses testified falsely. Our brief argued that this prosecutorial misconduct violated due process and that such misconduct is a systemic problem in death penalty prosecutions in Oklahoma.
In Hewitt v. United States, the court sided with criminal defendants in a case about how to interpret the First Step Act, a federal-sentencing reform law enacted during Trump’s first term. The court held that the First Step Act, which reformed grotesquely unfair federal mandatory minimum sentences, applies to individuals who are re-sentenced after their original sentences are vacated on appeal. This decision is enormously consequential. For example, Timothy Carpenter, the ACLU’s client in a 2018 Supreme Court case ruling that Fourth Amendment protections apply when the police obtain cell phone location records from cell phone service providers, would have the mandatory minimum portion of his sentence reduced from 105 to 25 years on resentencing under the First Step Act.
The Ascendancy of the Emergency Docket
In time, this term might be best remembered not for the court’s major merits cases, but for the eclipsing importance of its emergency docket—cases that reach the court through a request to temporarily block a lower court’s decision from going into effect, or order relief the lower court denied, while the litigation continues. Appellate courts generally issue these emergency orders when they find that the lower court’s decision is likely incorrect and the party asking for the order will be irreparably harmed if the lower court's decision remains in place. The emergency docket was particularly fraught this term because of the large number of cases challenging the Trump administration’s actions.
At least three themes emerge from these cases: First, the court is leaning into the emergency docket and brushing aside concerns that weighty issues should not be decided on rushed briefing and a limited record. For example, on the last day of the term, the court issued an order in Trump v. CASA, where the Trump administration asked the court to partially block three of the many lower court opinions that have unanimously ruled that the president’s effort to undo birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment. The government did not argue that Trump’s executive order was constitutional. Instead, it made the limited argument that the lower court rulings should apply only to the plaintiffs in the case—22 states, several membership organizations, and individuals. For everyone else, the government said, the executive order should still apply, denying U.S. citizenship to babies born in other states.
In CASA, the 6-3 majority disapproved of “universal injunctions”—a term used to criticize court orders that broadly block the defendant from taking some illegal action without a finding that the scope of the order is necessary to protect the plaintiffs in the case. While some justices and commentators on the left and the right have long criticized such injunctions, the birthright citizenship case was an odd vehicle for the court’s ruling. Indeed, the majority opinion did not actually hold that President Trump’s executive order could go into effect and instead ordered at least an additional 30-day pause on the executive order and sent the cases back to the lower courts, leaving it to them to re-decide the scope of their injunctions. The CASA decision also leaves untouched other mechanisms for people harmed by the executive orders to win nationwide protection—and the ACLU filed a new proposed nationwide class action lawsuit within two hours of the Supreme Court’s decision.
Notably, Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court should jump into even more cases through its emergency docket, generally deciding on a nationwide basis whether challenged federal actions should continue, or be blocked, during the long course of litigation.
Second, over the course of the term, the Supreme Court issued critical emergency orders checking abuses of executive power, including in two of the ACLU’s cases challenging President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rationalize the detention and deportation of Venezuelan nationals without due process. In Trump v. J.G.G., the court granted the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that had blocked deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, agreeing that the case should have been filed in the districts where our clients were detained, not in Washington, D.C. Critically, however, the court unanimously rejected the government’s argument that the courts are powerless to review the president’s decision and held that due process requires giving people a fair chance to challenge their detention and deportation in court. After that order, the ACLU brought 10 new cases in district courts around the country.
A little over a month later, the court granted the ACLU’s emergency application in one of those follow-up cases, A.A.R.P. v. Trump. In an order issued at almost 1:00 A.M. ET, just hours after we filed our request, the court (by a 7-2 vote) issued a temporary order blocking the Trump administration from hastily deporting our clients under the Alien Enemies Act. It later issued an opinion extending that order pending further order of the court.
These two emergency orders prevented the plaintiffs from being sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process, and demonstrated that the president is not above the law.
Third, later in the term, the Supreme Court sided more often with the Trump administration on its emergency applications, allowing the government to move forward with actions the lower courts had held unlawful. In an ACLU case, Noem v. National TPS Alliance, the court permitted the Trump administration end temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelans. The court’s order (over Justice Jackson’s lone dissent) puts 350,000 people at risk of deportation and strips their work authorization.
The court also sided with the Trump administration in another immigration case (not involving the ACLU), Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., a challenge to the Trump administration’s deportations of individuals to countries not designated in a deportation order, and without due process. Notably, in D.V.D., the Trump administration had deported individuals in defiance of a federal district court order. Thus, as Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent in D.V.D., the majority’s order “reward[s] lawlessness,” and undermines the “foundational principle” that “ours is a government of laws, not of men.”
While the court stood firmly as a check against the executive branch at critical moments, its overall record was mixed and the term ended with several orders in favor of the president. Some commentators saw the “very real possibility that at least some of the justices . . . are worried about how much capital they have to expend in confrontations with President Trump.” Time will tell, as undoubtedly the Trump administration will continue to push against constitutional limits next term, both on the emergency and merits dockets. The ACLU will be there to fight for civil rights and civil liberties, and the American people will be watching.
Published July 7, 2025 at 08:50PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/WMTvYw1
On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court took hard right turns in two major First Amendment cases, lashed out at so-called “universal injunctions” in cases challenging President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, and punted on a major congressional redistricting case. Over the broader course of the term, the conservative 6-3 majority made a show of force—to the detriment of LGBT Americans’ rights, free speech on the internet, and longstanding precedents on the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. But the court also sided with civil-rights plaintiffs and criminal defendants in consequential lower-profile cases.
In its emergency docket, the court fulfilled its core constitutional role as a check on the president’s abuses at critical moments during the term. In two ACLU cases challenging the invocation of an 18th-century wartime statute to deport people without due process, the court unanimously rejected President Trump’s extremist arguments that his actions are unreviewable by the courts, and a majority blocked the deportations pending further litigation. In many other cases, however, the court overrode lower courts to let Trump administration policies proceed.
The ACLU brought three cases before the court this term. We lost two, and the court set the third—Louisiana v. Callais, which considers the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional redistricting map—for re-argument next term. The ACLU also filed friend-of-the-court briefs in 11 cases and was on the winning side in six of those cases.
Losses in Major Cases on LGBTQ Rights, Free Speech on the Internet, and Religion
In perhaps the biggest case of the term, Skrmetti v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, upheld a Tennessee law, SB 1, that bans gender-affirming health care for transgender adolescents. Both the U.S. Justice Department and the ACLU challenged SB 1 on the grounds that it discriminates on the basis of sex and violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The court upheld SB 1, refusing to apply the constitutional standard that has long applied in sex discrimination cases.
The court’s decision in Skrmetti has devastating consequences for our clients—three Tennessee families with trans teens whose essential medical care has been stripped away by their state legislature—and countless other families in Tennessee and 25 other states that have enacted similar health care bans. The ACLU has challenged 11 of those laws. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a powerful dissent, the majority’s analysis “invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight. It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them.”
One silver lining in the Skrmetti decision, however, is that the court did not reach the question of whether laws discriminating against transgender people are subject to less scrutiny from courts than other forms of sex discrimination. Chief Justice Roberts avoided that question on the rationale that SB 1 categorizes based on age and medical use, and not sex or transgender status. This means challenges to other state and federal laws that discriminate against transgender
Americans will continue, including the ACLU’s lawsuits against President Trump’s anti-trans executive orders.
ACLU attorney Chase Strangio speaks to the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court after arguing against the ban gender-affirming health care for transgender children in Skrmetti v. the United States.
WILL OLIVER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The court slashed civil liberties again in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, a First Amendment case in which the ACLU challenged a Texas law that requires users to verify their age to access websites whose content is more than one-third sexually explicit and considered obscene for minors. The law deters adults from accessing vast amounts of First Amendment-protected content, including not just pornography but other materials state officials might deem obscene for minors, such as information on sexual health or LGBTQ issues. In upholding the Texas law, the 6-3 majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas upended settled precedents in prior ACLU cases—Ashcroft v. ACLU and Reno v. ACLU—in which the court held that laws that limit adults’ access to First Amendment-protected, sexually explicit materials must meet the highest constitutional standard of strict scrutiny, even if the government’s stated purpose is to protect minors. The court’s decision paves the way for more state legislatures—and Congress—to enact laws that limit free speech online.
The court also partially abandoned longstanding precedents on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment in Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which parents with religious objections sued for the right to opt their children out of parts of a public school district’s English Language Arts curriculum that was designed to foster an inclusive learning environment for all students and help them work across differences. The ACLU’s friend-of-the-court brief argued that the school district’s no-opt-out policy—issued after an initial period of opt-outs led to rampant absenteeism and stigmatizing of students who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQ family members—did not violate the Free Exercise Clause. In a 6-3 majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, the court held for the first time that parents may pick and choose from a secular public-school curriculum based on their religious objections. This ruling will undoubtedly sow chaos, stigmatize marginalized students, and interfere with educators’ ability to achieve their secular educational goals.
Quiet Wins for Civil Rights Plaintiffs and Criminal Defendants
While the court took a hard right turn in its marquee constitutional cases this term, it quietly issued common-sense rulings in favor of civil rights plaintiffs in lower-profile cases in which the ACLU filed briefs.
In Martin v. United States, the court rejected the government’s immunity defense and held that a couple who were the victims of a violent wrong-house raid by the FBI could proceed with their claim for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act. In another pair of cases, the court rejected defendants’ Kafkaesque arguments seeking to block civil-rights plaintiffs from pursuing justice in the courts. In Williams v. Reed, plaintiffs sued in state court under a federal civil rights statute, Section 1983, claiming that the state labor agency illegally delayed decisions on their unemployment claims. Putting plaintiffs in a Catch-22 situation, the state court rejected the claims on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not sue about their delayed unemployment claims until the agency decided the claims. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for a 5-4 majority, held that state courts cannot use this state-law rule to shield state officials from lawsuits.
In Perttu v. Richards, an incarcerated mansued a prison officer for sexually abusing him and then retaliating against him for attempting to file an administrative grievance about the abuse. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a 5-4 majority, rejected the prison officer’s argument that the plaintiff’s claim should be dismissed for failure to file an administrative grievance first, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Instead, the court ruled that the plaintiff had the right to a jury trial because the facts concerning his access to the grievance process were intertwined with his retaliation claim.
In two other cases where the ACLU filed briefs, the court ruled in favor of criminal defendants. In Glossip v. Oklahoma, the court reversed Richard Glossip’s conviction and death sentence on the grounds that prosecutors hid evidence suggesting that another man had committed the crime and that prosecution witnesses testified falsely. Our brief argued that this prosecutorial misconduct violated due process and that such misconduct is a systemic problem in death penalty prosecutions in Oklahoma.
In Hewitt v. United States, the court sided with criminal defendants in a case about how to interpret the First Step Act, a federal-sentencing reform law enacted during Trump’s first term. The court held that the First Step Act, which reformed grotesquely unfair federal mandatory minimum sentences, applies to individuals who are re-sentenced after their original sentences are vacated on appeal. This decision is enormously consequential. For example, Timothy Carpenter, the ACLU’s client in a 2018 Supreme Court case ruling that Fourth Amendment protections apply when the police obtain cell phone location records from cell phone service providers, would have the mandatory minimum portion of his sentence reduced from 105 to 25 years on resentencing under the First Step Act.
The Ascendancy of the Emergency Docket
In time, this term might be best remembered not for the court’s major merits cases, but for the eclipsing importance of its emergency docket—cases that reach the court through a request to temporarily block a lower court’s decision from going into effect, or order relief the lower court denied, while the litigation continues. Appellate courts generally issue these emergency orders when they find that the lower court’s decision is likely incorrect and the party asking for the order will be irreparably harmed if the lower court's decision remains in place. The emergency docket was particularly fraught this term because of the large number of cases challenging the Trump administration’s actions.
At least three themes emerge from these cases: First, the court is leaning into the emergency docket and brushing aside concerns that weighty issues should not be decided on rushed briefing and a limited record. For example, on the last day of the term, the court issued an order in Trump v. CASA, where the Trump administration asked the court to partially block three of the many lower court opinions that have unanimously ruled that the president’s effort to undo birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment. The government did not argue that Trump’s executive order was constitutional. Instead, it made the limited argument that the lower court rulings should apply only to the plaintiffs in the case—22 states, several membership organizations, and individuals. For everyone else, the government said, the executive order should still apply, denying U.S. citizenship to babies born in other states.
In CASA, the 6-3 majority disapproved of “universal injunctions”—a term used to criticize court orders that broadly block the defendant from taking some illegal action without a finding that the scope of the order is necessary to protect the plaintiffs in the case. While some justices and commentators on the left and the right have long criticized such injunctions, the birthright citizenship case was an odd vehicle for the court’s ruling. Indeed, the majority opinion did not actually hold that President Trump’s executive order could go into effect and instead ordered at least an additional 30-day pause on the executive order and sent the cases back to the lower courts, leaving it to them to re-decide the scope of their injunctions. The CASA decision also leaves untouched other mechanisms for people harmed by the executive orders to win nationwide protection—and the ACLU filed a new proposed nationwide class action lawsuit within two hours of the Supreme Court’s decision.
Notably, Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court should jump into even more cases through its emergency docket, generally deciding on a nationwide basis whether challenged federal actions should continue, or be blocked, during the long course of litigation.
Second, over the course of the term, the Supreme Court issued critical emergency orders checking abuses of executive power, including in two of the ACLU’s cases challenging President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rationalize the detention and deportation of Venezuelan nationals without due process. In Trump v. J.G.G., the court granted the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that had blocked deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, agreeing that the case should have been filed in the districts where our clients were detained, not in Washington, D.C. Critically, however, the court unanimously rejected the government’s argument that the courts are powerless to review the president’s decision and held that due process requires giving people a fair chance to challenge their detention and deportation in court. After that order, the ACLU brought 10 new cases in district courts around the country.
A little over a month later, the court granted the ACLU’s emergency application in one of those follow-up cases, A.A.R.P. v. Trump. In an order issued at almost 1:00 A.M. ET, just hours after we filed our request, the court (by a 7-2 vote) issued a temporary order blocking the Trump administration from hastily deporting our clients under the Alien Enemies Act. It later issued an opinion extending that order pending further order of the court.
These two emergency orders prevented the plaintiffs from being sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process, and demonstrated that the president is not above the law.
Third, later in the term, the Supreme Court sided more often with the Trump administration on its emergency applications, allowing the government to move forward with actions the lower courts had held unlawful. In an ACLU case, Noem v. National TPS Alliance, the court permitted the Trump administration end temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelans. The court’s order (over Justice Jackson’s lone dissent) puts 350,000 people at risk of deportation and strips their work authorization.
The court also sided with the Trump administration in another immigration case (not involving the ACLU), Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., a challenge to the Trump administration’s deportations of individuals to countries not designated in a deportation order, and without due process. Notably, in D.V.D., the Trump administration had deported individuals in defiance of a federal district court order. Thus, as Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent in D.V.D., the majority’s order “reward[s] lawlessness,” and undermines the “foundational principle” that “ours is a government of laws, not of men.”
While the court stood firmly as a check against the executive branch at critical moments, its overall record was mixed and the term ended with several orders in favor of the president. Some commentators saw the “very real possibility that at least some of the justices . . . are worried about how much capital they have to expend in confrontations with President Trump.” Time will tell, as undoubtedly the Trump administration will continue to push against constitutional limits next term, both on the emergency and merits dockets. The ACLU will be there to fight for civil rights and civil liberties, and the American people will be watching.
Published July 8, 2025 at 01:20AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/x5vpDaJ
