Supreme Court Term 2023-2024

On October 30, 2023, the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit supporting the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in its efforts to ensure that its English curriculum is LGBTQ-inclusive.

On March 1, 2023, WRP and the ACLU of Texas sent an advocacy letter to Spring Branch Independent School District (“District”) on behalf of G.H., a Spring Woods High School student athlete. The ACLU’s investigation had revealed that the District maintained a discriminatory, sex-specific dress code and gender-based inequities in the school’s athletics program, and that the student was mistreated after objecting to these policies and practices. The advocacy letter raised concerns that the District’s actions reinforced invidious sex stereotypes, treated girl athletes as lesser than boy athletes, and potentially violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The District’s policies and actions harm all students, regardless of gender, but have particularly egregious consequences for Black girls and other girls of color.

Eden Rogers and Brandy Welch were turned away by a government-funded foster care agency for failing to meet the agency’s religious criteria which exclude prospective foster parents who are not evangelical Protestant Christian or who are same-sex couples of any faith.

After a musician used footage of officers searching his home in music videos criticizing that search and the officers more broadly, they sued him for damages and asked the court to order him to stop speaking about them. The ACLU of Ohio and the ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the musician’s motion to dismiss the suit, arguing that the lawsuit sought to silence criticism in violation of the First Amendment.

The ACLU & ACLU-DC submitted an amicus brief in United States v. Trump arguing that a gag order restricting court participants’ speech must be precisely defined and narrowly tailored to prohibit imminent threats against individuals or conduct that would interfere with the impartial administration of justice.