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At issue in this case is whether the First Amendment ministerial exception should be expanded to categorically bar any Title VII or other hostile work environment claims by clergy and other ministerial employees of religious organizations. The purpose of the exception is to ensure that faith-based organizations have full control in hiring, firing and disciplining employees who perform religious duties. ADL joined a legal brief rejecting this expansion. The brief asserts that such an expansion…

At issue in this case is a plan by the Harris County Clerk to send ballot-by-mail applications and voting information to all 2.4 million registered voters in Harris County. The Texas Attorney General sued to block this plan, arguing that the planned mailing exceeded the County Clerk’s authority. ADL’s Southwest regional office and the Texas NAACP, represented by the Brennan Center, filed a brief defending the authority of the Harris County Clerk. Following a district judge…

At issue in this case is the legality of new federal rules providing excessively broad religious and moral exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. The mandate requires employer health insurance policies to cover prescription contraception for women without cost sharing. These discriminatory rules harm women because they effectively allow any employer, including public corporations, to opt out of the mandate. The prior rules already exempted houses of worship,…

This case challenges a law Louisiana passed in 2014 that imposed new requirements on abortion providers, including mandating that they have active admitting privileges at a local hospital. The impact of this law would be that only one abortion clinic would remain open in Louisiana, and there would not be any physician in the state providing abortions after 17 weeks. ADL joined with the National Women’s Law Center and 71 other organizations on an amicus brief urging that the law —…

At issue in these cases is a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Rule that creates an overly broad and preferential religious exemption for healthcare employees, contractors and volunteers. The Rule effectively provides these individuals who have religious objections to certain medical procedures, including abortion or sterilization, with the right to hinder or even block a hospital from performing such procedures. ADL’s briefs filed on behalf of religious and civil rights…

In North Carolina, the state appellate courts have never, in the thirty years since Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) (the seminal U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the legal framework for claims of race discrimination in the exercise of peremptory strikes), found a single instance of discrimination against a juror of color, including in the two cases on appeal in this matter. ADL accordingly joined an amicus brief alongside a coalition of state and national criminal justice and…

At issue in this case is partisan gerrymandering in both North Carolina and Maryland — i.e., the drawing of district lines to subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench the rival party in power. In each state, the political party in power (i.e., Republican leaders in North Carolina and Democratic leaders in Maryland) successfully created precise and durable maps that would ensure the entrenchment of that party for at least the next decade. ADL accordingly joined a brief…

This case highlights the importance of class actions as a means of redress for victims of discrimination. The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court was asked to address whether the analysis and assessment by the Federal District Court in Washington State denying class certification to a proposed class of female engineers alleging systemic and pervasive discrimination was erroneous and created an arbitrary threshold for anecdotal evidence not required by law. ADL and 29 other civil rights and women…

At stake in this case are two interim final rules (IFRs) promulgated by the Trump administration in October 2017 that significantly broadened the religious exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraception mandate. Prior mandate regulations accommodated houses of worship and religiously affiliated organizations. The new exemption, however, effectively repeals the contraception mandate, broadly allowing employers and universities to invoke religion or morality to block their…

At issue in this case is California’s Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care and Transparency Act (FACT) Act, which was enacted in 2015, to regulate the state’s 300-plus Crisis Pregnancy Centers (“CPCs”). The law requires some licensed and unlicensed CPCs to post notices inside clinics indicating how women can access prenatal care, family planning, and abortion. In addition, it requires unlicensed centers to notify patients that they don’t have a…

At issue in this case is Boyertown Area School District's policy allowing transgender students to use the restrooms and changing facilities consistent with their gender identity. ADL, which has provided anti-bias training to schools in Boyertown through its No Place for Hate program for over a decade, filed an amicus brief supporting Boyertown's inclusive policy. Our amicus was joined by LGBT advocacy organizations, healthcare providers, civil society groups, education and…

At issue in this case is President Trump’s decision to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program created by President Obama in 2012 that granted work authorization and relief from deportation for a two-year period for certain undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. The decision unnecessarily put the lives of the nearly 800,000 DACA recipients and their families in limbo. ADL joined an amicus brief in support of the challenge to this…

At issue in this case is the federal government’s decision to tie certain DOJ public safety grants for law enforcement to immigration enforcement conditions. ADL filed a brief urging the court to issue a preliminary injunction to block DOJ’s unconstitutional interpretation and intended application of federal immigration law and to ensure the protection of critical state protections for immigrants. As the largest non-governmental trainer of police on issues of hate crimes and…

At issue in this case is President Trump’s second executive order on refugees which, among other things, temporarily banned travel from six majority-Muslim countries and suspended refugee resettlement in the United States for a period of 120 days. This brief, which was signed by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and Women of Reform Judaism, urges the U.S. Supreme Court to block the executive order from going…

At issue in this case is partisan gerrymandering. After the 2010 census, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature engaged in redistricting. The district lines that would ultimately become law in Wisconsin had a distinct partisan advantage for Republicans. A professor analyzing the plan concluded that Republicans would be able to maintain a 54 seat majority (of the 99 Assembly seats) while only garnering 48% of the statewide vote, while Democrats would have to get 54% of the statewide…

This case involves a state law prohibiting government workers from receiving spousal benefits if they are married to someone of the same sex. At issue is whether Obergefell, the U.S. Supreme Court case finding prohibitions against same-sex marriage unconstitutional, compels states only to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, or compels states to afford same-sex couples equal treatment under the law, including access to public benefits. The Texas Supreme Court interpreted Obergefell…

At issue in this case is President Trump's executive order withholding federal funds to "sanctuary" jurisdictions. ADL filed a brief urging the court to issue an injunction, arguing that the executive order threatens to cause immediate and irreparable harm. As the largest non-governmental trainer of police on issues of hate crimes and extremism, ADL knows well the importance of building trust between law enforcement and communities they serve. By coercing jurisdictions to turn local law…

This case is a challenge to Donald Trump's executive order withholding federal funds to "sanctuary" jurisdictions. ADL filed a brief urging the court to issue an injunction, arguing that the executive order threatens to cause immediate and irreparable harm. As the largest non-governmental trainer of police on issues of hate crimes and extremism, ADL knows well the importance of building trust between law enforcement and communities they serve. By coercing jurisdictions to turn local law…

This case involved allegations of racial bias on the part of a juror in a 2010 sexual assault trial in Colorado. Following a guilty verdict at trial, two jurors reported that a third juror had expressed racial bias against the defendant, who is Latino, during jury deliberations. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion for a new trial and refused to consider those statements of racial bias, finding that a Colorado rule of evidence barred their admission as evidence. ADL joined with…