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At issue in this case is a school district’s policy allowing transgender students to use the restrooms and changing facilities consistent with their gender identities. ADL, which has provided anti-bias training to schools around the country through its No Place for Hate® program for over a decade, filed an amici brief supporting the policy of Dallas School District No. 2 in Oregon. Our brief was joined by LGBTQ advocacy organizations, civil society groups, youth advocates, and…

At issue in this case is the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania House of Representatives policy barring nontheists from serving as guest chaplains to offer the Chamber’s daily invocation. ADL’s brief asserts that the policy is unconstitutional for two reasons. First, it violates longstanding Establishment Clause precedent prohibiting government from preferring one religion over others. Second, the House’s justification that historically nontheists have not given invocations…

At issue in this case is the Administration’s termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for individuals from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan. TPS is a form of humanitarian immigration relief that allows individuals from designated countries to live and work legally in the U.S. if they cannot return safely to their country of origin due to armed conflict, natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstances. Most TPS recipients came to the U.S. at a young age, lived here…

This case involves a challenge to the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) in a case in which an Amazon shipping warehouse employee was violently assaulted by a co-worker due to his perceived sexual orientation. The District Court vacated a unanimous jury conviction under the HCPA, on the grounds that the HCPA was an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause power as applied in this case. On appeal, ADL joined an…

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…

Citing religious objections, a business owner refused to sell custom t-shirts bearing “Lexington Pride Festival 2012” and rainbow colored circles to a non-profit LGBTQ organization. The local human rights commission found that the vendor’s actions violated a human rights ordinance, which prohibits businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. A lower court reversed the commission’s determination, finding that it infringed on the vendor’s First…

Updated: April 02, 2019 At the U.S. Supreme Court, ADL joined with over 170 organizations on an amicus brief that refutes defendants' argument that including a citizenship question is necessary to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, explains how the VRA can be enforced without the citizenship question, and explains how the inclusion of a citizenship question will lead to an undercount of historically under-represented communities, including immigrants. June 18, 2018 At…

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 the constitutionality of the U.S. House of Representatives’ guest chaplain policy. Because the policy requires guest chaplains to offer a prayer that addresses a “higher power,” as well as to be ordained clergy, it bars non-theists from the invocation opportunity. A Humanist leader challenged the policy under the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. ADL joined a coalition brief asserting that policy is unconstitutional for four reasons. First,…

At issue in this case is the constitutionality of a county commission policy prohibiting non-theists from offering the opening prayer at commission meetings. A lower ruled that the policy violated the Establishment Clause to the First Amendment. ADL filed a brief on behalf of a diverse group of religious and civil rights organizations. The brief asserts that policy is unconstitutional for four reasons. First, it plainly violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s non-discrimination requirement for…

At issue in this case is President Trump’s third attempt at prohibiting travel to the United States from six majority-Muslim nations.  The Ninth Circuit affirmed an injunction put in place by the district court, which protects foreign nationals with a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.  ADL’s brief, which was joined by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Women of…

The case involves a videography company in Minnesota that refuses to provide services for weddings of same-sex couples. The owners filed a lawsuit challenging a Minnesota anti-discrimination statute that would have prevented them from discriminating against same-sex couples. Among other things, Telescope Media Group argued that application of the Minnesota law to the situation would compel speech in violation of the First Amendment, and violate their religious freedom rights under the Free…

This case involves an employer that withdrew an offer of employment when its owners learned that the applicant is a gay man and that his religious beliefs about sexual orientation and marriage of same-sex couples didn’t conform to the employers’. In response, he filed a lawsuit for claims of sex and religious discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Horton claims that the withdrawal of the offer based on his sexual orientation constitutes sex discrimination…