Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

In Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment, the 8th Circuit became the first federal appeals court to rule that private plaintiffs cannot enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In doing so, the court left open the question whether private plaintiffs could enforce Section 2 through an alternative civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In this case, a divided panel on the 8th Circuit has held that plaintiffs may not use Section 1983, either. If the holding stands, Section 2 of the VRA will be functionally out of reach for voters across the 8th Circuit in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. On behalf of the NAACP Arkansas State Conference and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, the ACLU and ACLU of Arkansas has filed a brief supporting the plaintiffs' request that the full Eighth Circuit rehear and correct this decision.

On March 5, 2025, the ACLU and its allies filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the First Amendment does not prohibit states from offering limited, categorical religious exemptions or from distinguishing between religious and nonreligious entities and activities in assessing the applicability of exemptions.

A group of midwives and doctors filed a lawsuit in state court challenging actions by the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), which imposed a de facto ban on freestanding birth centers throughout Alabama. Birth centers provide midwifery care to low-risk pregnant patients, a model of care that is proven to be safe and beneficial to patients. Despite that, ADPH took actions that forced one center to abruptly shut down in 2023 despite a perfect safety record, and then passed onerous regulations that would require birth centers to meet hospital-like standards, preventing birth centers from operating in the state. After hearing oral argument in late September 2023, the Circuit Court of Montgomery County granted our request for a Preliminary Injunction on September 30, 2023, preventing ADPH from refusing to timely license freestanding birth centers that comply with nationally-recognized safety standards for birth centers while litigation continues. In May 2025, the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court permanently blocking the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) from regulating freestanding birth centers like hospitals and imposing onerous licensing rules that would have made it effectively impossible for these centers to provide evidence-based midwifery care in the state. The ruling ensures that plaintiffs Oasis Family Birthing Center in Birmingham and Alabama Birth Center in Huntsville, which have been safely operating for the past year, may continue providing midwifery care to pregnant Alabamians.

A Kentucky woman who was pregnant and seeking an abortion filed a lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court seeking to restore access to abortion in the Commonwealth by challenging two abortion bans under the state constitutional rights to privacy and self-determination. The case details the severe harms that Kentuckians seeking abortion, like Plaintiff Mary Poe suffer because the government denies them access to the care they need. The lawsuit also requests the court certify a class of all pregnant individuals who seek access to abortion in the Commonwealth but cannot obtain that care because of Kentucky’s abortion bans.