Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

On June 7, 2025, President Trump federalized members of the California National Guard over the Governor’s objection. He deployed those troops, along with Marines, into Los Angeles to suppress protests against his extreme immigration raids. When California sued, the ACLU and other free-speech organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, explaining that the President’s domestic deployment of the military breaks with this country’s deepest traditions and laws and imperils the First Amendment rights of California’s residents.

Whether a journalist can be detained on the basis of their livestreaming and reporting on law enforcement activities.

The Minnesota Supreme Court is poised to decide whether there are any circumstances in which someone subjected to an unconstitutional traffic stop can suppress evidence that he temporarily avoided the police when they initiated the unconstitutional stop. The Minnesota Court of Appeals held that evidence of even temporary “flight” can never be suppressed—even when someone simply delays acquiescing to an unconstitutional traffic stop—on the theory that fleeing from the police is a crime. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the ACLU of Minnesota and the law firm Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, filed an amicus brief arguing that Article I, Sections 8 and 10 of the Minnesota Constitution—which guarantee Minnesotans remedies for constitutional violations and protect them from unreasonable searches and seizures—require a broad application of the exclusionary rule. Accordingly, we argue that the Court should use a flexible, multi-factor test that can allow for suppression of evidence where a suspect, as in this case, responds to an illegal stop or seizure with nonviolent attempts to keep himself safe.

This lawsuit challenges an Oklahoma classroom censorship law, HB 1775, that severely restricts public school teachers and students from teaching and learning about race and gender.