Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

The ACLU, NYCLU, Family Justice Law Center, Brooklyn Defender Services, Center for Family Representation, NYU School of Law Family Defense Clinic, and Sullivan & Cromwell have filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of three New York parents challenging unconstitutional delays in the appeals process for reports on the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment (SCR). Parents who challenge their placement on the registry often wait months—sometimes more than a year—for a final decision. While they wait, they can be shut out of jobs in childcare, education, healthcare, and other fields involving children, and barred from adopting or fostering. Low-income parents, parents of color, and disabled parents are disproportionately policed by the family regulation system—also known as the child welfare system—and more likely to end up on the registry. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that parents have a way to clear their names in a timely manner.

Whether law enforcement agencies can conduct searches using geofence warrants, a novel and invasive dragnet surveillance technique.

Representing the League of Women Voters Minnesota, Common Cause, and two Minnesota voters with past felony convictions, the ACLU Voting Rights Project and ACLU of Minnesota have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit over the federal government’s demand that Minnesota turn over its entire voter registration rolls, including with voters’ sensitive personal data such as drivers’ license numbers and partial social security numbers.

In December 2020, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed into law Senate Bill 27, a fetal tissue disposal requirement that mandates burial or cremation of all embryonic and fetal tissue from a procedural abortion, imposing severe burdens on patients and stigmatizing essential care. On January 31, 2022, an Ohio judge preliminarily enjoined the law, finding that the law likely violates the Ohio state constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. The victory followed a previous April 5, 2021, preliminary injunction halting enforcement of the law, because compliance would have been impossible due to the Ohio Department of Health’s (ODH) failure to establish necessary rules and regulations. In April 2024, Plaintiffs filed a Second Amended Complaint, adding a claim that the law violated the newly established Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment of the Ohio Constitution, and in August 2024 filed a 12(C) Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, arguing that Senate Bill 27 is unconstitutional as a matter of law under that Amendment for discriminatorily targeting procedural abortion. In February 2025, the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas agreed, granting the Motion for Judgement on the Pleadings and permanently enjoining enforcement of Senate Bill 27. In February 2026, the Ohio First District Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's permanent injunction, ruling that the requirements under Senate Bill 27 violate the state constitution's Reproductive Freedom Amendment, which took effect in December 2023 after being approved by voters. This lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Fanon Rucker of the Cochran Law Firm on behalf of Ohio abortion providers.