Supreme Court Term 2025-2026
We’re breaking down the cases we've asked the court to consider this term.
Latest Case Updates
Ongoing
Updated January 9, 2026
Ongoing
Updated December 10, 2025
Ongoing
Updated December 10, 2025
Ongoing
Updated November 22, 2025
Featured
Court Case
Dec 2025
National Security
Human Rights
FOIA Case Seeking the Trump Administration’s Legal Justification for Deadly Boat Strikes
The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (“OLC”) authored a legal opinion that reportedly claims to justify the Trump administration’s illegal lethal strikes on civilians in boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Media reports indicate that, in addition to claiming that the strikes are lawful acts in an alleged “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels, the OLC opinion also purports to immunize personnel who authorized or took part in the strikes from future criminal prosecution. Because the public deserves to know how our government is justifying these illegal strikes, and why they think the people who carried them out should not be held accountable, the ACLU is seeking immediate release of the OLC legal opinion and related documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.
U.S. Supreme Court
Nov 2025
Voting Rights
Racial Justice
Allen v. Milligan
Whether Alabama’s congressional districts violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because they discriminate against Black voters. We succeeded in winning a new map for 2024 elections which, for the first time, has two congressional district that provide Black voters a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing despite multiple attempts by Alabama to stop us at the Supreme Court. Despite this win, Alabama is still defending its discriminatory map, and a trial was held in February 2025 to determine the map for the rest of the decade.
In May 2025, a federal court ruled that Alabama's 2023 congressional map both violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and was enacted by the Alabama Legislature with racially discriminatory intent.
Washington, D.C.
Oct 2025
Voting Rights
League of Women Voters Education Fund v. Trump
On March 25, 2025, in a sweeping and unprecedented Executive Order, President Trump attempted to usurp the power to regulate federal elections from Congress and the States. Among other things, the Executive Order directs the Election Assistance Commission—an agency that Congress specifically established to be bipartisan and independent—to require voters to show a passport or other citizenship documentation in order to register to vote in federal elections. If implemented, the Executive Order would threaten the ability of millions of eligible Americans to register and vote and upend the administration of federal elections.
On behalf of leading voter registration organizations and advocacy organizations, the ACLU and co-counsel filed a lawsuit to block the Executive Order as an unconstitutional power grab.
U.S. Supreme Court
Oct 2025
Voting Rights
State Board of Election Commissioners v. Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP
Mississippi has a growing Black population, which is already the largest Black population percentage of any state in the country. Yet. Black Mississippians continue to be significantly under-represented in the state legislature, as Mississippi’s latest districting maps fail to reflect the reality of the state’s changing demographics. During the 2022 redistricting process, the Mississippi legislature refused to create any new districts where Black voters have a chance to elect their preferred representative. The current district lines therefore dilute the voting power of Black Mississippians and continue to deprive them of political representation that is responsive to their needs and concerns, including severe disparities in education and healthcare.
U.S. Supreme Court
Oct 2025
Voting Rights
Louisiana v. Callais (Callais v. Landry)
Whether the congressional map Louisiana adopted to cure a Voting Rights Act violation in Robinson v. Ardoin is itself unlawful as a gerrymander.
Missouri
Sep 2025
Voting Rights
Wise v. Missouri
In unprecedented fashion, the State of Missouri has redrawn the district lines used for electing members of Congress for a second time this decade. These new district lines are gerrymandered and will harm political representation for all Missourians, particularly Black residents in Kansas City, who have been divided along racial lines.
Mississippi
Aug 2025
Voting Rights
White v. Mississippi State Board of Elections
District lines used to elect Mississippi’s Supreme Court have gone unchanged for more than 35 years. We’re suing because this dilutes the voting strength of Black residents in state Supreme Court elections, in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.
Louisiana
Aug 2025
Voting Rights
Nairne v. Landry
Nairne v. Landry poses a challenge under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Louisiana’s House and Senate legislative maps on behalf of plaintiff Black voters and Black voters across the state.
Ohio
Jul 2025
Reproductive Freedom
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region et al., v. Ohio Department of Health, et al.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the law firm WilmerHale, and Fanon Rucker of the Cochran Law Firm, on behalf of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, Preterm-Cleveland, Women’s Med Group Professional Corporation, Dr. Sharon Liner, and Julia Quinn, MSN, BSN, amended a complaint in an existing lawsuit against a ban on telehealth medication abortion services to bring new claims under the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment, including additional challenges to other laws in Ohio that restrict access to medication abortion in the state.
All Cases
1,649 Court Cases
Kansas
Apr 2025
Capital Punishment
Challenging Death Qualification and the Death Penalty in Kansas
Every person accused of a crime is entitled to a jury of their peers that represents a fair cross section of their community. But that is never the reality for Black and brown people facing the death penalty. A process called death qualification excludes people from capital juries if they do not believe in the death penalty. Death qualification rigs juries to be whiter and more likely to convict. It discriminates against Black prospective jurors, women, and people of individual faiths that oppose capital punishment.
Our fight against death qualification is just one piece of our ongoing challenge to Kansas’ use of the death penalty. The ACLU, together with the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood, Democracy Forward, and the Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services’ Death Penalty Defense Unit has brought constitutional challenges on behalf of four people charged in separate cases with capital murder. In each case, the case has resolved without a death sentence. In Wyandotte County, the judge issued an order finding extensive and irredeemable defects in the application of the death penalty.
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Kansas
Apr 2025
Capital Punishment
Challenging Death Qualification and the Death Penalty in Kansas
Every person accused of a crime is entitled to a jury of their peers that represents a fair cross section of their community. But that is never the reality for Black and brown people facing the death penalty. A process called death qualification excludes people from capital juries if they do not believe in the death penalty. Death qualification rigs juries to be whiter and more likely to convict. It discriminates against Black prospective jurors, women, and people of individual faiths that oppose capital punishment.
Our fight against death qualification is just one piece of our ongoing challenge to Kansas’ use of the death penalty. The ACLU, together with the law firms Hogan Lovells and Ali & Lockwood, Democracy Forward, and the Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services’ Death Penalty Defense Unit has brought constitutional challenges on behalf of four people charged in separate cases with capital murder. In each case, the case has resolved without a death sentence. In Wyandotte County, the judge issued an order finding extensive and irredeemable defects in the application of the death penalty.
Virginia
Apr 2025
Free Speech
LGBTQ Rights
E.K. v. Department of Defense Education Activity
Whether the Department of Defense Education Activity can remove educational material related to race and gender from its libraries and classrooms in K-12 schools.
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Virginia
Apr 2025
Free Speech
LGBTQ Rights
E.K. v. Department of Defense Education Activity
Whether the Department of Defense Education Activity can remove educational material related to race and gender from its libraries and classrooms in K-12 schools.
Pennsylvania
Apr 2025
Immigrants' Rights
ASR v. Trump
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Pennsylvania filed an emergency lawsuit in federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court’s judicial district.
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Pennsylvania
Apr 2025
Immigrants' Rights
ASR v. Trump
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Pennsylvania filed an emergency lawsuit in federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court’s judicial district.
Nevada
Apr 2025
Immigrants' Rights
Viloria Aviles v. Trump
Emergency lawsuit filed in federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court’s judicial district.
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Nevada
Apr 2025
Immigrants' Rights
Viloria Aviles v. Trump
Emergency lawsuit filed in federal court to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act for people within that court’s judicial district.
Court Case
Apr 2025
Civil Liberties
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP v. Executive Office of the President
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Court Case
Apr 2025
Civil Liberties