Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

Guam Society of OBGYNs v. Guerrero is a case originally brought by the ACLU and local attorneys on Guam challenging a 1990 total ban on abortion that imposes criminal penalties on patients, providers and those who speak about abortion. In August of 1990, a federal district court judge for the District of Guam granted the ACLU’s motion for summary judgment and entered a permanent injunction against the ban. After appeals were exhausted, the case was closed. Over three decades later, on February 1, 2023, Guam Attorney General Douglas B. Moylan filed a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) motion to vacate the permanent injunction and dismiss the case with prejudice. The ACLU and Guam local counsel opposed the motion, on behalf of the only remaining original plaintiff, and proposed intervenors — the only two providers of abortion in Guam, and Guam-based reproductive justice organization Famalao’an Rights. On March 24th, 2023, a federal district court denied the Attorney General’s request to vacate the permanent injunction. Attorney General Moylan then appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On April 28, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order dismissing Attorney General Moylan’s appeal as moot, in light of an October 2023 decision by the Guam Supreme Court holding that the ban had been legislatively repealed. On May 12, 2025, Attorney General Moylan filed a Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, which was subsequently denied on February 3, 2026. As a result, the ban remains permanently enjoined and abortion remains legal in Guam.

This case asks whether the State of New Mexico’s actions enabling pollution from oil and gas extraction, and its failure to control that pollution, violate the New Mexico Constitution’s Pollution Control Clause, Inherent Rights Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. The ACLU's State Supreme Court Initiative, joined by the ACLU of New Mexico and the Brennan Center of Justice, filed an amicus brief urging the New Mexico Supreme Court to answer those questions by retiring its “interstitial approach” to state constitutional interpretation—which looks first to federal doctrine when interpreting state constitutional provisions that arguably have U.S. Constitutional analogues—and instead interpret the New Mexico Constitution holistically and independently. This independent approach, we explain, will ensure that New Mexicans can enjoy—and enforce—the rights guaranteed to them in their unique founding document.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the State of Delaware, seeking its unredacted statewide voter file, including sensitive personal data such as driver’s license numbers and partial social security numbers. DOJ’s efforts appear to be part of an effort to build a national voter database without congressional authorization and to improperly question the validity of state voter rolls.

This case asks whether, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard College, a university may refuse to administer a privately funded scholarship set aside for Black students majoring in the physical sciences and redirect those funds to first-generation students instead. The district court denied the University’s petition to do so, and the case is now on appeal before the Iowa Supreme Court. The Court’s decision could have significant implications for other private scholarships that address the lasting effects of segregation.