Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

Every night, thousands of veterans sleep without shelter on the streets of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs owns hundreds of acres of land in prime West Los Angeles—land directly adjacent to a VA medical facility that was once earmarked to house veterans, but today is instead home to private school sports fields and an oil well.   In November 2022, a group of unhoused veterans and a non-profit organization filed suit alleging that the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) failed to provide adequate housing and health care to veterans with severe disabilities in Los Angeles. These failures have significantly undermined veterans’ abilities to access the benefits they are entitled to by law, leaving many stranded on the streets after serving our country. The veterans sued the VA under the Rehabilitation Act, a federal statute that prohibits federal agencies from discriminating against people with disabilities. As a remedy, the plaintiffs seek the construction of significant units of permanent supportive housing on the   The VA argued that a provision of the Veterans’ Judicial Review Act (“VJRA”)— a federal statute that prohibits federal district courts from second-guessing VA’s individualized benefits determinations—bars federal district courts from hearing the veterans’ Rehabilitation Act claims. Should the court accept this position, it would deprive veterans of a meaningful opportunity to have their rights under the Rehabilitation Act and other generally applicable nondiscrimination statutes enforced.

Arizona health care providers filed a lawsuit challenging a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which is in violation of the state’s new constitutional amendment protecting the fundamental right to abortion. The case, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, asserts that the ban is unconstitutional because it denies Arizonans access to abortion care in violation of the new constitutional amendment passed by the voters.

On June 24, 2024, a multi-faith group of nine Louisiana families with children in public schools filed a federal-court lawsuit in Louisiana, challenging House Bill No. 71 (“H.B. 71”), a new state law that requires every elementary, secondary, and postsecondary public school in the state to permanently display an official version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The families are represented by the ACLU, the ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. The complaint alleges that H.B. 71 violates both the separation of church and state, as protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The ACLU, ACLU of Maine, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit arguing that religious schools in Maine participating in the state’s school tuition program must comply with all eligibility requirements of the program – including a prohibition on discrimination on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity, among other protected characteristics.