The ACLU’s Legal Director Reflects on the Supreme Court’s Last Term

TALLAHASSEE — The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida heard arguments today in a lawsuit challenging Florida officials’ baseless and unconstitutional designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Florida chapter as “domestic terrorist organizations.” Unless the court intervenes to prevent it, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country will have to shut their doors in Florida on Nov. 5. “CAIR and CAIR-Florida are critical resources that people and institutions across Florida rely on to protect civil rights and liberties, and all we want to do is get back to that important work,” said Hiba Rahim, executive director of CAIR-FL. “Florida’s new law silences free speech, criminalizes association, and eradicates due process, and we are hopeful that the court will act to safeguard our constitutional rights. History reminds us that our country has endured dark chapters, but also that people who refused to accept injustice moved us closer to our founding ideals.” At today’s hearing, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) urged the court to grant emergency relief for the organizations, explaining the instant and debilitating harm CAIR and CAIR-FL will face if the court does not rescind the designation and stop it from going into effect. In the alternative, they are asking the court to prevent Florida state prosecutors from enforcing the law’s harsh criminal penalties against the nonprofits and third parties who associate with and support them. As the ACLU argued in court, CAIR and CAIR-Florida have done nothing to deserve this devastating designation. The state has never indicted, much less convicted, either CAIR or CAIR-Florida under any criminal law — and certainly not a criminal law involving the serious charge of terrorism. If the state tried to do so, it would fail. The reason is simple: Neither CAIR nor CAIR-Florida is engaged in terrorist activity, and the state would be unable to prove its case to a jury in a court of law. “Florida’s new law is an unprecedented abuse of state authority,” said Ashley Gorski, senior counsel with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “It gives state officials sweeping power to punish American organizations they brand as ‘terrorists,’ without due process and in violation of the First Amendment. We’re asking the court to block this unconstitutional law and ensure that our clients’ crucially important civil rights work serving Floridians is not silenced.” Once a designation becomes effective, an organization’s lawful, constitutionally protected speech and association are immediately rendered illegal and impossible. Under HB 1471, five Florida executive officials have the power to designate and debilitate U.S. groups — including nonprofits engaged in First Amendment-protected advocacy — without filing charges, initiating judicial proceedings, proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt, submitting the case to a jury, or complying with any of the other required constitutional protections of the criminal legal system. An elaborate set of prohibitions makes it a serious crime for the targeted American organization to do virtually anything in the state, and for others to work for or otherwise actively associate with or support the designated group. The consequences of violating these prohibitions are severe, including up to life imprisonment. “Florida’s designation of CAIR and CAIR-Florida flies in the face of fundamental rights guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution,” said Scott McCoy, deputy legal director at SPLC. “All Floridians should be concerned that this law allows Florida officials to do an end run around the Constitution, shut down disfavored speech and advocacy, and impose draconian criminal penalties. If they are permitted to do it to these civil rights nonprofits, what’s to stop them from doing it to any Floridian with whom they disagree?” The impact on the Floridian communities CAIR and CAIR-Florida serve would also be immense. CAIR-Florida provides a range of pro bono legal services to Florida residents, including those who suffer government and workplace discrimination in violation of their civil rights, as well as those navigating the immigration system. “The state does not get to decide whose speech is constitutionally protected or whose due process rights deserve respect. The Constitution decided that long ago,” said Daniel Tilley, legal director of the ACLU of Florida. “And Florida must not strip CAIR and CAIR-FL of their ability to advocate and organize for the civil rights of Floridian Muslims. This dangerous designation regime, crafted by the DeSantis administration, seeks to criminalize protected speech, plain and simple — and with no regard for the harm it causes to the thousands of people our clients support and serve. We are proud to stand with our clients against this abuse of state power.” CAIR and CAIR-Florida are represented by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP. This press release can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/cair-and-cair-florida-urge-court-to-temporarily-block-unconstitutional-terrorism-designation-before-more-harm-is-done

Salles, et al. v. National Institutes of Health, et al. is a class action lawsuit challenging the censorship and termination of federally funded research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While ongoing litigation in APHA v. NIH successfully resulted in the reinstatement of hundreds of grants, NIH’s current policies continue to target viewpoints it opposes, threatening research because the government dislikes what it thinks the researchers believe or are likely to say, and continue to violate governing statutes and regulations. This is stymieing critical public health research, particularly related to climate change, the starkest health disparities including those faced by communities of color and LGBTQ+ populations, and other areas.

BOSTON – The First Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments today in Rhode Island Latino Arts v. National Endowment for the Arts, a First Amendment case challenging viewpoint-based penalties in federal arts funding. The policy at issue was blocked by a federal district court last year, and the circuit court will now decide whether to uphold that decision. “This case matters not only for artistic freedom, but also for First Amendment limits on government funding writ large,” said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “The government has no affirmative obligation to fund private speech, including art—but once it does, it can’t pick and choose who receives financial support based on viewpoint. Otherwise, the government could leverage its enormous financial resources to impose ideological conformity across society. That would discourage free thinking, dampen creativity, and make for worse art—the opposite of everything Congress intended to do when it created the NEA.” The lawsuit was originally filed in early 2025 by a group of theater and arts organizations after the NEA forced applicants to attest that they would not use government funds to promote “gender ideology,” and made any project that the government perceived as “promoting gender ideology” ineligible for funding. That policy was in response to an executive order signed by President Trump prohibiting government funds from being used to promote “gender ideology.” After the ACLU filed suit, the NEA rescinded that policy and imposed a new one, which categorically disfavors funding for any project deemed to “promote gender ideology.” “When RILA agreed to become lead plaintiff in this case, we knew the issue was bigger than us as a Latino cultural organization and bigger than the arts. We stepped forward because artists should never have to choose between access to public funding and the freedom to tell their stories fully and honestly,” said Marta V. Martínez, executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts. “RILA is not an organization centered on gender identity, but LGBTQ+ artists are part of our community, and protecting their freedom of expression is part of our responsibility to all the artists we serve. If public funding can be conditioned on whether an organization’s work aligns with a particular ideological viewpoint, that has implications far beyond the arts. Today, it’s about NEA funding, but tomorrow it could affect other sectors and communities. For RILA, this has always been about protecting the freedom to create and fully tell our stories.” The plaintiffs argue that the restrictions violate the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act. Meanwhile, the government argues that its funding decisions are government speech, and that considering viewpoints is consistent with the law that established the NEA. The government is relying on similar arguments in its attempts to restrict and terminate grants by other agencies, including in the realms of biomedical research and the humanities. The court’s decision in this case could therefore have implications for federal funding restrictions far beyond the arts. “This case will have ramifications well beyond just artists, as it will lay out the standards of whether the government can require ideological uniformity as a condition of federal funding” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island. “We will continue to show up and challenge the federal government’s censorial and unconstitutional restriction on speech and artistic freedom.” The ACLU, the ACLU of Rhode Island, David Cole, and Lynette Labinger, cooperating counsel for the ACLU-RI, filed suit last year in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island on behalf of Rhode Island Latino Arts, National Queer Theater, The Theater Offensive, and the Theater Communications Group. You can read more about the case here.