Legal Docket

In September 2003, President Bush signed the so-called “Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003,” the first federal criminal law banning abortion in the United States. This is one of three cases challenging that law. Read More

This case raises fundamental issues of freedom of expression in the creative arts.Literary artists and organizations supporting literary artists filed an Amicus brief contending that creative works such as a poem or painting cannot, on their face, constitute a true threat. Only the circumstances surrounding the communication of a poem or other creative work can transform it from protected expressi... Read More

This case challenged the threatened violation of the voting rights of thousands of California citizens, arising from the use of obsolete, unreliable, and discredited pre-scored punch card voting equipment in the election scheduled to take place on October 7, 2003 regarding the gubernatorial recall and the vote on Proposition 53 (Legislative Constitutional Amendment that would dedicate part of the ... Read More

California Supreme Court affirms the validity of second-parent adoptions, which permit both partners in a lesbian or gay couple to establish a legal relationship with their child. Read More

This is a civil rights class action arising from unconstitutional and unlawful actions taken by the Oakland Police Department (“OPD”) in response to a peaceful nonviolent antiwar demonstration at the Port of Oakland on April 7, 2003. The named individual plaintiffs are demonstrators, legal observers, videographers, journalists, and dockworkers who were in the vicinity of the April 7th demonstratio... Read More

The landmark case Clement v. California Department of Corrections was brought on behalf of Pelican Bay prisoner Frank Clement by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the Prison Law Office. Clement filed a federal court challenge to the California Department of Corrections policy prohibiting inmates at the prison from receiving any mail that contains material printed from the Internet. A ... Read More

Filed in 1999 on behalf of African-American, Latino, and Pilipino American applicants to UC Berkeley, Castaneda v. Regents of the University of California alleged that the university's admission procedures unfairly disadvantaged applicants of color in violation of their federal civil rights by not taking into account the full range of indicators of "merit." The parties were able to settle the case... Read More

The federal government settles a lawsuit that made public, for the first time, hundreds of records about the government's secret "No-Fly" list. Read More

A historic ruling holds that schools must take steps to eliminate harassment when they learn that lesbian, gay, or bisexual students are abused at school. Read More

Racial profiling by law enforcement has long plagued communities of color. The 2003 settlement in our racial profiling case established a moratorium on California Highway Patrol consent searches.

Read More

The Visalia Unified School District has agreed to adopt sweeping reforms to address anti-gay harassment, including groundbreaking measures to train staff and students with the goal of preventing harassment before it happens.The settlement ends a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union over routine harassment of lesbian and gay students, some of whom were then forced into a spec... Read More

ACLU Amicus Brief asking the California Supreme Court to determine the extent to which the Constitution limits the state's power to authorize a content-based injunction restraining a private individual's criticism of his previous employer. Read More