Court Cases

For four years, the White House provided American Sign Language (“ASL”) interpretation for its press briefings. It stopped doing so, however, in January 2025 when President Trump returned to office. This excluded deaf Americans, including Plaintiffs Derrick Ford and members of the National Association of the Deaf, from access to the White House press briefings. Plaintiffs sued and moved for a preliminary injunction to order the government to resume providing ASL interpretation during press briefings, arguing that the government’s failure to do so discriminates against deaf Americans in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that it established a likelihood of success on the merits of its Rehabilitation Act claim. The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It contends that Plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed because, among other reasons, the court lacks power to enforce Section 504. Specifically, according to the government, Congress precluded judicial review of a Section 504 claim; and even if it didn’t, Plaintiffs should nonetheless lose because they do not satisfy the heightened standard for “ultra vires” claims—which the government describes as a “Hail Mary pass” and one that requires the agency to have acted contrary to a specific prohibition in a statute, rather than simply showing that the project is unauthorized by the relevant statutes. On June 2, 2026, we filed an amicus brief in support of Plaintiffs to refute Defendants’ objections regarding the enforceability of Section 504. We first argue that federal courts have inherent equitable power to enforce Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act based on courts’ historical powers, recognized by the Supreme Court, to prevent the government from violating the law, and that nothing about the Rehabilitation Act suggests that Congress intended to foreclose judicial review of Plaintiffs’ Section 504 claim. We also argue that a plaintiff bringing an ultra vires claim is not generally required to show that a government official’s action was contrary to a specific prohibition in a statute. Instead, the plaintiff only needs to show that the official’s action was unauthorized by law. This default standard is over a century old and well-established in the Supreme Court’s precedents and supported by the D.C. Circuit’s precedents. By contrast, the demanding standard the government proposes for ultra vires claims should apply only where Congress has limited judicial review. Because there is no statutory limitation on judicial review of Plaintiffs’ claim, the ordinary, default standard—rather than the heightened standard proposed by Defendants—applies. Whether courts can enforce laws duly enacted by Congress even in the absence of a statutory cause of action and the standard courts apply to ultra vires claims are important issues because they can determine the Executive Branch’s ability to get away with violating the law and whether the party challenging unlawful executive action will win or lose its claim. Under the government’s position, any time a party alleges that a government official is acting without legal authority and there is no private right of action in a statute, the party would need to satisfy the heightened “Hail Mary” standard, making it highly unlikely it will win. Such a rule would undermine rule of law and separation of powers principles and improperly hamper courts’ ability to review executive action for compliance with federal law. We therefore urged the D.C. Circuit in our amicus brief to reject the government’s sweeping position and apply the ordinary, default standard to Plaintiffs’ Rehabilitation Act claim. The D.C. Circuit has not yet scheduled oral argument.

On July 31, 2025, the White House announced in a press release that it plans to build a ballroom funded by private donations at the site where the East Wing of the White House used to stand. The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, a nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and protect historic resources in Washington, D.C., sued and moved for a preliminary injunction to stop the ballroom project. It alleges, among other things, that the proposed White House ballroom project is “ultra vires” (in excess of) the President and Executive Branch officials’ authority under the relevant statutes. The district court granted the Trust’s motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that it established a likelihood of success on the merits of its ultra vires claim. The government appealed the district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Among their arguments, the government contends that the Trust cannot satisfy the demanding standard—a “Hail Mary pass”—that they argue applies to the Trust’s ultra vires claim. According to the government, the Trust must show that the proposed ballroom project is contrary to a specific prohibition in a statute, rather than simply showing that the project is unauthorized by the relevant statutes. On May 28, 2026, we filed an amicus brief in support of the Trust to refute the government’s argument that such a demanding standard applies to ultra vires claims. Under the default standard applicable in most cases, including this one, a plaintiff bringing an ultra vires claim is not required to show that a government official’s action was contrary to a specific prohibition in a statute. Instead, the plaintiff only needs to show that the official’s action was unauthorized by law. This default standard is over a century old and well-established in the Supreme Court’s precedents and supported by the D.C. Circuit’s precedents. By contrast, the demanding standard the government proposes for ultra vires claims should apply only where Congress has limited judicial review. Because there is no statutory limitation on judicial review of Plaintiff’s challenge to the proposed ballroom, the ordinary, default standard—rather than the heightened standard proposed by the government—applies. The standard courts apply to ultra vires claims is important because it can determine whether the party challenging unlawful executive action will win or lose its claim. Under the government’s position, any time a party alleges that a government official is acting without legal authority and there is no private right of action in a statute, the party would need to satisfy the heightened “Hail Mary” standard, making it highly unlikely it will win. Such a rule would undermine rule of law and separation of powers principles and improperly hamper courts’ ability to review executive action for compliance with federal law. We therefore urged the D.C. Circuit in our amicus brief to reject the government’s sweeping position and apply the ordinary, default standard to the Trust’s ultra vires claim. The D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear oral argument in this case on June 5, 2026.

On August 11, 2025, President Trump invoked a section of the Home Rule Act permitting him to demand services from the D.C. police for federal purposes, and began flooding the District with federal agents, D.C. National Guard, and National Guard from other states. With a month, the D.C. government sued Trump twice — first to block him from taking over the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department entirely (a suit that induced Trump to back down from that attempt) and then to challenge the deployment of the National Guard. The first case proceeded too quickly for us to file a brief. In the second (both are called District of Columbia v. Trump), we filed an amicus brief supporting the District's lawsuit. Together with our co-counsel Washington Lawyers Committee, and joined by a broad coalition of D.C. nonprofits devoted to serving D.C. residents and fighting for D.C. autonomy (Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Bread for the City, Children’s Law Center, DC Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, Disability Rights DC, Legal Aid DC, School Justice Project, Tzedek DC, and Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless), we explained how this most recent attempt to impose on D.C. a law enforcement presence not democratically accountable to the people of D.C. is part of a long history, stretching back 200 years to the founding of the District and often tinged with implicit or explicit racism, of denying D.C. residents full self-governance. Although every other American city and state can take this basic element of representative democracy as a given, for D.C., it have been elusive and, even when obtained, only tenuously held. Setting loose American troops—locally unaccountable and not trained for domestic law enforcement—to police the streets of D.C. neighborhoods on the thin pretext of an “emergency,” is anathema to principles of democratic accountability and our longstanding norm of civilian, not military policing. Additionally, we explain how a locally unaccountable law enforcement presence is likely to be less trusted by the community and therefore less effective — thus showing that Trump's move will make D.C. less safe, not more. On November 20, 2025, the court held the deployment of the D.C. National Guard was unlawful in the absence of a request from the D.C. government because it is beyond the President's power under Title 49 of the D.C. Code, enacted by Congress. The court further held that the deployment of other states' National Guards to D.C. was not justified by the provision of federal law that the President invoked because it is limited to operations authorized by those states' laws. Accordingly, the court granted a preliminary injunction but stayed it for 21 days to enable the government to appeal. On December 17, 2025, the appeals court stayed the injunction pending the outcome of the federal government's appeal. In May 2026, we filed an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit supporting the D.C. government's defense of the injunction on appeal.

In February 2026, we joined with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the National ACLU to file an amicus brief in this First Amendment case, supporting Media Matters for America. Media Matters for America is a research and journalistic nonprofit dedicated to monitoring and correcting misinformation in U.S. media. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter and renamed it X, Media Matters published articles reporting on increased “extremist and racist rhetoric” on X and about how advertisements for major companies were appearing adjacent to “pro-Nazi content.” Mr. Musk took offense and promised “a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters.” X Corp. made good on Musk’s threat, suing Media Matters in Texas federal court and (through subsidiaries) in Ireland and Singapore. A California federal court preliminarily enjoined X Corp.’s lawsuit campaign, recognizing that it appeared designed more to bully Media Matters and inflict financial hardship than to pursue legitimate claims. Meanwhile, President Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller urged state attorneys general to focus on Media Matters, and the Texas and Missouri attorneys general answered his call and launched civil investigations, making onerous demands of Media Matters. Federal courts here in D.C. preliminarily enjoined both investigations on the ground that they likely amounted to First Amendment retaliation. Piling on, the new Trump-appointed Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, announced that the FTC would investigate purported “tech [platform] censorship” and “advertiser boycotts.” In numerous public statements, he and others made clear that the investigation was partisan and retributive, aimed at “progressives” and “leftists” who were allegedly seeking to “silence conservative voices.” The FTC issued a broad Civil Investigative Demand to Media Matters in May 2025 demanding information on a wide variety of expressive matters, including information about newsgathering and editorial decisions, programs. policies and objectives, financial material, and much more. Media Matters sued again, initiating this lawsuit, and again obtained a preliminary injunction. In a thorough opinion, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan concluded, “[t]his case presents a straightforward First Amendment violation.” The FTC appealed and is asking the court of appeals to allow it to continue its “investigation.” Our amicus brief shows how government investigations can be used to intimidate media outlets through procedural burdens and threats that themselves punish exercises of First Amendment rights. Allowing the FTC to pursue its investigation during the pendency of this case would continue to chill speech and journalism. Our brief also points out that this case is not an outlier. The FTC itself is currently using the same playbook in a series of burdensome “investigations” of advertising agencies and news rating organizations to censor speech the Commission doesn’t like. And government officials nationwide increasingly use burdensome investigations to target publications, platforms, and others for their views. The courts should be vigilant to protect legitimate media from such sham investigations. The court of appeals heard oral argument on April 13. One week later, the FTC moved to dismiss its appeal on the ground that it had formally withdrawn its civil investigative demand. On May 4 the court dismissed the appeal.

On May 1, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” which directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to terminate all direct and indirect funding to NPR and PBS in explicit retaliation for the broadcasting organizations’ editorial and journalistic choices, which the order characterizes as “biased” and “partisan.” NPR and PBS each filed lawsuits challenging the executive order. On June 20, we ACLU filed amicus briefs in both cases (together with the National ACLU and the ACLUs of Colorado and Minnesota, where some plaintiffs in the cases are located), supporting the NPR and PBS motions for summary judgment, and arguing that the executive order constitutes a flagrant violation of the First Amendment because it retaliates against both speakers solely for their constitutionally protected speech, including the words they choose to use in coverage and what stories they choose to highlight. The briefs also argue that the order unconstitutionally restricts federal funding, including funds appropriated for local public broadcasters throughout the country to use as they see fit, based on President Trump’s disapproval of NPR’s and PBS’ news coverage. The briefs warn that the executive order threatens the editorial independence of local public broadcasters nationwide, undermines the congressionally mandated purpose of the Public Broadcasting Act, and endangers essential infrastructure like the Public Radio Satellite System, which reaches 99 percent of the U.S. population and plays a critical role in national emergency communications. On March 31, 2026, Judge Randolph D. Moss ruled in favor of NPR and PBS. He explained: “The President may, of course, engage in his own expressive conduct, including criticizing the views, reporting, or programming of NPR, PBS, or any other news outlet with whom he disagrees. The government may also fund its own speech and may fund government programs that promote specific perspectives on issues of public importance, and it may decide which views or perspectives to convey—and which not to convey—in any such government speech or program. And it may impose limits on federal grants to ensure that they are deployed to further the legitimate purposes of the program and may pick and choose among applicants based on legitimate criteria. But the First Amendment draws a line, which the government may not cross, at efforts to use government power—including the power of the purse—“to punish or suppress disfavored expression” by others. … As the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have observed on more than a dozen occasions, the government “may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected . . . freedom of speech even if he has no entitlement to that benefit.” … Executive Order 14290 crosses that line.” He issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Trump administration “from implementing or enforcing Executive Order 14290’s instruction to cease funding NPR and PBS.” As a practical matter, the injunction will not restore all government funding to NPR and PBS, because Congress has defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provided a great deal of financial support. Some support comes from other agencies, however, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Education, and even FEMA. Those agencies can no longer withhold funds pursuant to the Executive Order.

In March 2025, President Trump issued an order directing “every executive department and agency head . . . to revoke any active security clearances held by” a group of named individuals “and to immediately rescind their access to classified information.” That list included Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Cheney, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former President Joseph Biden, “and any other member of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s family.” That list also included Mark Zaid, an attorney who represents national security whistleblowers and other clients in cases involving classified information—significantly including the intelligence community whistleblower whose disclosures resulted in President Trump’s first impeachment. President Trump has called Mr. Zaid a “sleazeball,” and has said “he should be sued and maybe for treason.” Mr. Zaid sued, and in December 2025 won a preliminary injunction restoring his clearance. The government appealed, and on March 27, 2026, we filed an amicus brief supporting him, together with the National ACLU, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Rutherford Institute. Argument is scheduled for May 14, 2026.

Once again, the Trump Administration is attempting to exert unconstitutional control over the content of expression—this time, by affording executive officials unbridled discretion to revoke Pentagon correspondents’ press access for receiving, soliciting, or reporting “unauthorized” information. In the fall of 2025, the Department of Defense promulgated a new policy granting Pentagon officials unbridled and standardless discretion to deem a journalist “a security or safety risk to [Department] personnel or property,” including on the basis of that journalist’s (or their news organization’s) receipt, publication, or “solicitation” of any information, classified or unclassified, that is not “authorized” by the Department. Under the Policy, such conduct—which is the bread and butter of independent journalism—is punishable by suspension of journalists' Pentagon access. Rather than subject themselves to these viewpoint-based restraints on their reporting and the limitless discretion of Administration officials to kick them out, New York Times reporters turned in their press credentials and sued, asserting violations of the First Amendment and due process. Thereafter, the new "Pentagon press corps" consisted of ideological allies of the Trump Administration. In January 2026, we and the National ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the New York Times' motion for summary judgment. Our brief placed the Pentagon policy in historical and global context. We argued that American history shows that scrupulous protection of the press’s right to disseminate information, without fear or favor to those in power, is essential to our democracy. From early American history, to World War I, to the Second Red Scare, our country has regretted the moments it has faltered in protecting the free press. And we argued that developments in other democracies and former democracies highlight the dangers of allowing the government to infringe on speech and press freedoms. Across the world—including in the Philippines, Hungary, Turkey, and Russia—democracies have backslid into repressive regimes with few freedoms after their institutions failed to hold the line on free expression. The lessons from history and other nations' experience should strengthen courts' resolve to apply the First Amendment rigorously, especially when the Trump Administration is relentlessly pursuing ideological conformity by attempting to punish or silence disfavored speech by lawyers, students, government employees, and universities, as well as journalists and media outlets. On March 20, 2026, the court ruled for the Times and held that the Pentagon's new rules violated both due process and the First Amendment, because the policy did not "provide fair notice of what routine, lawful journalistic practices will result in the denial, suspension, or revocation" of a press credential, and because the policy discriminated against journalists based on their viewpoint, "that is, whether the individual or organization is willing to publish only stories that are favorable to or spoon-fed by Department leadership." The court's opinion began: "A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription. Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now." Accordingly, the court enjoined the Pentagon's new rules. In response, the Pentagon promulgated a new policy that further closed off Pentagon access and used new language to restore a regime similar to the enjoined policy. On April 9, the court ordered the government to halt the new policy as well, explaining that it would not "permit such a blatant attempt to circumvent a lawful order of the Court to succeed." On April 10, the government appealed both orders to the D.C. Circuit.

A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (“SLAPP”) is a term for a legal action that is of little merit but is filed anyway for the purpose of stopping someone from engaging in (usually constitutionally protected) speech by burdening them with a costs of a lawsuit. In December of 2010, the D.C. Council passed, with our support, an Anti-SLAPP Act that provides a special procedure for people engaged in advocacy on public interest issues to have a court dismiss SLAPP suits quickly. One of the provisions of the Anti-SLAPP Act limits the discovery (that is, court-ordered exchange of information among the parties in a lawsuit) that can occur when the Anti-SLAPP Act’s protections are invoked. This is because discovery can be costly and time-consuming, so that even speakers who should obtain dismissal of a SLAPP might be chilled from speaking in the first place if they knew they could be forced to undergo discovery before dismissal. In this case, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the discovery limitations of the Anti-SLAPP Act were invalid because they modified D.C. court procedures in a manner inconsistent with the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973, by which Congress granted the District limited powers of self-government. Together with many other public interest groups, we filed an amicus brief in support of reconsidering this decision, in the hope that the court will restore the discovery protections for speakers hit with SLAPPs. For more information on Washington D.C.’s Anti-SLAPP Act, click on the following link: http://www.anti-slapp.org/your-states-free-speech-protection/ In January 2024, the court granted the petition for rehearing. In April 2024, we joined with other public interest groups once again to file an amicus brief on the merits discussing the importance of the Anti-SLAPP Act and its protections for public advocacy. In November 2025, the en banc court unanimously upheld the Anti-SLAPP Act as consistent with the Home Rule Act, clearing the way for the Anti-SLAPP Act to play its intended role in protecting free speech.