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Dr. David Phillips

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have favorably settled a lawsuit on behalf of a professor fired by North Carolina education officials after he spoke out about the harms of the racially divisive ideology the school was embracing.

As dictated by the settlement agreement, the North Carolina Governor’s School has paid Dr. David Phillips approximately four years of his annual stipend and adopted a policy to respect faculty free speech in its elective seminars—like the ones Phillips gave shortly before he was fired. The policy affirms the Governor’s School’s desire “to offer elective seminars that present a wide range of viewpoints.” And it states that the school “accords faculty members the freedom and responsibility to craft academic and intellectual experiences that reflect their unique viewpoints and expertise.”

In light of the settlement, ADF attorneys filed a voluntary dismissal of the case.

E.D. v. Noblesville School District

An Indiana high school student, E.D., and her pro-life student group are appealing a court decision against them in a lawsuit they filed after school officials derecognized the group because the student sought permission to post flyers that administrators found objectionable.

In August 2021, the student met with the principal of Noblesville High School to form a chapter of Students for Life of America. After E.D. completed all required steps, the school officially recognized the group. A few weeks later, though, E.D. sought permission to post flyers using a Students for Life of America template that included photographs of students holding signs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court reading, “I Reject Abortion,” “Defund Planned Parenthood,” and “I Am the Pro-Life Generation.” School staff insisted that she post the flyers without the pictures, telling her that the flyer could not be “political.” The same day E.D. met with an administrator about the flyers, the principal derecognized the group.

On behalf of E.D., Alliance Defending Freedom and Charitable Allies attorneys are appealing the lower court’s decision that restricts free speech for students.

B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced that his office and Alliance Defending Freedom will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case defending West Virginia’s commonsense law preventing men from competing in women’s sports.

In 2021, West Virginia passed the Save Women’s Sports Act, which ensures equal opportunities for women and girls in sports and protects their safety by making sure they are not forced to compete against males. The law was challenged in court by the ACLU, and ADF intervened in the lawsuit on behalf of Lainey Armistead, a former collegiate athlete who played soccer at West Virginia State University.

Although a federal district court ruled in favor of the West Virginia law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit stripped West Virginia of its ability to protect fairness in women’s sports. ADF is now asking the Supreme Court to reverse the 4th Circuit’s decision and make it clear that West Virginia’s law should be enforced and that Title IX’s promise of protecting equal opportunities for women and girls in sports must be upheld.

State of Idaho v. United States of America

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in State of Idaho v. United States of America. The Office of the Idaho Attorney General, with the assistance of experienced Supreme Court litigators from ADF and Cooper & Kirk PLLC, is asking the nation’s High Court to prevent the Biden administration from manipulating federal law to override Idaho’s Defense of Life Act.

In 2020, Idaho passed the Defense of Life Act to protect the lives of women and their unborn children, preventing doctors from performing abortions unless necessary to save the life of the mother. But in August 2022, the Biden administration sued the State, attempting to use the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to force Idaho emergency room doctors to violate state law and perform abortions. But EMTALA says nothing about abortion and actually requires that emergency rooms provide care for pregnant women and their “unborn child[ren].”

Both laws are consistent and seek to save lives. The Supreme Court should end the Biden administration’s lawlessness and uphold Idaho’s decision to protect life.

Labrador v. Poe

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to narrow a lower court’s order to apply only to the challengers and allow Idaho to otherwise enforce its law that protects children from harmful and experimental drugs and procedures. Although activists challenged only certain parts of Idaho’s commonsense law prohibiting so-called “gender transition” drugs and procedures for minors, the lower court stopped the state from enforcing its entire law statewide. This prevented Idaho from even protecting young children from irreversible drugs and surgeries that disfigure their bodies and stop their natural development. The Supreme Court’s ruling allows Idaho to protect children as the case proceeds.

Planned Parenthood Arizona v. Mayes

In a victory for life, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision and upheld the state’s pro-life law as written.

The lower court’s ruling misinterpreted state law, against its plain meaning, to allow abortion in circumstances where the Arizona legislature prohibited it. It also enjoined officials from fully enforcing the state’s pro-life law to protect unborn children. The Arizona Supreme Court reversed this ruling, allowing the law to be enforced as written.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent Dr. Eric Hazelrigg, an obstetrician and medical director of Choices Pregnancy Center in Arizona. In 2022, the Arizona Superior Court of Pima County appointed Dr. Hazelrigg as the substitute guardian ad litem to legally represent the best interests of unborn children in Arizona. In 2023, he filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to review the Arizona Court of Appeals ruling.

Holding the FDA Accountable at SCOTUS

Today, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Vice President of the Center for Life & Regulatory Practice Erin Hawley argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.

ADF is representing four national medical associations, their members, and four individual doctors against the FDA for unlawfully removing crucial safety standards for pregnant women who use abortion drugs. Over the past eight years, the agency has removed nearly all of its originally required safety standards that ensured women and girls had ongoing in-person medical care while taking these high-risk drugs, all the while acknowledging that roughly one in 25 women who take these drugs will end up in the emergency room.

Women should have the ongoing in-person care of a doctor when taking high-risk drugs, and the U.S. Supreme Court should affirm the 5th Circuit’s decision to hold the FDA accountable for unlawfully failing to protect the health and safety of women and girls.

Shane and Jennifer DeGross

After taking in vulnerable children for over nine years as foster parents, Shane and Jennifer DeGross sought to renew their foster-care license in 2022, hoping to continue serving as respite-care providers. During that process, they learned that the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) had enacted new regulations requiring all foster parents to express progressive views on human sexuality. Among other things, parents must agree to use inaccurate pronouns for a child based on the child’s professed gender identity and take children to events like pride parades.

Because of their Christian faith, the DeGrosses told their licensing agency, Olive Crest, that they would love and support any child placed in their home but could not lie to a child about who they are or encourage a child to reject their sex. Olive Crest sought an exemption from DCYF on the DeGrosses’ behalf, but DCYF officials rejected their application even after Olive Crest made more than one attempt to appeal the denial. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the DeGrosses against the state of Washington.

Every child deserves a loving home. Children suffer when the government discriminates and excludes people of faith from adoption and foster care.

Bella Health and Wellness v. Weiser

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a motion asking a Colorado federal court to allow Chelsea Mynyk, a licensed nurse practitioner and certified nurse midwife, to intervene in a lawsuit to defend her use of providing patients with abortion pill reversal (APR). The protocol is a safe and effective treatment for women who change their minds about abortion and is used to reverse the effects of chemical abortion drugs, saving the unborn child.

In April 2023, Colorado enacted a law that prohibits doctors and nurses from providing abortion pill reversal, forcing women to undergo abortions they wish to avoid. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sued Colorado on behalf of Bella Health and Wellness, a pro-life pregnancy center, and secured a preliminary injunction that prevents Colorado’s law from being enacted while the lawsuit continues. However, the injunction only applied to Bella Health and Wellness.

Mynyk runs her own clinic, Castle Rock Women’s Health, where she provides reproductive health care services to women. Mynyk, like Bella Health and Wellness, believes that she is compelled by her faith to provide APR to women who request it. She has requested to intervene in the lawsuit to defend her right to make sure she and other medical professionals can continue their life-saving work through APR.

Calvary Road Baptist Church v. Miyares

In settlement of an Alliance Defending Freedom lawsuit, Virginia officials have acknowledged that commonwealth law protects religious organizations’ ability to operate consistent with their faith.

In 2020, ADF attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Virginia churches, three Christian schools, and a pregnancy center network to challenge a Virginia law that forced nonprofit ministries to abandon their core convictions in hiring and other policies or face fines up to $100,000 for each violation.

As part of the settlement agreement, Virginia officials conceded that all of the ministries, as religious organizations, are free to only hire “individuals who profess and live according to religious beliefs held by [the ministries], including beliefs on abortion, marriage, sexuality, sex, and gender.” Further, Virginia officials agreed that commonwealth law protects the ministries from having to pay for or facilitate any gender dysphoria treatment that violates their religious teachings. Examples include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, so-called “sex reassignment” surgeries, or any other “gender transition” procedures.

ADF Testifies to Congress on the Dangers of De-banking

ADF Senior Counsel and SVP of Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco was invited to testify before the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the growing threat of de-banking, a practice of denying financial services based on a customer’s religious or political views. Tedesco explained that underlying these cancelations are vague and subjective policies that banks and government banking regulators can use to withdraw financial services based on a customer’s exercise of his or her First Amendment rights.

The Subcommittee also obtained documents that reveal that, as part of its efforts to urge financial institutions to monitor their customers to identify domestic threats, the U.S. Department of the Treasury shared a list of “hate groups” published by the hyper-partisan Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The list includes ADF and numerous other mainstream religious and conservative organizations that the federal government has associated with “domestic terrorists” and targeted for surveillance by major banks.

Youth 71Five Ministries v. Williams

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against Oregon state officials on behalf of a youth ministry that was stripped of state grant funding because it asks employees and volunteers to sign a statement of faith.

71Five Ministries serves young people in Oregon of all faiths and backgrounds, including at-risk youth, young people in detention centers and correctional facilities, and expectant and parenting teens. The ministry’s mission statement says it “exists to share God’s Story of Hope with young people through trusting relationships in any relevant way.” While the ministry serves all people, it achieves its goal through employees and volunteers who share its mission and beliefs, as outlined by its statement of faith. 71Five Ministries has previously applied for—and been granted—funds from Oregon’s biennial Youth Community Investment Grants program. But when it applied for 2023-2025 funding, the ministry was first approved and then denied funding due to a new rule that requires that applicants “do not discriminate” based on religion “in [their] employment practices.”

71Five Ministries is asking the court to protect its freedom to work with like-minded individuals who share and live out its religious beliefs and mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through its various youth mentorship programs.

David Bloch

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys reached a favorable settlement agreement with the Vermont Agency of Education, the Vermont Principals’ Association, and a Vermont school district on behalf of David Bloch, a high-school snowboarding coach.

In 2023, the district fired Bloch for respectfully expressing his view that males are biologically different than females and that those differences generally give males an advantage in sports. The district claimed that expressing his views violated the state-mandated Harassment, Hazing, and Bullying policy.

As part of the settlement, state and school officials agreed to pay $75,000 for terminating Coach Bloch’s job after he expressed his views. Both the Agency of Education and school district admitted that Coach Bloch’s conversation did not violate the policy.

Christian Employers Alliance

In a victory for religious employers, a federal district court ruled that the Biden administration cannot force non-profit and for-profit religious employers and healthcare providers to violate their religious beliefs by paying for and performing harmful “gender transition” surgeries, procedures, counseling, and treatments.

In 2021, ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Both agencies misinterpreted and improperly threatened enforcement of prohibitions against “sex discrimination” as if they included “gender identity discrimination.” These mandates would have forced religious employers to provide health insurance coverage for “gender transition” surgeries and procedures, and they would have coerced religious healthcare providers who receive federal funding to physically perform or facilitate surgeries and procedures that conflict with their deeply held beliefs.

The federal court ruled in CEA’s favor, saying, “CEA’s religious beliefs are substantially burdened by the monetary penalties it faces for refusing to violate its beliefs.” The ruling blocks EEOC or HHS from punishing any CEA member under these mandates.

National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee v. Copyright Royalty Board and Librarian of Congress

Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to hear the case of religious broadcasters challenging government officials’ discrimination against their speech by charging them exponentially higher rates to stream music online than secular National Public Radio broadcasters.

In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed a decision by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board that set rates that are 18 times higher for religious noncommercial webcasters with an audience above a modest 218-listener threshold than the average rate for secular NPR stations. The lawsuit argues that this favoritism unfairly suppresses religious speakers and their religious speech online and violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment.

Turning Point USA at SUNY Cortland v. Cortland College Student Association

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing two students and their Turning Point USA chapter against State University of New York Cortland officials and the student government association for withholding recognized student organization status because of TPUSA’s views.

During the fall semester, SUNY Cortland students Gabriella Delorenzo and Megan Rothmund assembled with other students to form a TPUSA chapter at the university to bring together students who value freedom, free markets, and limited government. But the Student Government’s Student Senate withheld recognized group status to the chapter because some students and a professor disagreed with the national TPUSA organization’s views. When the students raised the issue with SUNY Cortland President Erik Bitterbaum, he warned that they would likely be denied if they applied again, telling them, “We silence voices all the time in this country. That’s the tragedy and also the greatness of democracy.”

Labrador v. Poe

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, with the assistance of attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom and Cooper & Kirk, filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. Supreme Court to narrow a lower court’s order and allow Idaho to otherwise enforce its Vulnerable Child Protection Act. The law protects children from dangerous and often irreversible drugs and procedures that block their natural development and remove healthy body parts.

Although the activists have only challenged certain parts of Idaho’s commonsense law, the lower court stopped Idaho from enforcing its entire law state-wide, prohibiting the state from even protecting children under age five from surgeries that disfigure their bodies. Idaho is now appealing to the Supreme Court.

Celebrating 30 Years

“For 30 years, ADF has been privileged to contend for truth and freedom in law, policy, and the public square and to help equip an alliance to do the same. By God’s grace, we stand today as the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, parental rights, and marriage and family. Since 2011, ADF has served as counsel in 15 U.S. Supreme Court victories and dozens of victories in international tribunals. We remain relentlessly committed to advancing every person’s God-given right to live and speak the truth.”

Kristen Waggoner—CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom

Vitsaxaki v. Skaneateles Central School District

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed suit against a New York school district after officials there began treating a middle-school girl as a boy without her mother’s knowledge or consent.

Jennifer Vitsaxaki withdrew her daughter from Skaneateles Central School District when the 2020-2021 school year concluded once she learned that school employees had begun to treat her daughter as a boy. Without notifying Mrs. Vitsaxaki or seeking her consent, employees began to refer to her daughter with a masculine name and third-person plural pronouns inconsistent with her daughter’s sex. When Mrs. Vitsaxaki confronted school officials, they defended their actions, citing district policy.

By socially transitioning Mrs. Vitsaxaki’s daughter without her consent and by concealing vital information about her daughter’s health and well-being, the district violated Mrs. Vitsaxaki’s fundamental parental rights and her deeply held religious beliefs protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Church of Compassion v. Johnson

In a victory for religious liberty, attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Center for Law and Policy, and Advocates for Faith and Freedom have reached a favorable settlement with California state officials on behalf of Church of Compassion and Dayspring Christian Learning Center.

In 2022, California officials—relying in part on the Biden administration’s reinterpretation of federal law—unlawfully suspended the church and preschool from participating in the Child and Adult Food Care Program simply because of their religious beliefs about human sexuality. Church of Compassion and Dayspring help feed needy children in its daycare and preschool during the school year and summer. El Cajon, where the church and preschool are located, has a large immigrant population, and many of the families served by the church and preschool qualify for free meals under the food program.

As part of the settlement, the officials acknowledged that Church of Compassion and Dayspring Christian Learning Center, as faith-based organizations, are free to continue participating in the federal food program while following their religious beliefs. The officials also agreed to reimburse the church over $30,000 for the money it paid out of pocket to continue providing meals for families while it was unlawfully kicked out of the program, and agreed to pay $160,000 to cover the church’s attorneys’ fees.

State of Idaho v. United States of America

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a case in which the Biden administration is attempting to require Idaho’s emergency room doctors to violate state law.

Idaho’s Defense of Life Act protects the lives of women and their unborn children, preventing doctors from performing abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother. But in 2022, the Biden Administration sued Idaho, claiming that it could use the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to force emergency room doctors to perform abortions. But EMTALA says nothing about abortion and actually requires that emergency rooms provide life-saving care to everyone regardless of ability to pay, including pregnant women and their “unborn child[ren].”

After a lower court prevented Idaho from enforcing its law, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, together with ADF and Cooper & Kirk, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent the Biden administration from continuing to misuse EMTALA to force doctors to take vulnerable lives. The Court agreed to hear the case and allowed Idaho to continue to protect women and their unborn children as the litigation continues. The Supreme Court will hear argument in this case in April.

State of Texas v. Becerra

In a pivotal victory for women, children, and healthcare professionals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Biden administration cannot misuse federal law to force emergency room doctors to take vulnerable lives.

ADF attorneys representing the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, alongside the state of Texas, asked the court to keep in place a lower court ruling halting the Biden administration from distorting the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to force doctors to perform abortions and refuse life-saving care to unborn children. The appeals court unanimously agreed the administration acted unlawfully. Doctors should be free to save people’s lives, not end them, including pregnant women and their unborn children.

Roe v. Critchfield

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, together with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, urging it to uphold a district court decision that allowed Idaho to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of all K-12 students in public school’s locker rooms, showers, restrooms, and overnight stays.

In March 2023, Idaho enacted a law protecting children’s privacy by ensuring that sex-specific facilities in K-12 public schools like showers, locker rooms, restrooms, and overnight accommodations remained sex-specific, while allowing single-user facilities for those who prefer otherwise. But activists sued Idaho State Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield and the state board of education in July demanding that K-12 public schools force girls to share private spaces with men and vice-versa. After a lower court ruled to uphold Idaho’s common-sense law, the activists appealed, and the 9th Circuit granted them an injunction pending appeal, halting enforcement of the law.

ADF is urging the 9th Circuit to uphold Idaho’s law and protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of girls and boys.

Mead v. Rockford Public School District

Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit against a Michigan school district on behalf of a mother and father after district employees began treating the couple’s middle-school daughter as a boy without their knowledge or consent and taking steps to conceal these actions from the parents.

Dan and Jennifer Mead withdrew their daughter from the eighth grade at East Rockford Middle School in October 2022 after district employees, acting in compliance with Rockford Public School District policy, treated their daughter as a boy by referring to her by a masculine name and male pronouns without notifying the Meads or seeking their consent. Employees had altered some of the girl’s official records to remove references to the district’s new name and pronouns for her before sending the records home. The Meads only discovered the district’s actions when an employee unintentionally failed to completely alter a report about their daughter before sharing it with them.

The U.S. Constitution protects the Meads’ right as parents to make decisions about the upbringing, education, and health care of their children. By concealing this important information, the district violated their fundamental parental rights.

First Choice Women's Resource Centers v. Platkin

Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit against New Jersey’s attorney general on behalf of a Christian, pro-life, medical nonprofit that serves pregnant mothers, mothers of newborns, and fathers.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin selectively targeted First Choice Women’s Resource Centers based on its religious speech and pro-life views with a wide-ranging, unfounded, and burdensome subpoena that requires the organization to expend its limited resources to produce extensive documentation or face judicial sanctions. The attorney general does not refer to any substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his onerous demands.

Platkin also sought help from Planned Parenthood to draft his office’s consumer alert warning New Jerseyans about pregnancy centers. The attorney general’s demands violate the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and are designed to leverage the threat of sanctions under New Jersey law to frustrate First Choice’s pro-life ministry.

Country Mill Farms

To settle a lawsuit brought by a Catholic farmer, the city of East Lansing has agreed to protect Country Mill Farms’ constitutional right to operate according to its religious beliefs and also agreed to pay $825,000 ($41,199 in damages and $783,801 in attorneys’ fees).

In 2017, after Steve Tennes posted on Facebook that he follows the Catholic Church’s teachings about marriage, including when he participates in weddings at his family’s farm, city officials enacted a new market policy to prohibit Tennes and Country Mill Farms from participating in the city’s farmer’s market. In August 2023, a federal district court ruled that the city had violated the Tennes’s Free Exercise rights.

As part of the settlement agreement, the city of East Lansing agreed that Tennes is free to continue running his business in accordance with his religious beliefs about marriage without jeopardizing his ability to participate in the city’s farmer’s market.

Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit reinstated the case of four female athletes—Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Alanna Smith, and Ashley Nicoletti—challenging a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that allows males who identify as female to compete in girls’ athletic events. All four athletes have been deprived of placements, honors, or opportunities to compete at elite track-and-field levels by male athletes permitted to compete against them.

The 2nd Circuit ruling revives the lawsuit and allows the case to proceed in federal district court. There, the female athletes will seek a merits ruling in favor of fairness and equal opportunities for female athletes under Title IX.

Peter Vlaming

In a sweeping victory for free speech and religious freedom, the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated Peter Vlaming’s lawsuit against the West Point School Board, overturning a circuit court’s decision to dismiss it.

Peter Vlaming had taught French at West Point High School for nearly six years and always received glowing reviews. But the school board fired Vlaming after he stated he couldn’t in good conscience comply with the superintendent’s demand that he refer to one of his students using pronouns inconsistent with the student’s sex. Vlaming tried to accommodate the student by consistently using the student’s new preferred name and by avoiding the use of pronouns. But school officials ordered him to stop avoiding the use of pronouns to refer to the student, even when the student wasn’t present, and to start using pronouns inconsistent with the student’s sex. Because Vlaming couldn’t comply with that demand in good conscience, the school fired him.

Thankfully, in its ruling, the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed Vlaming’s constitutional right not to be forced to pledge “verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate [his] sincerely held religious beliefs.” The case will be sent back to the trial court for further proceedings.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine

Following petitions from the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear ADF’s case challenging the FDA’s removal of critical safeguards for the chemical abortion drug regimen. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and a federal court in Texas already ruled in ADF’s favor, agreeing that the FDA’s actions in eliminating safeguards for women and authorizing dangerous mail-order chemical abortion drugs were unlawful.

Brian Tingley

Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case of Brian Tingley, who was challenging Washington state’s counseling censorship law. The Ninth Circuit upheld this law which censors and prohibits certain private client-counselor conversations regarding sexual orientation and gender identity that the government disfavors while allowing—even encouraging—conversations the government favors.

Such a law violates Brian’s freedom of speech and infringes on his religious freedom and that of his clients, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has held such laws unconstitutional. Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito dissented in the denial of certiorari, noting that 20 other states and the District of Columbia have similar laws. The issue isn’t going away, and the Court will likely have to rule whether such laws violate the First Amendment in the future.

Moms for Liberty - Yolo County v. Lopez

ADF and the Institute for Free Speech filed a lawsuit against Yolo County Library officials for violating the First Amendment rights of several women and their groups who met in a local library to discuss the harms of allowing men to participate in women’s sports.

Moms for Liberty–Yolo County, Independent Council on Women’s Sports, California Family Council, and several parental rights and women’s advocates are challenging library officials for removing them from a public building during an event hosted by the Moms for Liberty chapter. A library official shut down the forum after only a few minutes, claiming that referring to male athletes in women’s sports as “men” violates library policy.

Free speech is for everyone. Women have the right to speak out about their concerns about men participating in their sports, and library officials can’t silence their speech simply because they disagree with it.

Obria Group v. Ferguson

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing two faith-based, pro-life nonprofits against the attorney general of Washington state for conducting an unconstitutional and unlawful investigation into the organizations’ privileged records and materials, singling out the nonprofits because of their life-affirming views.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued civil investigative demands that dictate that Obria Group and Obria Medical Groups PNW provide answers to questions and production of documents spanning 13 years under the pretense of conducting a civil investigation into “possible” violations of Washington’s Consumer Protection Act. The information and documentation demanded by the civil investigative demands is so expansive that they would sweep up massive amounts of information and confidential internal communications and documents that are unrelated to the attorney general’s stated purpose for the investigation, or beyond the statute of limitations.

Such unreasonably overbroad, invasive, selective, and burdensome investigative demands violate the pro-life organizations’ constitutional rights.

Mid Vermont Christian School

ADF filed a federal lawsuit against Vermont officials for denying Mid Vermont Christian School and its students from participating in the state’s tuition program and sports league because of their religious beliefs about gender and sexuality.

Vermont, through its Agency of Education and the Vermont Principals’ Association, is requiring private, religious schools like Mid Vermont Christian to adopt the state’s view on human sexuality and gender as a condition to participate in the state’s tuition program and athletic association. Doing so violates the First Amendment rights of Mid Vermont Christian, its students and families, and other faith-based schools by preventing them from practicing their religious beliefs.

Drummond v. Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board

ADF filed a brief with the Oklahoma Supreme Court opposing a petition filed by the state attorney general. In the case, Attorney General Gentner Drummond is asking the court to cancel the contract that the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board entered with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School solely because St. Isidore is Catholic.

On June 5, the board approved a revised application to establish St. Isidore as a statewide virtual charter school. Attorney General Drummond filed a lawsuit last month against the board, claiming it violated state law. But, as ADF attorneys explain in their brief, the board members took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that religious groups cannot be excluded from generally available programs solely because of their religious character.

State of Idaho v. United States of America

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, together with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom and Cooper & Kirk, filed an emergency application for stay pending appeal last Monday with the Supreme Court.

In the case, the Biden administration is putting pregnant women and unborn children at risk by unlawfully attempting to force doctors to perform dangerous abortions that are illegal under Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. The emergency application asks the nation’s high court to respect Idaho’s decision to protect the lives of women and their unborn children and immediately halt a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that held that the administration could misuse the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act to force emergency room doctors to facilitate abortion.

Päivi Räsänen

In a victory for free speech, the Helsinki Court of Appeal has dismissed all charges against Finnish Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, who were both tried for “hate speech” in August after publicly expressing their Christian beliefs. The unanimous appeals court ruling upheld the district court’s March 2022 unanimous acquittal.

Räsänen, Finland’s former Interior Minister and a grandmother of 11, was formally charged with “agitation against a minority group” in 2021 for sharing her Christian beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a 2019 tweet, in addition to a 2019 live radio debate and 2004 church pamphlet. Pohjola was charged for publishing Räsänen’s 2004 pamphlet. The case has garnered global media attention as human rights experts voiced concern over the threat posed to free speech.

Bob Updegrove

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, ADF has successfully settled a lawsuit on behalf of Virginia photographer Bob Updegrove.

Back in 2020, Updegrove filed suit challenging the so-called Virginia Values Act that would have required him to offer and create photography celebrating same-sex weddings because he offered to create photography celebrating opposite-sex weddings. The prior Attorney General of Virginia defended the law’s reach to expressive artists like Updegrove, which went so far as to prohibit Updegrove from publicly explaining on his studio’s own website his religious reasons for only celebrating wedding ceremonies between a man and a woman. The law also threatened initial fines of up to $50,000 and then $100,000 per additional violation, along with court orders that could have forced Updegrove to create photography for events that went against his conscience if he wanted to stay in business.

Thankfully, as part of the settlement, Virginia officials acknowledged that—as the Supreme Court affirmed in 303 Creative—the Constitution protects Updegrove’s right to create wedding photography consistent with his beliefs and that he is free to communicate his business policy regarding his religious beliefs on marriage.

Darren Patterson Christian Academy v. Roy

A federal district court ruled to allow Darren Patterson Christian Academy to participate in Colorado’s universal preschool program consistent with its religious beliefs while the school’s lawsuit proceeds.

Earlier this year, Darren Patterson Christian Academy applied for and obtained approval to participate in Colorado’s new universal preschool program, which guarantees every four-year-old in the state at least 15 hours per week of state-funded preschool services for this school year. The Colorado Department of Early Childhood, however, mandated that, for the school to participate in the program and receive critical state funding, it must hire employees who do not share its faith and alter internal rules and policies that are based on the school’s religious beliefs about sexuality and gender—including those that relate to restroom usage, pronouns, dress codes, and student housing during expeditions and field trips. To protect its ability to participate in the program without compromising its religious beliefs, the school requested an exemption in May of this year, but the department denied that request.

T.F. and B.F. v. Kettle Moraine School District

In a victory for parental rights, a Wisconsin court ruled that Kettle Moraine School District’s policy of changing students’ names and using new pronouns at school without parental consent (and over parents’ objection) violates parents’ rights.

In November 2021, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys challenged the policy on behalf of two sets of Wisconsin parents. One of the couples suing the school district was forced to withdraw their then 12-year-old daughter from the district to protect her mental health and preserve their parental role. The district violated their constitutionally protected freedoms by insisting that school staff use a male name and male pronouns to address their daughter at school regardless of the parents’ objection. The other couple joined the lawsuit to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to their children.

Parents have the right to direct the upbringing of their children. School officials do not have the right to make major decisions about a child’s mental health without the parents’ knowledge and consent.

Jack Phillips

The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to take the case of cake artist Jack Phillips and his business Masterpiece Cakeshop, the third such lawsuit to target them.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis that upheld free speech for all, ADF attorneys filed a supplemental notice with the Colorado Supreme Court asking it to apply that ruling and similarly affirm Phillips’ free speech rights in Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop. An activist attorney and Colorado officials have misused the same state law that was at issue in 303 Creative to punish Phillips for more than a decade.

Liam Morrison

Sixteen states and a number of advocacy organizations have united in support of Liam Morrison’s freedom of speech in friend-of-the-court briefs filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. After a district court ruled against Liam in August, ADF attorneys appealed to the 1st Circuit.

In May, ADF and the Massachusetts Family Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of Morrison. After he wore a t-shirt to school saying, “There are only two genders,” the principal of the school, along with a school counselor, pulled Morrison out of class and ordered him to remove his shirt. After he politely declined, school officials said that he must remove the shirt to return to class. As a result, Morrison left school and missed the rest of his classes that day. Once school officials censored his original message, Morrison chose to wear an altered shirt that reads, “There are censored genders” to protest the fact that only some messages about gender are allowed. As soon as Morrison arrived at school, his teacher instructed him to go to the principal’s office, where he was told that he could not wear that shirt at school either.

Students don’t forfeit their free speech when they walk into the school building.

Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee v. Statewide Virtual Charter School Board

ADF filed a motion on behalf of Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee. The motion seeks to defend the board’s decision to allow religious groups to seek public funding for privately operated charter schools, as protected by the First Amendment.

On June 5, the board approved a revised application to establish St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School as a statewide virtual charter school. The Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee then sued to overturn the board’s approval of St. Isidore. However, as ADF attorneys explain in the motion to dismiss, the case is premature because many of the steps necessary to establish St. Isidore as a statewide virtual charter school have not yet occurred.

Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution protect St. Isidore’s freedom to operate according to its faith and the school board’s decision to approve such learning options for Oklahoma families.

Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore

To settle a federal lawsuit brought by Alliance Defending Freedom, the city of Jacksonville has agreed that Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore is an exempt religious organization under city law and Title VII. As such, the for-profit bookstore is now free to operate according to its Catholic beliefs.

In February 2023, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of the bookstore challenging a city law that threatened to silence the religious views of the bookstore and its owner, Christie DeTrude, and to require them to engage in expression contrary to Catholic beliefs. Like similar laws across the country, the Jacksonville law threatened to require the bookstore to use pronouns of customers contrary to their sex and to stop the bookstore from explaining its beliefs about gender identity on its website. The bookstore serves all customers and gladly sells its products to anybody, but DeTrude and her bookstore staff cannot speak messages that violate their faith.

After the district court found that the law credibly threatened the bookstore’s First Amendment rights, Jacksonville agreed to a settlement exempting the bookstore from its law.

Right to Life of Central California v. Bonta

In a victory for free speech and life, California state officials have agreed to a settlement protecting Right to Life of Central California’s free speech and paying $192,706 in attorneys’ fees.

In October 2021, Gavin Newsom signed SB 742 into law, which banned certain free-speech activities when a speaker is within 30 feet of another person and that other person is “in a public way or on a sidewalk area” and “within 100 feet of the entrance or exit of a vaccination site and is seeking to enter or exit a vaccination site.” This restricted Right to Life’s ability to peaceably offer charitable services to women in need on the public sidewalk and street outside its own building—and even its own parking lot—because Right to Life is located next to a Planned Parenthood abortion facility that administers the HPV vaccine.

Thankfully, as part of the settlement secured by Alliance Defending Freedom, California officials agreed to not enforce the discriminatory parts of the law against Right to Life or any speaker.

GenBioPro v. Sorsaia

A federal district court partially dismissed a lawsuit from chemical abortion drug manufacturer GenBioPro that had targeted the state’s pro-life laws, upholding the majority of the state’s Unborn Child Protection Act and other pro-life legal provisions.

GenBioPro, which manufactures the generic chemical abortion drug mifepristone, asked the court to render the state’s pro-life laws unconstitutional, claiming that Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to mandate nationwide access to dangerous chemical abortions—preempting West Virginia’s duly-enacted pro-life laws that protect the lives of the unborn and mothers. The court rejected most of those arguments, ruling that the state is free to pass and enforce pro-life laws. The only part of the state’s near-total protection for life that the court found could still be challenged is the law ensuring women see a physician in person before receiving chemical abortion drugs.

ADF will continue assisting West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the remainder of the continuing lawsuit.

Country Mill Farms

A federal district court ruled that Country Mill Farms owner Steve Tennes is free to continue participating in the East Lansing farmer’s market. In its ruling, the court wrote that Tennes and Country Mill Farms “were forced to choose between following their religious beliefs and a government benefit for which they were otherwise qualified,” thus violating their free exercise rights.

Back in 2017, Tennes and his farm sued the city of East Lansing after officials excluded Tennes from the market because of his religious beliefs. After Tennes posted, in response to a question on Facebook, that he follows the Catholic Church’s teachings about marriage, including when he participates in weddings at his family’s farm, city officials enacted a policy to prohibit Tennes and Country Mill Farms from participating in the city’s farmer’s market. The city used a discretionary system of individual assessments to ban only Tennes from market participation, even though Tennes and his family farm have always served everyone at the farmer’s market and have never received any complaints against them.

Eknes-Tucker v. Governor of the State of Alabama

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit lifted a lower court’s injunction on an Alabama state law that protects children from harmful and unnecessary medical procedures. The 11th Circuit’s order allows the law to take effect while the case proceeds.

The lawsuit (formerly Boe v. Marshall) was brought by activist groups and professionals with large financial interests in pushing harmful puberty-blockers, potentially sterilizing cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries upon children too young to understand the long-term implications for their lives. The Biden administration is also supporting the lawsuit.

Alliance Defending Freedom is assisting the state of Alabama in defense of its commonsense law protecting vulnerable children.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration

In a victory for women’s health, a unanimous panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must restore critical safeguards for chemical abortion drugs and disallow their shipment by mail.

The court’s ruling prohibits abortion providers from sending chemical abortion drugs through the mail, which the FDA had been allowing since 2021. Additionally, in 2016, the FDA extended the permissible gestational age during pregnancy for which a girl or woman may take chemical abortion drugs from seven to 10 weeks, removed two of three required office visits, allowed non-doctors to prescribe the drug regimen, and eliminated the requirement that providers report non-fatal adverse events to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. The 5th Circuit also held that the FDA’s 2016 action violated the Administrative Procedure Act and upheld the district court’s conclusion reinstating the original 2000 safeguards.

The decision will not go into effect until the Supreme Court has the opportunity to review it. The Biden administration intends to appeal the decision to the High Court. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing four medical associations and four doctors experienced in caring for pregnant and post-abortive women in this lawsuit.

The Frederick Douglass Foundation v. District of Columbia

In a major free speech ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit allowed the First Amendment claims of two pro-life organizations that sought to chalk a pro-life message on a city sidewalk to move forward.

In June 2020, the D.C. mayor commissioned a mural reading “Black Lives Matter” in permanent yellow paint. Protestors quickly added their “Defund the Police” message to the mural and painted other permanent protest art on D.C. streets and private property. The city left these favored messages in place for months. Yet when the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Students for Life of America sought to use chalk to display a different message—“Black Pre-Born Lives Matter”—on a public street outside of the D.C. Planned Parenthood facility, police arrested them. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represented both organizations in court.

Thankfully, the court’s ruling affirms that free speech is for everyone and that city officials can’t censor messages they disagree with.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic v. Stein

Alliance Defending Freedom filed a response brief on behalf of North Carolina Speaker of the House Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger asking the court to uphold the state’s pro-life laws. Abortionists are challenging North Carolina’s amended pro-life laws, including the state’s requirement that doctors perform an ultrasound to screen for an ectopic pregnancy before distributing chemical abortion drugs and mandating that abortions be performed in a hospital after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

North Carolina should be free to protect the health and safety of women and girls, safeguard life, and ensure that women have real support.

Maggie DeJong

Alliance Defending Freedom has favorably settled a case against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville officials on behalf of former art therapy grad student Maggie DeJong.

In February 2022, SIUE officials issued no-contact orders against DeJong, prohibiting her from having “any contact” or even “indirect communication” with three fellow graduate students who complained that her expression of religious and political viewpoints constituted “harassment” and “discrimination.” After receiving a letter from ADF, the university eventually rescinded the no-contact orders and closed its baseless investigation of DeJong, but not before violating her First Amendment rights and tarnishing her reputation.

As part of the settlement agreement, ADF attorneys will conduct a First Amendment training session with three professors at SIUE. University officials also agreed to revise both their policies and student handbook to ensure students with varying political, religious, and ideological views are welcome in the art therapy program. In addition, university officials paid $80,000 in damages and attorneys fees.

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Clark

Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates and two pregnancy care centers challenging a Vermont law unconstitutionally restricting the centers’ speech and provision of services.

In May 2023, Gov. Phil Scott signed SB 37 into law. The law censors the centers’ ability to advertise their services and precludes the ability of centers to offer even non-medical services, information, and counseling unless provided by a licensed health care provider. The law applies only to pro-life pregnancy centers, who do not provide or refer for abortion. An abortion clinic that provides identical information would not be subject to the law. Under the law, the state attorney general also has the authority to fine pregnancy centers up to $10,000 if she believes its life-affirming messages are “misleading,” which the law does not define.

Pregnancy centers should be free to serve women and offer the support they need without fear of unjust government punishment.

Jack Phillips

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a supplemental notice with the Colorado Supreme Court asking it to apply that ruling and similarly affirm the First Amendment right of cake artist Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop to create custom art promoting messages consistent with his beliefs. An activist attorney and Colorado officials have misused the same state law that was at issue in 303 Creative to punish Phillips for more than a decade.

Phillips, now in his third lawsuit, appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court in April 2023 after a lower appeals court held that the state can force Phillips to express messages that violate his beliefs. But as the Supreme Court affirmed in the 303 Creative decision, the government can’t force Americans to express things they don’t believe. Free speech is for everyone, and the government can’t misuse public-accommodation laws to compel Jack to create custom art expressing messages he does not believe.

Bloch v. Bouchey

David Bloch founded the snowboarding team at Woodstock Union High School in 2011 and has served as head coach every year since. Under his leadership, the program has had success both on and off the slopes, including a number of individual state champions. Bloch is also a practicing Roman Catholic who believes that God creates males and females with immutable sex, and that, based on scientific evidence, there are only two sexes as determined by a person’s chromosomes.

In February 2023, Bloch’s team was set to compete against a team that had a male snowboarder who identifies as a female and competes against females. After overhearing a conversation between two of his athletes discussing the snowboarder, Bloch joined the conversation, commenting that biological differences give males an advantage in athletic competitions. The conversation was respectful, lasted no more than three minutes, and took place entirely outside the presence of the snowboarder in question.

But for sharing those views in that brief conversation, school officials terminated his employment and barred him from future jobs in the school district. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Coach Bloch to vindicate his right to free speech.

Chelsey Nelson & Emilee Carpenter

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, Alliance Defending Freedom is asking two federal courts of appeal to affirm the First Amendment rights of two photographers and bloggers: Chelsey Nelson and Emilee Carpenter. ADF filed supplemental briefs in both cases explaining why 303 Creative protects the photographers’ freedom to create messages consistent with their faith.

ADF filed suit on Nelson’s behalf to stop the city of Louisville from threatening her and violating her First Amendment rights by forcing her to create messages about marriage that she does not believe. In August 2022, a federal district court upheld Nelson’s freedom to create photographs and write blogs that align with her religious beliefs. Louisville appealed that decision to the 6th Circuit.

In Carpenter’s case, ADF attorneys are asking the 2nd Circuit to uphold the photographer’s First Amendment rights and reverse a district court’s ruling that concluded the state of New York can force her to create photographs and blogs inconsistent with her beliefs. New York’s laws threaten Carpenter with fines of up to $100,000, a revoked business license, and up to a year in jail.

State of Texas and Mayo Pharmacy v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

A federal district court allowed a North Dakota pharmacy’s lawsuit against the Biden administration to proceed, rejecting the administration’s attempt to dismiss the case challenging the administration’s unlawful use of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to advance its radical abortion agenda.

In July 2022, HHS issued a mandate that requires pharmacies that serve patients with Medicare, Medicaid, or other federally funded coverage to stock and dispense elective abortion drugs. The Biden administration threatened legal action against any pharmacy that does not comply, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

In March 2023, Alliance Defending Freedom added Mayo Pharmacy—an independent pharmacy in Bismarck, North Dakota, run by Catholic pharmacist Kevin Martian, PharmD—to a lawsuit the state of Texas filed challenging the Biden administration’s mandate. In the amended complaint, ADF’s and Texas’ attorneys explain that the administration’s pharmacy mandate directly conflicts with multiple federal statutes and Texas’ pro-life laws.

B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education

Newly obtained information has revealed that a middle-school male athlete competing on a West Virginia girls’ track team and suing to challenge the state’s law protecting women’s sports has displaced more than 100 female athletes more than 280 times and denied two girls spots in a conference championship.

In 2021, West Virginia enacted a law to ensure equal athletic opportunities for women. The male athlete, who attends Bridgeport Middle School, asked the 4th Circuit to halt enforcement of the law while on appeal so the athlete could compete on the girls’ track team. The court granted the request, relying on the athlete’s repeated assurances that the injunction “will harm no one.” However, since the court entered the injunction, the male athlete’s physical advantage and athletic ability have dramatically improved to the point that the athlete is repeatedly taking away athletic opportunities from girls.

In light of the significant new facts, Alliance Defending Freedom and the state attorney general’s office filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit asking it to suspend the injunction that is holding up full implementation of the law.

Hodes & Nauser v. Kobach

Since 1997, Kansas has guaranteed reasonable, commonsense measures to ensure that women undergoing abortion do so only after they are fully informed and voluntarily consent to the procedure. The Women’s Right to Know Act is designed to inform women of the risks of abortion, the alternatives to it, the stages of an unborn child’s development, as well as assistance available for those who choose to carry their babies to term. The statute also requires doctors to meet with women in advance to answer any questions the woman may have about the procedure.

Planned Parenthood and other abortionists in the state are challenging this law. Alliance Defending Freedom is serving as co-counsel with Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office to defend the state’s pro-life and pro-woman law.

303 Creative v. Elenis

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-3 in 303 Creative v. Elenis that Colorado cannot punish graphic artist Lorie Smith for creating art consistent with her beliefs. The Supreme Court’s ruling upholds the free speech rights of all Americans, reaffirming that the government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe. The decision also ensures that states can continue to use public-accommodation laws to stop discrimination based on who someone is while also protecting everyone’s right to free speech.

Darren Patterson Christian Academy v. Roy

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Darren Patterson Christian Academy against Colorado state officials for forcing the school to choose between staying true to its religious beliefs and participation in the state’s universal preschool program.

In April 2022, Colorado enacted a law that guarantees every four-year-old in the state at least 15 hours per week of state-funded preschool services for the upcoming school year. Darren Patterson Christian Academy in Buena Vista obtained approval to participate in Colorado’s new universal preschool program, set to go into effect July 2023. However, the Colorado Department of Early Childhood is requiring that for schools to participate in the program and receive critical state funding, they must hire employees who do not share their faith and alter internal rules and policies that are based on the schools’ religious beliefs about sexuality and gender—including those that relate to restroom usage, pronouns, dress codes, and student lodging during and field trips. Unless the school agrees to violate its religious beliefs, it will lose valuable tuition reimbursement from the state.

The government may not deny participation in a public program simply due to a school’s religious beliefs.

Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic

In light of its recent decision in Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Alliance Defending Freedom's petition in Kerr v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, vacated the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit's decision, and remanded the case back to that court to reconsider its ruling. The outcome will decide whether pro-life states like South Carolina can direct Medicaid funds away from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

ADF had filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to hear the case and affirm that the Medicaid Act does not create a private right for Medicaid recipients to challenge a state’s decision about whether specific providers like Planned Parenthood are qualified to receive taxpayer funding.

States should be able to use taxpayer dollars consistent with their own laws. No citizen should have to fund facilities that perform life-ending procedures like abortion.

Church of Compassion v. Johnson

For nearly twenty years, Church of Compassion’s preschool and daycare program, Dayspring Christian Learning Center, has participated in a federal food program that provides reimbursements for meals and snacks to needy children in El Cajon, CA. In 2022, however, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) unlawfully suspended Dayspring from participating in the food program simply because of their beliefs about human sexuality.

The Biden administration radically expanded its interpretation of the definition of “sex” in Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity. This led the CDSS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (which oversees the program) to issue new government mandates that would have forced the daycare to hire those who do not share its faith and adopt policies on restroom usage, dress codes, and pronouns that conflict with its religious beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Center for Law and Policy, and Advocates for Faith and Freedom are representing Church of Compassion and its daycare program for the right to maintain its religious beliefs while serving needy children. CDSS’s decision to remove Church of Compassion from the program directly hurts children in their community. The government should not let kids go hungry simply because they attend a Christian school.

University at Buffalo Young Americans for Freedom

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing a Young Americans for Freedom chapter and three students at the University at Buffalo against university officials and the Student Association after they derecognized the conservative student group and disallowed them from receiving the same benefits as other student groups.

Young Americans for Freedom has existed as a registered student organization at the University at Buffalo since 2017 and has had over 100 members. But in March 2023, two weeks after Young Americans for Freedom hosted a conservative speaker on campus, the Student Association revised its policies that govern recognition of clubs and prohibited them from being chapters of national organizations. The timing of the revision together with the fact that the Student Association president sought legal counsel and told the Student Association Senate, “We all know why we’re doing this,” demonstrates that they were targeting Young Americans for Freedom and its views. Despite the new policy, other student organizations with similar purposes are still allowed to be chapters of outside organizations and receive official recognition.

Universities can’t pick and choose which student groups are allowed on campus.

Barbieri v. Jeitschko

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing two students from Michigan State University after their professor, Amy Wisner, forced students to pay fees to advance political messages that conflict with the students’ deeply held beliefs.

Two students, Nathan Barbieri and Nolan Radomski, enrolled in Wisner’s “Business Communication” course, which is required for their degree at MSU. As a requirement for the course, Wisner compelled each of her nearly 600 students to pay a $99 membership fee to join an outside political advocacy organization called “The Rebellion Community”—a group which she controlled. She would then donate these proceeds (almost $60,000 just in that semester) to external groups like Planned Parenthood—groups that engaged in political activity antithetical to the students’ sincerely held religious beliefs.

This is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Professors cannot force students to fund their own political activism as a requirement for an academic course.

New Hope Family Services v. James

Faith-based adoption provider New Hope Family Services secured a second victory against New York after having secured a favorable settlement and $250,000 in attorneys’ fees for a related lawsuit last month (New Hope Family Services v. Poole). In settlement of the second lawsuit, New York officials agreed to pay an additional $25,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, and broadly confirmed New Hope’s right to continue its critical work of placing infants in permanent homes without government harassment.

On behalf of the Syracuse-based adoption agency, Alliance Defending Freedom filed New Hope Family Services v. James in September 2021 after the New York Division of Human Rights threatened to investigate and penalize the Christian nonprofit because it only places infants with couples consisting of a mother and father committed to each other in marriage.

Thankfully, two federal courts found that the state likely violated New Hope’s First Amendment rights by attempting to force it to place children in a manner inconsistent with its religious beliefs. Both settlements should ensure that New York will no longer target New Hope for its religious policies.

Kathy McCord

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing a school counselor fired for speaking about a school district’s gender identity policy.

In August 2021, the South Madison Community School Corporation adopted a policy that required counselors and other employees to use names and pronouns for students that do not correspond with their sex, without requiring parental notification or consent. In some cases, it even required employees to hide these new names and pronouns from parents. Kathy McCord, a 37-year veteran in the education field, objected to this new policy, which compelled her to speak in ways that violate her sincerely held religious beliefs by deceiving parents. When a reporter asked McCord about South Madison’s policy, she confirmed the accuracy of information he had already gathered from other sources. Soon afterwards, he reported on the policy, and the school district fired McCord.

No educator should be fired for expressing her beliefs, especially when she speaks in her personal capacity, on her own time, and out of concern for her students.

Planned Parenthood of Montana v. State of Montana (II)

On May 16, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law HB 721, which protects life and women’s health by prohibiting gruesome dismemberment abortions, a procedure that the state has determined is “brutal and inhumane.” Planned Parenthood is challenging this law, asking a state court to block its enforcement. Alliance Defending Freedom is serving as co-counsel with the Montana Attorney General’s Office against Planned Parenthood.

Every human life is valuable, and every baby deserves to be protected. By enacting this critical legislation, Montana has affirmed the basic human rights of vulnerable children, whether born or unborn, and protected mothers from substantial health risks.

Liam Morrison

On behalf of a middle school student, Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute filed a federal lawsuit against the Town of Middleborough and school officials for forbidding seventh grader Liam Morrison to wear a T-shirt to school that says, “There are only two genders.”

Morrison attends Nichols Middle School in Middleborough. In March, he wore the shirt to school to peacefully share his belief that there are only two sexes, male and female, and that a person’s gender—their status as a boy or girl, woman or man—is inextricably tied to sex. The principal of the school, along with a school counselor, pulled Morrison out of class and ordered him to remove his shirt. After Morrison politely declined, school officials said that he must remove the shirt or he could not return to class. As a result, Morrison left school and missed the rest of his classes that day.

Students don’t forfeit their free speech when they walk into a school building. School officials’ censorship of Morrison’s message and the school’s speech policy which led to these actions violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Christian Medical & Dental Associations

In a victory for religious medical professionals, the state of California will no longer force doctors to participate in physician-assisted suicide against their religious convictions and professional ethics.

California legalized physician-assisted suicide in 2015 with its passage of the controversial End of Life Options Act. Then, despite the medical-ethics consensus that no physician should be forced to participate in physician-assisted suicide even where the practice is allowed, California legislated to not only eliminate important safeguards from the End of Life Options Act, but also force conscientious physicians to participate in the process. In February 2022, Alliance Defending Freedom was retained by a doctor and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations to challenge this law.

Thankfully, a federal court granted a partial injunction against the law, halting its enforcement while the lawsuit proceeded. To settle the lawsuit brought by ADF, California state officials agreed to not pursue “any criminal or civil punishment, including professional discipline or licensing sanction for a California-licensed physician’s refusal or failure to” document a request, refer, or assist a patient in any way with ending his life. California has also agreed to pay $300,000 toward the doctors’ attorneys’ fees and costs.

Skyline Wesleyan Church & Foothill Church

In a victory for religious freedom and life, ADF has resolved two lawsuits representing four churches against the state of California. Two federal courts have ruled that the First Amendment protects the churches’ right to decline elective abortion coverage in their health insurance plans.

In 2014, the California Department of Managed Health Care, at the behest of Planned Parenthood, issued a mandate requiring religious organizations to include coverage for abortions, regardless of moral or conscientious objections. In 2015, ADF began representing Foothill Church in Glendora, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Chino, and The Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch in one lawsuit challenging the mandate (Foothill Church v. Rouillard (now Watanabe)). In 2016, ADF also represented Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego area in a separate lawsuit, Skyline Wesleyan Church v. California Department of Managed Health Care.

In August 2022, a federal court ruled in favor of the three churches in the Foothill case, leading California to concede the Skyline case as well. Given the courts’ rulings in these multi-year lawsuits, state officials have agreed to pay $1.4 million toward the churches’ attorneys’ fees.

Arizona Christian University

In response to an ADF lawsuit, the Washington Elementary School District voted to enter a new agreement allowing Arizona Christian University (ACU) students to teach in the district once again.

In February, the school district decided it no longer wanted to partner with ACU because of the university’s religious beliefs on marriage and sexuality, terminating the relationship without citing any complaint or issue regarding an ACU student or alumnus. This prompted ADF to sue the district, explaining that the district’s decision to end its relationship with the school because of its religious status and beliefs violated the university’s constitutionally protected freedoms.

As part of the settlement in the case, the new student placement agreement allows for an additional five years, to be renewed annually. The district also agreed to pay $25,000 in attorneys’ fees.

Damiano v. Grants Pass School District 7

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Pacific Justice Institute are representing an Oregon teacher and administrator after they were suspended and then terminated for voicing their concerns about their district’s gender identity education policy.

Rachel Sager (formerly Damiano) and Katie Medart started the grassroots movement “I Resolve” to speak out on gender identity education policy and offer solutions that would allow teachers to continue teaching without violating their conscience and that would respect the rights of parents. But after they voiced concerns on their own online platform, they were eventually terminated, leading them to file a lawsuit against Grant Pass School District 7.

ADF attorneys have now filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit after a lower court ruled against their freedom of speech.

Barr v. Tucker

In a victory for free speech, officials at McAllister Elementary and Bryan County Schools have agreed to reinstate Georgia Substitute teacher Lindsey Barr, pay $181,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees, and publicly express regret after violating her constitutionally protected freedoms.

In October 2022, Lindsey Barr was fired by Bryan County Schools merely for expressing concerns as a parent over drawings in a picture book being presented to students, including her own young children, at McAllister Elementary School during a library read-aloud program. The book, “All Are Welcome,” contains several illustrations of same-sex couples parenting and expecting children.

Lindsey should not have been punished for speaking out as a Christian, a mother, and a private citizen on an important issue. The First Amendment protects the right of Lindsey—and all public employees—to express their concerns about what schools are teaching children without the government cancelling them.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration

The Supreme Court has paused a trial court’s decision that would have restored critical safeguards to chemical abortion drugs while the lawsuit seeking to reimplement those safeguards and halt the drugs’ approval proceeds. As is common practice, the High Court decided to maintain the status quo that existed prior to Alliance Defending Freedom’s lawsuit while the case moves forward.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled to keep in place much of the trial court’s decision that protected the health and safety of women and girls. In response, the U.S. Department of Justice and Danco Laboratories, the main purveyor of chemical abortion drugs, filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court to halt the decision of the trial court.

With the Supreme Court’s decision, the case returns to the 5th Circuit to be decided on the merits. The appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for May 17.

Women’s Health Center of West Virginia v. Sheth

In a victory for life, a West Virginia abortion facility dropped its lawsuit challenging the state’s health and safety regulations designed to protect unborn lives and women’s health.

In 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, West Virginia largely replaced its previous pro-life law with the Unborn Child Protection Act, protecting unborn life from abortion in most circumstances. In this case, the abortion facility and one of its abortionists challenged two of the state’s health-and-safety regulations: one that requires surgical abortions to be performed in a hospital, and another that requires an abortion to be performed by a licensed medical professional who has West Virginia hospital privileges.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, assisted by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, had been defending the law, asking the court to leave abortion policy in the hands of the state’s elected representatives.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled to keep in place a portion of a federal district court’s order that protects the health and safety of women and girls by requiring the Food and Drug Administration to restore critical safeguards to chemical abortion drugs while the lawsuit proceeds.

In its decision, the 5th Circuit ruled that abortionists are no longer allowed to send chemical abortion drugs through the mail, which the FDA had been allowing since 2021, in direct violation of longstanding federal law. Additionally, the ruling reduced the permissible gestational age of a baby for which a girl or woman may take chemical abortion drugs from 10 to 7 weeks gestation, reinstated necessary doctor visits, and brought back the requirement that abortionists must check women for complications after their chemical abortions. The 5th Circuit also agreed with Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys that the FDA’s approval of generic mifepristone was unlawful, and that the manufacturer must cease production by Friday.

Last week, a federal judge halted the FDA’s original approval of chemical abortion drugs. Following that ruling, the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures chemical abortion drugs, filed emergency motions asking the 5th Circuit to pause the district court’s ruling. In response, ADF attorneys asked the appeals court to keep the district court’s ruling in place, which it partially did by requiring the FDA to implement critical safeguards.

Johnson v. State of Wyoming II

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are representing Wyoming Representatives Rachel Rodriguez-Williams and Chip Neiman, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, and Right to Life of Wyoming in their effort to enter a case defending Wyoming’s Life is a Human Right Act. Shortly after the Wyoming Legislature enacted its Life is a Human Right Act, a group of abortionists and pro-abortion activists asked the court to halt enforcement of the law. The law seeks to preserve the lives of children and protect the health and safety of their mothers.

Life is a human right. States like Wyoming have an abiding interest in protecting women and unborn children, and groups like Right to Life of Wyoming have an interest in ensuring that their advocacy efforts on behalf of such laws are fully defended and vindicated.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration

A federal district court ruled to protect the health and safety of women and girls by halting the Food and Drug Administration’s unlawful approval of chemical abortion drugs. The court’s order will go into effect in seven days, allowing time for the Biden administration to seek review from appellate courts.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys argued for this result on behalf of four medical groups and four doctors experienced in caring for pregnant and post-abortive women. The lawsuit is the first to challenge federal government officials for their illegal approval of chemical abortion drugs that harm women and girls.

Lacy v. Torrez

In a win for life and medical conscience rights, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill that allows medical professionals to decline to participate in physician-assisted suicide due to their ethical convictions or religious beliefs.

In December 2022, ADF filed a lawsuit against the state of New Mexico for passing legislation that, in addition to legalizing physician-assisted suicide, compelled physicians who are conscientious objectors to facilitate suicide by informing patients about assisted suicide or by referring patients to physicians and organizations who will help end their lives. Physicians who declined to participate based on their religious beliefs or professional ethics could have faced substantial civil, administrative, and professional liability, including risking losing their medical licenses.

As a result of the ADF lawsuit, New Mexico hastily passed a new law affirming the right of medical professionals to decline participating in this process. With the new law being signed, ADF attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss their lawsuit.

Young Americans for Liberty at University of Alabama in Huntsville v. St. John IV

In a victory for free speech at public universities, ADF attorneys representing a Young Americans for Liberty chapter and student-member Joshua Greer favorably settled their lawsuit challenging the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s free speech policy.

Student members of Young Americans for Liberty wanted to engage their peers in important policy debates about a variety of issues, including gun control, federalism, and other topics, but refrained from doing so for fear of violating the university’s burdensome speech policy. The policy required students to share their views on certain topics in specified “speech zones” and request approval to speak three days in advance. In addition, because the permits were subject to the university’s discretionary approval, this allowed administrators to pick and choose which events and viewpoints were allowed on campus.

Such a policy was a clear violation of the Alabama Campus Free Speech Act and the Alabama Constitution. College students have the freedom to share their beliefs anywhere on campus and shouldn’t need permission from college officials nor have to jump through burdensome hoops just to talk with their classmates outside.

Jessica Bates

Jessica Bates is a mother of five who lives in Malheur County, Oregon. Jessica’s children are her greatest joy, and as a devout Christian, she wants to open her home to children in need. Though she is busy raising five children, Jessica felt called to pursue adoption when she heard a Christian broadcast about a man who had adopted a child from foster care.

But sadly, when Jessica applied to adopt, the state of Oregon denied her application because to give children a loving home, Oregon requires her to adopt the state’s view of human identity and sexuality. This left her with two options: abandon her beliefs or give up the possibility of adopting a child. That’s something Jessica couldn’t do—and shouldn’t have to do.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Jessica against Oregon. The government cannot exclude families from foster and adoption programs solely because they are religious or because the state doesn’t like their particular religious views.

Brian Tingley

Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a cert petition for the Supreme Court to hear the case of Brian Tingley, a licensed marriage and family counselor for over 20 years in the state of Washington. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit wrongly upheld a Washington law that censors conversations between clients and counselors who are minors by dictating which personal goals they can or can’t talk about on matters of gender, sexual orientation, sexual behaviors, or sexual attractions. The law threatens Brian with fines of up to $5,000 per violation, suspension from practice, and even permanent revocation of his license—if he counsels someone who want to become comfortable with their biological sex or focus on opposite-sex relationships. The law allows counselors to encourage gender identity exploration or a same-sex orientation.

The government has no business censoring conversations between clients and counselors. Neither should a counselor be used as a tool to impose the government’s views on his clients in opposition to the client’s own counseling goals and religious beliefs. The government has no right to block clients from receiving counseling that accords with their religious beliefs to help them live the life they want to live.

B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education

Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a motion with the Supreme Court to vacate an injunction pending appeal issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The 4th Circuit halted an application of West Virginia’s law protecting women’s sports while providing no explanation. This motion presents the Supreme Court with its first chance to protect fairness in women’s sports from today’s threats.

Women and girls deserve to compete on a level playing field. Everyone knows the truth that allowing males into women and girls’ sports creates disadvantages that threaten athletic opportunities for female athletes, but activists have rejected reality and chosen ideology over what’s just for women and girls. When we ignore science and common sense, girls and women are the victims. Laws like West Virginia’s should be protected.

Arizona Christian University

For the past 11 years, Arizona Christian University (ACU) and Washington Elementary School District, the largest elementary school district in Arizona, had a mutually beneficial partnership where students in the university’s elementary educational program would student-teach and shadow teachers in the school district.

That partnership, however, ended abruptly when the school district terminated its relationship with ACU because of the university’s religious beliefs on biblical marriage and sexuality, even though no complaints had been made about an ACU student or alumnus. The school district’s decision to end its relationship with ACU and its students because of their religious status and beliefs violates their constitutionally protected freedoms.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are representing ACU against the district, because the government cannot treat people of faith worse than everyone else. Students should not lose opportunities and be punished because of their religious beliefs.

New Hope Family Services v. Poole

In a victory for vulnerable children awaiting adoption, as well as religious ministries, New York state officials have agreed to pay $250,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs after trying to shut down New Hope Family Services because of its religious beliefs.

New Hope Family Services is an adoption agency and pregnancy resource center. The nonprofit accepts no government funding and, besides the fees paid by adoptive parents, funds its ministry through support from churches, individual donors, and private grants. But for more than four years, the New York Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) threatened to close the nonprofit because of its policy, guided by its religious beliefs, of placing children it serves only in homes with a married mother and father.

Thankfully, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and a federal district court upheld New Hope’s ability to place children entrusted to its care in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs, leading to the settlement. The settlement of the lawsuit ensures that the OCFS can no longer target the Syracuse-based adoption agency for its religious policies, and that it can continue serving the community by placing children in loving, permanent homes.

Yakima Union Gospel Mission

Yakima Union Gospel Mission has served its community in Washington for the last 85 years. From July 2021 through June 2022, it provided shelter to nearly 1000 people, gave out over 130,000 meals, and reached over 500 homeless individuals through its outreach services. The Mission exists because of its Christian calling: it strives to serve the community with the love of Christ, to share the Gospel with everyone it encounters, and to be a haven of likeminded believers where discipleship and fellowship can flourish.

But a Washington law is threatening the ability of the Mission to hire individuals who agree with and live out its religious beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the Mission against Washington state officials because the government cannot force religious organizations to hire people who hold differing religious beliefs. The Constitution protects the Mission’s right to hire employees—for any position—who adhere to and live out the mission's religious beliefs.

State of Texas and Mayo Pharmacy v. Becerra

In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a mandate that requires pharmacies that serve patients with Medicare, Medicaid, or other federally funded coverage to stock and dispense elective abortion drugs. The Biden administration is threatening legal action against any pharmacy or pharmacist that does not comply, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.

Such is the case with Catholic pharmacist Kevin Martian, who runs Mayo Pharmacy in Bismarck, North Dakota. As a devout Catholic, Martian has operated his pharmacy in accordance with Catholic ethical and moral principles, including the teaching that human life begins at conception. As such, Mayo Pharmacy does not dispense drugs for abortion purposes; however, if the administration’s pharmacy mandate takes effect, the pharmacy will be forced to either stop serving customers who receive federal assistance or violate its religious beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom is seeking to defend the legally protected rights of religious pharmacists like Kevin to work in a manner consistent with their beliefs. That’s why we’ve joined with the state of Texas to file an amended complaint on behalf of Mayo Pharmacy. Unelected bureaucrats shouldn’t be forcing Americans to dispense abortion-inducing drugs against their conscience.

Women’s Health Center of West Virginia v. Sheth

In 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, West Virginia largely replaced its previous pro-life law with the Unborn Child Protection Act, protecting unborn life from abortion in most circumstances.

But a West Virginia abortion facility and one of its abortionists are challenging two of the state’s health-and-safety regulations designed to protect unborn lives and women’s health: one that requires surgical abortions to be performed in a hospital, and another that requires an abortion to be performed by a licensed medical professional who has West Virginia hospital privileges.

In response, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, assisted by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, urged a federal district court to leave abortion policy in the hands of the state’s elected representatives and deny the facility’s motion to halt enforcement of the law. West Virginia has a strong and compelling interest in protecting unborn life and maternal health and safety; and thanks to the state’s pro-life laws, it can do just that.

College of the Ozarks v. Biden

Alliance Defending Freedom has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case of College of the Ozarks, a Christian college that aims to provide a faith-based education to its students. Sadly, its mission is being threatened by an executive order from the Biden administration, implemented through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The HUD mandate forces religious schools like College of the Ozarks to violate their beliefs by opening their dormitories, including bedrooms and shared shower spaces, to members of the opposite sex. It also requires them to modify their policies on “sex” discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” contradicting the historical interpretation of the Fair Housing Act in which “sex” means biological sex. The suit also argues that HUD violated procedural requirements by not allowing public notice and comment.

Directives such as this violate the constitutional right of College of the Ozarks and similar religious institutions to operate consistently with their religious beliefs. The government cannot force schools to open girls’ dorm rooms and showers to males.

Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore

Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore is a Catholic bookstore in Jacksonville, FL that sells books, crucifixes, and other Catholic resources to the public. In everything it does, Queen of Angels and its owner Christie DeTrude strive to honor God and promote their Catholic beliefs, including through the store’s website and YouTube channel.

But a Jacksonville law requires businesses to use pronouns that reflect customers’ professed gender identity. The bookstore serves all customers and gladly sells any of its products to anybody, but the bookstore and Christie cannot speak messages that violate her faith. The law even forbids businesses from posting statements someone could see as unwelcoming, such as a statement explaining Christie’s belief that biological sex is immutable. If she does otherwise, the law threatens Queen of Angels with unlimited fines and damages.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore in a lawsuit to protect Christie’s free speech and religious freedom to run the bookstore according to her faith.

GenBioPro v. Sorsaia

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, assisted by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a motion asking a federal court to dismiss an abortion drug manufacturer’s lawsuit challenging the state’s pro-life laws.

In September 2022, West Virginia enacted the Unborn Child Protection Act, a pro-life law protecting all life from abortion, with some exceptions. In the same legislative session, West Virginia also amended its law to require that chemical abortion drugs be dispensed in person (rather than prescribing via telehealth and sending through the mail) and require that only medically licensed doctors prescribe and dispense such drugs.

But GenBioPro, a major pharmaceutical company that manufactures chemical abortion drugs, sued the state of West Virginia for its commonsense laws that protect women and girls from these dangerous drugs. GenBioPro and the rest of the abortion industry are disregarding the health and safety of the women and girls and placing profits over people. That’s why ADF is stepping in to ensure that women have the health and safety protections they deserve.

Bryant v. Stein

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the North Carolina President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in a lawsuit to defend the state’s laws protecting women and girls from harmful chemical abortion drugs.

Currently, North Carolina law protects women and girls from these dangers by requiring that abortionists be physically present when the drugs are administered, ensuring an ultrasound is performed in most circumstances to determine the gestational age of the baby and whether an ectopic pregnancy exists, including a 72-hour waiting period so abortion businesses are less likely to make women feel like abortion is their only option, having only physicians dispense the drugs, and requiring that physicians obtain informed consent from the patient before administering the drugs.

But an abortionist sued to challenge these commonsense laws. The abortion industry is disregarding the health and safety of the women and girls taking dangerous chemical abortion drugs just to bolster their business and sell more abortions. Women deserve health and safety protections like everyone else.

New Yorkers for Religious Liberty v. City of New York

Until very recently, New York City mandated that its public employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine, even if doing so violated their religious beliefs. Yet the City was playing favorites. The mandate allowed exemptions for professional athletes, strippers, and entertainers, but not for firefighters, building inspectors, police officers, EMTs, teachers, sanitation workers, and other hardworking New Yorkers. Many of these heroes lost their careers, homes, and livelihoods because of New York’s discriminatory policy.

That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom is co-counsel for New Yorkers for Religious Liberty to represent these public servants. Governments should not force hardworking Americans to choose between earning a living and living out their faith.

Isaacson v. Mayes

Since 2011, the state of Arizona has prohibited individuals from “perform[ing] an abortion knowing that the abortion is sought based on the sex or race of the child or the race of a parent of that child.” In 2021, Arizona passed SB 1457, adding protections against discriminatory abortions by including a prohibition against abortions based on genetic anomalies, such as Down syndrome.

But two abortionists and three organizations who oppose the protections for babies with genetic anomalies filed a lawsuit, Isaacson v. Mayes, seeking to have SB 1457 struck down.

In an effort to prevent children from being killed simply for having a disability, attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom are representing the president of the Arizona State Senate Warren Petersen and the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Ben Toma in a motion that asks a federal district court to allow the lawmakers to intervene in defense of the law.

Jack Phillips

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against cake artist Jack Phillips in the now third lawsuit he’s faced, Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, saying that Phillips’ one-of-a-kind custom art was not “protected speech under the First Amendment.” Phillips will appeal the decision that would force him to express messages that violate his sincere beliefs.

In 2018, an activist attorney called Masterpiece Cakeshop requesting that Phillips create a custom-designed cake, pink on the inside and blue on the outside, that would symbolize and celebrate a gender transition. The attorney then called back to request another custom cake depicting Satan smoking marijuana to “correct the errors of [Phillips’] thinking.” Phillips declined to create both custom cakes because they expressed messages that violate his core beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop had asked the Colorado Court of Appeals to uphold his First Amendment rights after a trial court issued a ruling that punished Phillips for declining to design the custom cake celebrating a gender transition.

The same law being used to punish Jack is also at issue now at the U.S. Supreme Court in 303 Creative v. Elenis. At oral argument in December, Alliance Defending Freedom asked the Court to reject Colorado’s attempt to mandate orthodoxy and drive views it disfavors from the public square. The Court should uphold the bedrock principle of free speech and affirm that graphic designer Lorie Smith and all artists—writers, painters, photographers, filmmakers, calligraphers, cake artists, and more—have the right to speak and create freely without fear of government punishment.

Lydia Booth

In a victory for free speech and religious liberty, the Simpson County School District has agreed to change an unconstitutional policy that prohibited 3rd-grade student Lydia Booth from wearing a face mask with the phrase “Jesus Loves Me” on it.

In 2020, Lydia had wished to peacefully share her Christian views with her schoolmates by wearing her “Jesus Loves Me” face mask, but the principal at her school in the community of Pinola required her to remove and replace it even though she had previously worn the mask, without disruption or incident. Two days later, administrators announced a districtwide policy that prohibits messages on masks that are “political, religious, sexual or inappropriate symbols, gestures or statements that may be offensive, disruptive or deemed distractive to the school environment.”

ADF represented Lydia and her parents, and as a result of the lawsuit, the district has changed its policies to be viewpoint-neutral for political and religious expression. Under the settlement agreement, Simpson County School District will pay $45,000 and allow Lydia to wear her “Jesus Loves Me” face mask to school if she chooses to do so.

Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education

A federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed by an activist group that was intended to prevent any students from using tuition grants, student loans, and any other federal financial assistance at schools that operate according to religious beliefs on gender or sexual morality. In October 2021, ADF intervened on behalf of three Christian post-secondary schools—Corban University, William Jessup University, and Phoenix Seminary—to defend the relevant provisions of Title IX, the federal law under attack. Among other things, Title IX allows students to use federal financial aid at private religious schools that operate according to their beliefs.

Lainey Armistead

In a huge win for women’s sports in West Virginia, a federal judge ruled in favor of a West Virginia law protecting women’s sports and ADF client Lainey Armistead, a former collegiate soccer player at West Virginia State University, who helped to defend the law.

In 2021, West Virginia passed the Save Women’s Sports Act, which enacted a commonsense regulation that prevented men from taking a spot from a deserving girl on women’s athletic teams. When laws fail to recognize legitimate biological differences, women and girls suffer the most. But the law was challenged in court, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily halted enforcement of the law. However, the federal district judge recently granted summary judgment in favor of Lainey and dissolved the preliminary injunction that was initially put in place. This allows the Save Women’s Sports Act to go into effect, protecting women’s sports in all of West Virginia.