Legal Docket

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles filed suit against Secretary of State Alex Padilla demanding increased access to language assistance for limited English proficient voters in California. Secretary Padilla provided a directive to county election official... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California submitted a Public Records Act Request on April 10, 2018 seeking information about racial discrimination and harassment at Visalia Unified School District.The request seeks records relating to how the District responds to racial hostility and harassment, discipline policies and procedures, and the presence of law enforcement officers at all high scho... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on March 12, 2018 demanding government documents about Transportation Security Administration (TSA) searches of electronic devices belonging to people traveling on domestic flights.The federal government’s policies on searching the phones, laptops, and tablets of domesti... Read More

45,000 ballots were discarded - without notice - in California's November 2016 election. This ACLU Foundation of Northern California lawsuit asks that future voters be given an opportunity to fix any signature match problems before their votes are thrown away. Read More

We’re suing the Justice Department to disclose when the government tells people it electronically spied on them. 

Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project, and the law firm Covington & Burling LLP filed a lawsuit against Dignity Health for withholding medical care because of a patient’s gender identity, amounting to sex discrimination in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.Evan Minton, 35, is a transgende... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California is suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) for using unsubstantiated claims of gang affiliation to illegally detain teenagers in jail-like facilities in California. The lead plaintiffs seek to represent a ... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit in July of 2017 against the Madera County Board of Supervisors for violating California's open public meetings law, the Ralph M. Brown Act. On March 7, 2017, the Madera County Board of Supervisors, held a secret, closed doors session in which they adopted policies that significantly changed how ICE would interface with their county’s ... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit against the DMV on behalf of several voting rights groups, demanding that voter registration opportunities meet legal requirements. 

Read More

American Civil Liberties Union Foundations across the country filed 13 coordinated Freedom of Information Act lawsuits demanding government documents about the on-the-ground implementation of President Trump’s Muslim bans. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the ACLU of Hawai’i Foundation, and the ACLU Foundation of Utah jointly filed a FOIA lawsuit on April 10, 2017. Davis Wright Tremaine... Read More

On March 22, 2017, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed two claims with the federal government on behalf of two teenage sisters who were assaulted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. In July 2016, the sisters — then 19 and 17— lost their way while traveling to the United States from Guatemala, and encountered CBP officers after crossing the Texas-Chihuahua, Mexico, bord... Read More

In 2015, the California Legislature enacted SB 227 to try to ensure that prosecutors use a public process when deciding whether to criminally charge police officers accused in shootings or other uses of excessive force, as opposed to using secret grand-jury proceedings. The Court of Appeal held that the law is unconstitutional because it conflicts the constitutional role of the grand jury. The ACL... Read More