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legal defense fund
5th Circuit Strikes Down Louisiana Legislative Maps Racially Gerrymandered by GOP
One ACLU attorney said the ruling "sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy."
Aug 15, 2025
In what the ACLU called "a victory for Black voters and democracy in Louisiana," a three-judge panel of the staunchly conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower court's ruling that struck down the state's racially rigged legislative maps for violating the Voting Rights Act.
The panel agreed in Nairne v. Landry that Louisiana's state Senate and House of Representatives new maps, enacted in 2022, "dilute the voting strength of Black Louisianans in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."
The maps do so, the court wrote, "by 'packing' Black voters into a small number of majority-Black districts and 'cracking' other Black communities across multiple districts, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to form effective voting blocs."
The panel—whose members were appointed by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Joe Biden—also found "no basis" supporting Louisiana's assertion that conditions had changed enough in the state to negate the need for race-minded remedies.
🚨Big Win for Black Voters in Louisiana! ️Today, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a critical victory by upholding a lower court’s decision that struck down Louisiana’s state legislative maps for unlawfully diluting Black voting power.www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— Black Voters Matter Fund (@blackvotersmatterfund.org) August 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Louisiana must now redraw legislative maps that better reflect the demography of a state in which nearly one-third of the population is Black but roughly just a quarter of its legislative districts are majority African American. However, there is a stay on the redraw until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which involves the state's racially rigged congressional map.
"I am beyond elated for this powerful win of Nairne v. Landry that touches all of Louisiana, including rural areas like Assumption Parish, where transformation has been nonexistent for far too long," plaintiff Dorothy Nairne said in a statement.
"Our people are ready to roar through our votes using legislative maps that truly represent us all," she added. "This victory ignites our desire to be involved, to uplift ourselves, and to shape the future our ancestors dreamed of."
Another plaintiff in the case, Alice Washington, said that "a unanimous win is incredible as the court clearly held Louisiana must have maps where Black voters have a fair opportunity to elect candidates of choice. We are advancing our state to a more perfect place and hopefully will inspire all to want to live here."
Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana—which represents case plaintiffs—said that the panel "has affirmed what we've always known, Black voters in Louisiana deserve equal representation."
"This is a vital step toward correcting generations of injustice, and we will not stop until every Black Louisianan has the full and fair representation guaranteed to all Americans," Odoms added.
ACLU Voting Rights Project staff attorney Megan Keenan said the ruling "sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy. The court recognized the reality that many Black voters in Louisiana have been denied full and fair representation."
ANOTHER WIN: 5th Circuit Sides with Black Louisianians, Strikes Down Racially Discriminatory State Mapwww.naacpldf.org/press-releas...
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— Janai Nelson (@janainelson.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 2:20 PM
The Legal Defense Fund also represents plaintiffs in the case. LDF assistant counsel Sara Rohani lauded "the strength and resilience of Black communities across Louisiana who have fought for years to be fairly recognized, represented, and heard."
"Fair representation is not optional in Louisiana," Rohani added. "Today's decision reaffirms that the state must pass fair and nondiscriminatory maps to comply with the Voting Rights Act. We look forward to rectifying another example of Louisiana's long history of racial voter suppression."
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, condemned Thursday's ruling, telling the Louisiana Illuminator that "we are reviewing our options with a focus on stability in our elections and preserving state and judicial resources while the [US] Supreme Court resolves related issues."
One of those issues involves Louisiana's congressional map, which was drawn by Republican state lawmakers to include just one majority Black district. The justices are set to hear that case, Callais v. Landry, as well as the closely related Louisiana v. Callais—which differ in procedural postures—during the high court's upcoming term.
These battles in Louisiana come as the Voting Rights Act turns 60 amid numerous Republican attacks on the landmark legislation. GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country have enacted racially rigged congressional maps, imposed restrictions on voter registration, reduced early voting options, and passed voter identification laws. These measures disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, and some GOP officials have admitted that they are intended to give Republican candidates an electoral edge.
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Federal Judge Blocks Trump Birthright Citizenship Order, But Fight 'Far From Over'
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," said a member of the legal team behind the class action suit.
Jul 10, 2025
The battle over U.S. President Donald Trump's attack on birthright citizenship continued on Thursday, when a federal judge in New Hampshire gave a green light to a class action lawsuit and blocked the Republican's contested executive order.
Advocacy groups including the ACLU, Asian Law Caucus, Democracy Defenders Fund, and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) launched the case last month, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority limited nationwide injunctions—often used by lower courts to stop seemingly illegal policies like Trump's birthright move—but declined to weigh in on the actual order, which three different district judges had blocked.
"The court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship."
Experts warn there will still be challenges to the class action route, but U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—gave the groups their first win in the new case, certifying "a nationwide class that protects the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil," with a seven-day delay to allow for an appeal from the Trump adminsitration.
"Class petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that class petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted; that the potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to respondents if the order is granted; and that the issuance of this order is in the public interest," the judge wrote.
ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project deputy director Cody Wofsy, who argued the case, said in a statement that "this ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended."
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," Wofsy declared.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus, noted that "since the Supreme Court's decision, parents have lived in fear and uncertainty, wondering whether they should give birth in a different state, whether their newborns would be subject to deportation, and what kind of future awaits their children."
BREAKING: Judge in new case challenging Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship grants class certification and blocks enforcement of the order. The injunction is stayed for seven days to allow any appeal.
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
LDF senior counsel Morenike Fajana called the district judge's decision "a powerful affirmation of the 14th Amendment and the enduring principle that citizenship in the United States is a right by birth, not a privilege granted by politics."
"By granting nationwide class certification and blocking the executive order from taking effect, the court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship," Fajana continued. "This is a critical victory for families across the country, and we will continue to defend the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law."
While welcoming Thursday's win for the plaintiffs, "and millions of families across this country, who deserve clarity, and stability," Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, also stressed that "the fight to uphold the guarantee of birthright citizenship is far from over, and we will continue to advocate to ensure we keep that promise."
Though not directly commenting on the judge's decision, the Trump administration signaled Thursday that it will keep fighting to end birthright citizenship and impose the other components of the president's anti-immigrant agenda.
"The Trump administration," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC News ahead of the hearing, "is committed to lawfully implementing the president's executive order to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship and which restores the 14th Amendment to its original intent."
After Thursday's ruling, according to the news outlet,
the Department of Justice referred NBC News to a previous statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi last week that followed another judge's order in a separate immigration case, saying a "rogue district court judge is already trying to circumvent the Supreme Court's recent ruling against nationwide injunctions." Bondi added in that statement, "the American people see right through this" and that Department of Justice attorneys will continue to fight for Trump's agenda to secure the U.S. border.
Bondi's statement last week was in response to a judge in Washington, D.C. blocking Trump's crackdown on asylum-seekers.
Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who argued that case, said at the time that the "hugely important decision" will "save the lives of families fleeing grave danger" and "reaffirms that the president cannot ignore the laws Congress has passed and the most basic premise of our country's separation of powers."
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DOJ Slammed for Ending Efforts to Tackle Racist Policing
One critic called the move "an unprecedented abandonment of the Department of Justice's responsibility to enforce civil rights laws and protect communities from unlawful police abuse."
May 22, 2025
Racial justice advocates decried Wednesday's announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that it will end law enforcement reform and accountability efforts, including the Biden administration's agreements with the cities of Minneapolis and Louisville—a move that came just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis cop.
The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division said it is dropping lawsuits against the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments and ending pending consent decrees—court-enforceable agreements under which law enforcement agencies commit to reform—with the two cities. The deals, which have been submitted to judges for approval, have been held up in federal court as the Trump administration has sought to block their implementation.
The Civil Rights Division said it "will also be closing its investigations into, and retracting the Biden administration's findings of constitutional violations on the part of," the Louisiana State Police and police departments in Phoenix; Memphis; Oklahoma City; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York.
To “disappear” DOJ findings like this is the most disturbing and disgraceful part. A key advantage of DOJ pattern & practice investigations is that DOJ has the resources to absorb the cost of generating the findings that indiv civ rights groups suing police depts find onerous & often prohibitive.
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— Sherrilyn Ifill ( @sifill.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who represents the families of George Floyd—murdered by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020—and Breoanna Taylor, who was killed earlier that year by Louisville police, called the DOJ announcement a "slap in the face."
"Just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder—a moment that galvanized a global movement for justice—the U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to turn its back on the very communities it pledged to protect," Crump said in a statement Wednesday.
"By walking away from consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, and closing its investigation into the Memphis Police Department while retracting findings of serious constitutional violations, the DOJ is not just rolling back reform, it is attempting to erase truth and contradicting the very principles for which justice stands," he asserted.
"These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures, they were lifelines for communities crying out for change, rooted in years of organizing, suffering, and advocacy," Crump continued, adding that the DOJ's moves "will only deepen the divide between law enforcement and the people they are sworn to protect and serve."
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) lamented the DOJ move and accused the Trump administration of acting "like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's lives didn't mean a damn thing."
Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said his city would proceed with reforms despite the DOJ's announcement, while questioning the move's timing.
"The Trump administration is a mess. It is predictable that they would move for a dismissal the very same week that George Floyd was murdered five years ago," he said. "What this shows is that all [President] Donald Trump really cares about is political theater."
The DOJ claimed the Biden administration falsely accused the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments of "widespread patterns of unconstitutional policing practices by wrongly equating statistical disparities with intentional discrimination and heavily relying on flawed methodologies and incomplete data."
"These sweeping consent decrees would have imposed years of micromanagement of local police departments by federal courts and expensive independent monitors, and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of compliance costs, without a legally or factually adequate basis for doing so," the agency argued.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon—the conspiracy theorist who heads the Civil Rights Division despite, or perhaps because of, her troubled history of working against voting, reproductive, LGBTQ+, and other civil rights—said in a statement Wednesday that her agency is ending the Biden administration's "failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees."
"Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda," Dhillon added.
"DOJ's actions today amount to a public declaration that law enforcement agencies are above the law."
Legal Defense Fund director of strategic initiatives Jin Hee Lee called the DOJ announcement "an unprecedented abandonment of the Department of Justice's responsibility to enforce civil rights laws and protect communities from unlawful police abuse."
Lee said the DOJ investigations that led to the consent decrees "revealed a litany of systemic harms to community members, whom officers are sworn to protect—from wanton violence and sexual misconduct to unlawful stops, searches, and arrests, and racially discriminatory policing."
"By abandoning its obligation to pursue legal remedies that would stem this unlawful conduct, DOJ necessarily condones it," Lee added. "DOJ's actions today amount to a public declaration that law enforcement agencies are above the law."
NAACP president Derrick Johnson said on social media, "It's no surprise that Trump's Department of Coverups and Vengeance isn't seeking justice."
"It's been five years, and police reform legislation still hasn't passed in Congress, and police departments still haven't been held accountable," Johnson added, referring to Floyd's murder. "Five years."
Furthermore, speculation is growing over the prospect of Trump pardoning Chauvin. Addressing the possibility, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walzsaid earlier this week that "if Chauvin's federal conviction is pardoned, he will still have to serve the remainder of his 22-and-a-half-year state prison sentence for murder and manslaughter."
Opponents vowed to fight the Trump administration's civil rights pushback.
"Let me be clear: We will not give up," Crump said. "This movement will not be swayed or deterred by fickle politics. It is anchored in the irrefutable truth that Black lives matter, and that justice should not depend on who is in power."
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