Court Cases

The ACLU of Florida and partners filed a lawsuit on April 2, 2025, challenging Florida’s new anti-immigrant law, Senate Bill 4C (SB 4C), which authorizes state and local law enforcement to imprison people based on their manner of entering the country — powers the Constitution reserves exclusively to the federal government. The district court granted a temporary restraining order against the law on April 4. Certain individuals were arrested after the issuance of the TRO, and on April 18, the district court extended the TRO, explicitly including within its scope law enforcement that had the power to enforce SB 4C, and directed the Attorney General to notify those entities of the injunction. On April 29, the court granted a preliminary injunction and certified a class. Both the Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court denied the state’s request to put the injunction on hold. Oral argument in the Eleventh Circuit is set for the week of October 6 in Atlanta. On June 17, the district court entered an order holding Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier in civil contempt for violating a notification requirement of the April 18 order. Uthmeier has appealed the order finding him in contempt.

In June 2024, the ACLU of Florida and partners filed a lawsuit representing parents of Florida public school students who sued the DeSantis administration’s Board of Education for violating their First Amendment rights through the implementation of 2023’s HB 1069.

After a state circuit-court judge in Orlando overturned a racial discrimination jury verdict and directed a verdict for the defense, attorney Jerry Girley, who represented the plaintiff, criticized the judge and the legal system on a radio show.

The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) forbade Cambridge Christian School from leading a prayer at football games conducted by the Association, and the school argued this violated free speech and burdened its religion freedom.

In 2023, the Florida Legislature passed SB 266, which bans the funding of expression that “[a]dvocate[s] for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote[s] . . . political or social activism,” and restricts the viewpoints that can be taught in general education courses. Through the regulations implementing SB 266, the state has stripped hundreds of university courses of their longstanding general education status. Florida’s public universities also have denied scholarship and research funding to faculty and students that had been approved in the past, and have cut funding for initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. On behalf of educators and the broader university community, the ACLU of Florida and co-counsel filed a federal lawsuit on January 16, 2025, contending that SB 266 violates First Amendment protections by compelling viewpoint-based censorship and undermining the free exchange of ideas in public universities.

On September 30, 2024, the Florida Department of Corrections rescinded its policy regarding treatment of gender dysphoria, which allowed for hormone therapy when deemed medically necessary, as well as access to clothing and grooming standards that accord with one’s gender identity.

On Thursday, August 18, 2022, the ACLU, ACLU of Florida, Legal Defense Fund, and Ballard Spahr filed a lawsuit challenging Florida's HB7 (aka the Stop W.O.K.E. Act) on behalf of a group of Florida educators and students in higher education.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Tallahassee Bail Fund against Gwendolyn Marshall, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller for Leon County. The lawsuit challenges Clerk Marshall’s enforcement of Florida Statute § 903.286, which improperly confiscates charitable organizations’ money to punish them for helping accused persons access their freedom. This statute violates the Eighth Amendment by allowing clerks to use cash bail to impose criminal penalties on innocent parties, such as bail funds, which deprives them of the money that makes their operation possible. Our complaint was filed in August 2022. Summary-judgment briefing was completed in February 2023. On September 28, 2023, the court denied the motions for summary judgment, permitting some claims to proceed to trial. A trial was held on February 15, 2024, and on February 20, 2024, the district court ruled in our favor, holding the state statute unconstitutional as applied to our client, the Tallahassee Bail Fund. In practical terms, this means that when the Bail Fund deposits cash with the clerk to bail a person out of jail, the clerk can no longer keep it to pay that person’s fines, fees, and court costs if they later plead guilty. Instead, that money will go back to the Bail Fund, allowing them to use it to bail another person out of jail. This ruling will reduce wealth-based detention in Leon County. The government appealed, and we then cross-appealed.