Court Cases

In April 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law HB 1471 and HB 1473 despite outcry. HB 1471 establishes an unprecedented state “domestic terrorist organization” designation regime (“DTO regime”) and dramatically expands Florida’s authority to single out and punish groups — including nonprofits engaged in First Amendment-protected advocacy — that officials unilaterally decide are criminals and security threats.

In February and August 2024, the ACLU of Florida submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE seeking information related to individuals’ detention in ICE custody at the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny, Florida. These records have been sought as part of our efforts to monitor conditions at Baker and similar facilities and provide advocacy surrounding such conditions, given that, through various investigations, we have discovered that Baker has consistently failed to ensure the safety and well-being of people in ICE detention, in violation of the 2019 National Detention Standards. The records sought will significantly contribute to the public’s understanding of Baker’s use of solitary confinement and use of force against individuals detained there, as well as Baker’s provision of mental health care for individuals detained there. After ICE failed to timely produce the requested records, we filed the lawsuit on October 24, 2024.

These cases challenge the City of Key West’s selective enforcement of regulations against residents who painted fence pickets in rainbow colors to protest the city’s removal of rainbow crosswalks, and the city’s subsequent retaliation against the plaintiffs. Installed in 2015 as a symbol of inclusion for Key West’s LGBTQ+ community, the rainbow crosswalks were among several removed in Florida in 2025 after the DeSantis administration threatened local governments with financial penalties if they did not remove them. Following the removal, Coley Sohn and Linda Bagley-Sohn painted some pickets on their fence in rainbow colors, inspiring many other Key West locals to join their protest. The city cited the rainbow fences for violating local ordinances, but has chosen not to cite other noncompliant households for similar fence-color violations. After the Bagley-Sohns sued Key West for selectively enforcing its ordinances in violation of the First Amendment, the city took evidence cited in their lawsuit and treated it as if the couple had submitted code violation complaints to the city, falsely identifying the Bagley-Sohns as complainants in the city’s code-enforcement cases against their neighbors.

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. The lawsuit argues that HB 1069 discriminates against parents who oppose book bans and censorship. It gives parents who favor censorship a formal process to challenge a local school board’s decision to keep a book on school shelves, while parents opposed to censorship are excluded from the process altogether. The plaintiffs, parents of students in Florida public schools, are seeking review of their local school boards’ decisions to remove or restrict books in their children’s school districts and do not have access to seek that review.

This case challenges the Daytona Beach City Commission’s redistricting map, adopted in October 2025, as racially gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In drawing the map, the City Commission set an arbitrary and unjustified racial target for two districts. To achieve their desired racial composition, commissioners connected disparate neighborhoods, divided established communities, and ignored citizen input. The use of race to draw these districts was not justified by the Voting Rights Act. We filed our complaint in October 2025.

This case challenges Florida International University’s policy banning “expressive activities” in indoor areas of campus. ICEBreakers is a student-led coalition at FIU that is mobilizing the campus community to oppose FIU’s 287(g) agreement with ICE, which deputizes campus police as federal immigration agents. After ICEBreakers organized a silent protest at a university event, FIU charged seven students with misconduct for violating its protest ban. ICEBreakers and the seven charged students are challenging the policy as a clear violation of First Amendment rights to speech, protest, and assembly.

This case challenges one congressional district and three State House districts in South Florida as racially gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Legislature drew these districts along racial lines to form non-compact shapes, connect disparate neighborhoods, and divide established communities. In doing so, lawmakers ignored the nuanced, multifaceted, and diverse nature of the region’s Hispanic and Latino community, treating Hispanic voters as a monolithic group based on false and stereotypic assumptions, which dilutes their influence. The use of race to draw these districts was not justified by the Voting Rights Act or the minority-protection provisions of Florida’s Fair Districts Amendments. We filed the case in May 2024. In November 2025, the court permitted our claims over Congressional District 26 and House Districts 115, 118, and 119 to proceed to trial, which was held in January 2026.

Erika Santos joined the public debate over what legacy Charlie Kirk was leaving behind in the aftermath of his public killing on September 10, 2025. In retaliation for her criticisms, Eastern Florida State College fired the grant accountant after a perfunctory “investigation”. This is the second case we have brought to combat the government’s efforts to expand its censorship power based on reactions to Kirk’s death (the first is Brown v. Young).

On August 18, 2022, the ACLU, ACLU of Florida, Legal Defense Fund, and Ballard Spahr filed a lawsuit challenging the 2022 Florida Legislature’s HB7 (the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act”) on behalf of a group of Florida educators and students in higher education. The “Stop W.O.K.E.” Act is a classroom censorship bill that severely restricts Florida educators and students from learning and talking about issues related to race and gender in higher education classrooms. The law prohibits educators from teaching or even expressing viewpoints around racism and sexism that are disfavored by Florida lawmakers, even where those viewpoints are widely accepted and considered foundational information in their academic disciplines. The bill specifically targets and places vague restrictions on educators’ ability to teach and discuss concepts around the legacy of slavery in America, white privilege, and anti-racism. Florida is one of nearly 20 states across the country that have passed similar laws aimed at censoring discussions around race and gender in the classroom. The lawsuit argues the Stop W.O.K.E. Act violates the First and 14th Amendments by imposing viewpoint-based restrictions on educators (including professors, lecturers, and student teaching assistants) and students that are vague and discriminatory. Additionally, it argues the Stop W.O.K.E. Act violates the Equal Protection Clause because it was enacted with the intent to discriminate against Black educators and students. In August 2022, we filed a motion for preliminary injunction challenging the law’s higher-education provisions, which was granted in November 2022. The state appealed and the Eleventh Circuit heard oral arguments in June 2024. On July 7, 2026, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed our preliminary injunction in an opinion published by Judge Grant, joined by Judge Wilson, with a dissent by Judge Lagoa. The law remains on hold in higher-education settings as we wait for the case to return to the district court.