Court Cases

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.

In August 2024, Robert Dillon’s life was irreparably changed when police wrongfully arrested him for a crime he never committed in a city he had never been to. He was falsely accused of trying to lure a child at a fast-food restaurant in Jacksonville Beach, more than 300 miles away from his home, after police ran a grainy image of the suspect through an AI-assisted facial recognition program, which incorrectly identified him as a possible match. Mr. Dillon, a 52-year-old resident of Fort Myers, Florida, is suing the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, as well as the Jacksonville and Pinellas County Sheriff’s Offices and two individual officers, for his wrongful arrest. Police arrested Mr. Dillon after they relied on the incorrect facial recognition technology result, let that result taint a subsequent photo lineup, and then applied for an arrest warrant while concealing information showing that Mr. Dillon could not have committed the crime he was being accused of. Facial recognition technology is fundamentally unreliable, often misidentifying people. And as similar wrongful arrests across the country have shown, following a facial recognition technology search with a photographic lineup is a recipe for misidentifications—a false match usually looks similar to the suspect, misleading witnesses who are asked to choose between that innocent lookalike and a set of filler photos that necessarily look less like the suspect. In this case, police also omitted from the warrant application key facts, including that the suspect was a “regular” at the restaurant, yet Mr. Dillon lived five hours away and had told police he had never been to Jacksonville Beach in his life, and that an automatic license plate reader database search showed no hits on Mr. Dillon’s car anywhere near the restaurant. Mr. Dillon is represented by the ACLU, ACLU of Florida, and the law firm of Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney, LLP. His lawsuit seeks both monetary damages and injunctive relief, in the form of policy changes to help prevent police from wrongfully arresting other people due to reliance on facial recognition technology.

This case challenges the City of Clearwater’s rejection of thousands of citizen initiative petition signatures in violation of the law. The citizen-led initiative petition “Save the Garden” collected over 8,000 signatures through an all-volunteer effort to put a measure on the Clearwater ballot to require voter approval before the city transfers public rights-of-way in the downtown. The city rejected thousands of valid petitions, contrary to the rules laid out in the City Charter. The city also failed to specify the reasons why it invalidated signatures as required, and enforced a rule limiting who can lead initiative efforts, in violation of the First Amendment.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) terminated Brittney Brown, a wildlife biologist who manages critical shorebird nests, in retaliation for sharing political criticism of Charlie Kirk through her personal social media. FWC publicly declared that her personal expression was “not in line with the FWC, our values, or our mission” in its public post announcing her termination. Ms. Brown sued two FWC officials in late September 2025, alleging retaliation and viewpoint discrimination in violation of her First Amendment right to free speech. She moved for a preliminary injunction seeking immediate reinstatement, which the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida denied on November 13, 2025 after oral argument. The Court ordered immediate discovery to resolve factual disputes necessary to determine if FWC had adequate justification to terminate Ms. Brown for her personal expression. After the completion of discovery, in February Ms. Brown filed motions for summary judgment and for sanctions based on false statements filed with the court by the defendants. Trial is scheduled for June 15, 2026.

This case challenges 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. 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.

This case challenges the Village of Palmetto Bay’s retaliation against an elected councilmember for his protected political speech. After Charlie Kirk’s death, Palmetto Bay Councilmember Steve Cody posted political satire critical of Kirk’s views on gun rights. In response, the Village Council removed Cody from a committee and rescinded related representative roles—despite acknowledging that Cody’s comments were protected by the First Amendment.

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).

This case challenges a law requiring new and current voters to have “evidence of citizenship” on file, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote or remain on the voter rolls. Thousands of Floridians don’t have ready access to these documents.

Immigrants’ rights advocates sued the Trump administration over lack of access to legal counsel and violations of due process for people detained at Florida’s new, notorious Everglades immigration center, a hastily constructed facility on an abandoned airstrip in the middle of the wetlands in Ochopee. The facility, cruelly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is built out of temporary tents, trailers, and chain-link fences with barbed wire. It is surrounded by alligators, pythons, mosquitos, and swampland, and is at risk of dangerous flooding. Around the time of our filing, approximately 700 people were detained there, and the facility has the capacity to detain at least 3,000. No protocols existed at this facility for providing basic, confidential attorney-client communication. Detainees only had access to infrequent pay phone calls that were timed, monitored, and recorded. Additionally, many detainees were eligible for release on bond but had no access to bond hearings. This class-action case was brought by detainees held at the facility and legal service providers and law firms with clients held at the site, including Sanctuary of the South and Bilbao Law, LLC. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, and Americans for Immigrant Justice.