Court Cases

We argue that the First Amendment does not allow Masterpiece Cakeshop to refuse selling a cake to a transgender woman who is celebrating her identity.

In a victory for voting rights, a federal district court sided with two civic engagement organizations that challenged the Kansas law, concluding that it violated the First Amendment. When the state appealed that decision to the Tenth Circuit, the ACLU—joined by our affiliate in Colorado and other affiliates from around the country —filed an amicus brief to emphasize the force of the First Amendment protections afforded to the political speech at issue in this case.

Four Colorado taxpayers and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit in state court seeking a declaration that the Governor’s proclamation of a Day of Prayer violated the “no-preference” clause of Article II, Section 4 of the Colorado Constitution, which states that “[n]or shall any preference be given by law to any religious denomination or mode of worship.”

In early 2005, controversy erupted over the discovery of an essay that University of Colorado Ethnic Studies Professor Churchill had published in the fall of 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The essay is titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.” Churchill argued that American foreign policies provoked the attacks, and he referred to workers in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns” who were complicit in the evils wrought by “America's global financial empire.”

This lawsuit, filed May 2, 2008, against Denver and the United States Secret Service on behalf of 12 national and local advocacy organizations, seeks to protect the First Amendment rights of individual and organizations that wish to express their views about issues of public concern during the time of the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August, 2008.

Colorado Christian University (CCU) challenges a Colorado program that provides tuition assistance to college students but exempts students who are attending an education institution classified as “pervasively sectarian.” CCU did not challenge its classification as “pervasively sectarian.” Instead, it argues that Colorado’s statute violates CCU’s right to the free exercise of religion and its right to equal protection of the laws.