Court Cases

The ACLU together with a coalition of civil rights groups filed an emergency lawsuit against the city of Graham, North Carolina, seeking to immediately block a city ordinance that the government used to suppress protests against racism, police brutality, and white supremacy.

Prior to our action on this case, North Carolina was the only state in the nation whose laws that provide protections to survivors of domestic violence do not apply equally to those in same-sex relationships. We challenged this policy in court on behalf of a survivor of domestic violence.

The ACLU of North Carolina and North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services are representing three people incarcerated in North Carolina prisons who suffer from Hepatitis C in a federal class-action lawsuit against state officials.

The ACLU is representing a former Teacher of the Year who was fired from his school in violation of federal law after announcing on Facebook that he was marrying his longtime same-sex partner.

The ACLU and other reproductive rights groups successfully challenged North Carolina’s unconstitutional law that prevented doctors from providing abortion care to a woman after the twentieth week of pregnancy.

The ACLU, ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal challenged North Carolina’s sweeping anti-LGBT law, House Bill 2, and its discriminatory replacement, House Bill 142, on behalf of LGBT North Carolinians and members of the ACLU of North Carolina.

The ACLU successfully represented three Brunswick County students in a legal challenge against a section of a K-8 public charter school’s dress code that requires female students to wear skirts to school and prohibits them from wearing pants or shorts.

The ACLU and ACLU of North Carolina won a 2014 lawsuit on behalf of three married, same-sex couples seeking state recognition of their marriages.

The ACLU successfully represented three Rowan County residents in a challenge to their county commissioners’ practice of opening meetings by coercing the public to join them in prayers that overwhelmingly advance beliefs specific to one religion.