Articles Posted in Civil Rights

Today, in a 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a baker who refused to create a cake for a gay couple. The Court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions violated the baker’s right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.

On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied Planned Parenthood's petition for a writ of certiorari in Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma v. Jegley (8th Cir. 2017). At issue is an Arkansas abortion law that requires doctors who provide medication abortions to contract with a second doctor who has hospital admitting privileges. Arkansas has three abortion clinics, two of which only offer medication abortions; only the abortion clinic in Little Rock offers surgical abortions. Arkansas would become the seventh state to have only one abortion clinic should the law stand.

Rising concerns nationwide about underage marriage are reflected in an impending proposal by a Utah legislator to raise the state's legal age of marriage to 18.

Arizona Federal District Court Judge Douglas Rayes has rejected the claims of the Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party of voting rights violations arising from two Arizona statutes which impact the Democrats get out the vote initiatives. Read the decision and relevant statutes on Justia.

 On Thursday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit against Albertsons alleging the grocery chain prohibited employees from speaking Spanish anywhere on the premises regardless of whether they were on a break. The civil action, which was filed in federal district court in the Southern District of California, is based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and seeks a permanent injunction against Albertsons from engaging in national origin harassment as well as compensatory and punitive damages for the aggrieved individuals.

A federal district court judge in Massachusetts ruled that the Second Amendment does not prevent Massachusetts from banning assault rifles.

Some residents of the Mississippi town, Oceans Springs, have filed a lawsuit, attempting to ban the city from displaying the state flag, which they contend is ’racially demeaning.’

The Raleigh, North Carolina police department issued "reverse warrants" to Google for the purpose of collecting cellular location data of people near a crime scene. WRAL, a Raleigh television station and NBC affiliate, reported that the Raleigh police department issued four "reverse warrants" in 2017, seeking information not tied to a specific suspect but from any people with Google accounts, including users of Android operating systems and location-enabled Google apps, at or near the scene of a crime.

The National Fair Housing Alliance is suing Facebook for allegedly permitting its advertisers to target certain groups in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Linda Brown, the young student who was at the center of a 1954 US Supreme Court case to desegregate public schools, passed away earlier this week. She was 76.