On December 26, Guam filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court. The appeal was filed by the law firm, Kirkland and Ellis, which offered its services pro-bono.
Guam is appealing the recent Ninth Circuit decision that invalidated its political-status plebiscite law under the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on racially discriminatory voting laws. The American territory passed a law limiting voter registration to “native inhabitants of Guam”—a term calibrated ...
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2019 has been a busy year for CIR. Whether defending free speech in a welfare office in New York or challenging a racial voting law in Guam, CIR has been fighting for individual rights wherever the Constitution reaches.
You can read about CIR’s work in our most recent Docket Report.
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On July 11, CIR filed a motion for partial summary judgment on behalf of New York civil servant Salvatore Davi. After months of discovery, including depositions of numerous New York officials and review of thousands of documents, the record demonstrates that Davi was engaged in a private, after-hours discussion on Facebook in which he never mentioned his job and which concerned a significant issue of public policy: the appropriate goal ...
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In 1989, Michael Greve and Michael McDonald founded the Center for Individual Rights, a new kind of public interest firm that would fight back against the liberal drift in constitutional law. CIR would bring original cases that took dead aim at threats to individual liberty. It was a big gamble, but it paid off in big ways. For three decades, CIR has been bringing cases that no one would touch ...
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Guam is an American territory in the western Pacific Ocean. The small island was ceded to the U.S. in 1898, at the close of the Spanish-American War. Since that time, it has become a home to nearly 170,000 people of various ethnic and national back-grounds.
In recent years, left-wing historians have tried to build a narrative that would tarnish America’s reputation in Guam. The story goes that in the seventeenth century, ...
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[Update: Petition Denied 10-7-19]
On May 16, 2019 CIR filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the US Supreme Court asking it to review a decision of the Iowa Supreme Court holding a landlord liable for housing discrimination for truthfully informing a tenant the reason for her lawful eviction.
Teresa Seeberger rented rooms in a house she owned. When Seeberger learned that her tenant’s fifteen-year-old daughter had become pregnant, she told ...
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On Monday December 9, 2019, former Center for Individual Rights plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs visited the White House for a roundtable discussion on school choice with President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
During her remarks to the President, Friedrichs talked about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case brought by CIR and heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2016. The case challenged forced union ...
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