ACLU v White

In December of 2009, the ACLU of Illinois is challenging a 2009 amendment to the Illinois Lobbyist Registration Act that increased registration fees from $350 to $1,000 for each person who lobbies and each organization that employs a full-time lobbyist. The law also exempts from this fee media organizations and some lobbying by religious groups. The new fee is far more than other states (save one) or the federal government charges. Our lawsuit alleges that the fee violates the First Amendment rights to speech, association, and petition, because the higher fee is not necessary to administer the lobbying registration rules and because of the exemptions in the law. In late December 2009, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order barring collection of the fee from any non-profit organization (and their employees) in Illinois. We are awaiting a ruling (expected in mid-February) on our motion for a preliminary injunction.

ACLU v. Chicago

This case, known for decades as the “Spy Suit,” challenged the activities of the Chicago Police Department’s infamous Red Squad, which regularly infiltrated and spied on for engaging in First Amendment activities. The case initially was filed in 1975 and settled in 1982. After more than two decades of monitoring and enforcing the consent decree in the case, a federal district court granted a joint motion from the ACLU of Illinois and the City of Chicago to dissolve the decree in June 2009. We continue to pursue an enforcement petition charging violations of the decree due to the City’s public disclosure of an investigation of the American Friends Service Committee for their role in leading protests to a gathering of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue in Chicago. The matter is pending.

Hope Clinic v. Adams

Because the Federal Appeals Court in the Zbaraz case (see below) dissolved the injunction enjoining Illinois’ parental notice law, the ACLU Reproductive Rights Project filed this case in state court in October 2009, seeking a state court injunction against the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act. The lawsuit cites specific protections of privacy, due process, equal protection and gender equality guaranteed by specific provisions of the Illinois Constitution. The ACLU of Illinois contends that these state constitutional provisions are more expansive than protections under the federal constitution. In November, as the Parental Notice law was set to go into effect, the court issued a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the law. In response, the State of Illinois filed a combined motion to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings. Arguments are expected in February or March. In the interim, the temporary restraining order remains in effect and the Act is not being enforced. The ACLU of Illinois nevertheless has continued to operate our Bypass Hotline to ensure that minors, providers and interested parties have an opportunity to get answers about the status of the law.

Zbaraz v. Hartigan

The Reproductive Rights Project for the RBF/ACLU of Illinois sought and won a permanent injunction (issued in early 1996) barring enforcement of Illinois’ 1995 Parental Notification of Abortion Act. The ACLU’s challenge was based, in part, on the plain fact that under the federal constitution adequate procedures for judicial by-pass did not exist in Illinois. Indeed, in 1996 the Illinois Supreme Court refused to issue rules governing the appellate process for this by-pass procedure. In September 2006 the Illinois Supreme Court suddenly issued rules it claimed met the constitutional standard for the judicial by-pass process. In early 2007, the Illinois Attorney General asked the federal court to lift the 1996 injunction based on the Illinois Supreme Court’s action – though the Attorney General acknowledged that the circuit courts were not prepared to implement the by-pass at that time. The court denied the Attorney General’s request, but preserved the right of the State of Illinois to raise the request anew when the courts were ready. In March 2007 the Attorney General again sought the dissolution of the injunction, based on a statement from the Illinois Supreme Court that the Court now was willing to “presume, and therefore assert” that the circuit courts were ready to implement the by-pass. We filed a brief in response including information about the lack of readiness in a number of jurisdictions across Illinois. The Court again denied the State’s request. In March 2008, the State of Illinois appealed the District Court’s decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In July 2009, the 7th Circuit dissolved the injunction based on its conclusion that the newly passed procedural rules removed all federal constitutional deficiencies.

Morr-Fitz, Inc., et al., v. Blagojevich, et al.

The RBF/ACLU of Illinois filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit, brought by three Illinois pharmacy corporations and two individual pharmacists, challenging an Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation administrative rule setting forth the circumstances in which pharmacies are obligated to dispense prescription contraceptives. The plaintiffs alleged that the rule violated various state and federal constitutional and statutory provisions, including the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. The trial court dismissed the case, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal. The plaintiffs argued in their brief to the state Supreme Court that the rule should be struck down because it conflicted with rights protected by the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. In January 2008, we filed an amicus brief urging the court to reject plaintiffs’ challenge to the rule. We argued that plaintiffs’ expansive reading of the Health Care Right of Conscience Act as providing absolute protection for the conscience objections of healthcare workers, despite the impact such refusals would have on women seeking to access constitutionally-protected healthcare, was incorrect and inappropriate. In December 2008, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the claims were ripe and, without reaching the merits of the case, sent the matter back to the district court for further litigation. We continue to monitor the case and consider any appropriate role that we might play.

Miller v. American Infertility Group of Illinois

In February 2005, a Cook County Circuit Court Judge ruled that a fertilized egg never implanted in a woman’s uterus is a “human being” for purposes of the Illinois Wrongful Death Act. In reaching this ruling the judge relied in part on definitions of “conception” and “fertilization” containing the Illinois Abortion Law, portions that have been enjoined a series of cases in which the RBF/ACLU represented plaintiffs. The judge failed to take these lawsuits and resulting injunctions into account in reaching his conclusion that the RBF/ACLU of Illinois filed an amicus brief in the state court of appeals challenging the ruling of a district court. In September 2008, the Appellate Court of Illinois for the First Judicial District agreed that it was inappropriate to apply the enjoined definitions of the Illinois Abortion Law in interpreting the Wrongful Death Act and that, based on the legislature’s intent, it was inappropriate to consider an un-implanted egg as a human being under the Wrongful Death. In September 2009, the trial court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss most of the counts. We continue to monitor this case and will seek to participate if appropriate.

Cummins v. The State of Illinois

The RBF/ACLU represents a group of thirty (30) physicians as amicus curiae in a case before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case challenging a previous State of Illinois policy excluding coverage of contraceptives as part of the State’s insurance plan. The federal district court, in a ruling counter to findings in many other courts and the EEOC, found ruled that contraceptive coverage could be lawfully excluded from the state insurance plan. Our brief on behalf of the physicians’ group sets forth the importance of contraception as an essential component of women’s health care and as critical to the ability of women to play an equal role in professional, academic and social aspects of society. The case remains pending before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, where we hope the district court’s ruling will be reversed.

Akif Rahman v. Chertoff

The RBF/ACLU of Illinois, along with ACLU affiliates in Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington State, represents nine individuals - all United States citizens - who have been the victims of repeated stops, harassment and undue detentions upon re-entering the country. These plaintiffs have faced frightening situations - having guns drawn on them, being hand-cuffed for long periods of time, and being separated from family members traveling with them. The action seeks to compel the government to fix the terrorist screening system that causes this to happen to our clients. The parties engaged in an extended discovery dispute regarding the U.S. government’s assertion of a “state secrets” privilege and a law enforcement privilege as grounds to withhold information about whether the named plaintiffs are on any government watch list and the nature of the government’s border screening practices and policies. On the law enforcement privilege and the state secrets question, the Magistrate Judge ruled largely in our favor. The government objected to the Magistrate’s orders and appealed to Judge Guzman. In July 2007, Judge Guzman denied defendants’ motion to dismiss. In June 2008, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion that decertified the plaintiff classes, and also offered certain dicta regarding the merits of the case. In June 2009, Judge Guzman on his own initiative ordered reconsideration of his July 2007 denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss, in light of these dicta. Defendants filed their renewed motion to dismiss in July, and we filed our response in September. We await the government’s reply brief, and the judge’s ruling.

Terkel v. AT&T

The RBF/ACLU of Illinois represents the estate of the late author Studs Terkel, Dr. Quentin Young, attorney James Montgomery, Illinois House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, Professor Diane Geraghty and Rabbi Gary Gerson in challenging telephone giant AT&T in sharing customers' telephone records with the government without lawful authorization. In 2006, our case – along with similar lawsuits against telecomm companies filed in courts across the nation – was consolidated as multi-jurisdictional litigation and transferred to the federal district court in San Francisco. The ACLU of Illinois, along with lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was appointed co-lead coordinating counsel for more than forty cases including our own. For several years, in addition to litigating the case in court, we spent substantial time lobbying Congress to oppose granting immunity from suit to the telecommunications’ companies. Still a law allowing the assertion of an immunity defense was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush.

In October 2008, the government filed a motion to dismiss the suits pursuant to the new immunity law. Later that month, we filed – with EFF – a response to the motion challenging the constitutionality of the law. In June 2009, the district court granted the government’s motion to dismiss. We have appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Khorammi v. Rolince et al.

Farid Khorrami, a lawful U.S. immigrant, filed suit seeking damages against FBI agents for months of unjustified detention and abusive physical treatment immediately following the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Khorrami was taken into custody and had his immigration status revoked when the FBI erroneously believed that he might have some connection to the events of 9/11. Khorrami also had his pilot training certificate revoked and ultimately suffered a heart attack as a result of the wrongful detention. The government filed a motion to dismiss. In June 2007, a U.S. District Court Judge dismissing some portions of the complaint, but denying the government’s motion to dismiss the Fifth Amendment due process claim. The government appealed the decision to 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In August 2008, the court of appeals ruled in our favor and dismissed the government’s appeal. In July of 2009, we filed an amended complaint raising new claims based on additional discovery. We now allege that Khorrami’s detention was pursuant to FBI/INS policies established after 9/11 to use immigration procedures as a pretext to detain and investigate immigrants. We are preparing for trial.

B.H. v. McEwen

Lawyers for the RBF/ACLU of Illinois continue to monitor our Consent Decree designed to improve care and services for children in the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family services (DCFS) on behalf of all the state's foster children. Much of our present work in this lengthy litigation focuses on putting programs in place to insure quality educational and mental health services for our clients. Recent cuts in the DCFS budget and rumored new cuts raise new concerns about the agency’s compliance with the decree. After we threatened court action, the state agreed a few months ago to reverse proposed budget cuts that would have put caseloads of some workers over the limits imposed by the decree and subsequent agreements. We have communicated with the new Governor about the impact of budget cuts on DCFS services required under the court agreement. While there have been many improvements in the system, many foster children continue to have difficulty finding a stable placement, resulting in multiple moves between various foster homes and residential programs. At the request of the ACLU of Illinois, the University of Illinois Chicago Children and Family Research Center studied this phenomenon and issued a report identifying the causes of moves between placements, offering a number of possible solutions. We are negotiating with DCFS for an enforceable plan to improve the situation.

Jimmy Doe v. Cook County

We are actively monitoring and enforcing a federal court settlement in this class action lawsuit, which requires the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center to provide safe and clean living conditions for the children in their care. The original settlement, reached in 2002, is designed to bring one of the nation’s largest juvenile detention facilities up to constitutional standards. In the years since the original settlement was reach, our own experts and independent monitors reported regularly that substandard conditions – including horrific incidents of violence by staff against children – continued to persist. In May 2007, we filed a motion asking the district court judge to appoint a Receiver to assure compliance with the court’s previous orders. The parties agreed to a supplemental order creating the Office of the Transitional Administrator and the court appointed Earl Dunlap as Transitional Administrator (TA) to bring the facility into compliance with the 2002 agreement. Mr. Dunlap, who assisted in improving conditions at a juvenile detention center in Washington, DC, was given the necessary authority to accomplish his task.

Two groups of employees hired by the TA have been trained and started working on two new centers – dubbed “facilities within a facility” – each housing 50 youths. Hiring for employees for these centers should soon be completed. Additionally, Mr. Dunlap was forced to go to court seeking authority to contract for temporary security staff and, until permanent staff are hired, to set aside provisions in the JTDC’s collection bargaining agreement with the union representing most of the employees so that he can reassign staff where thy are needed without regard to seniority. The union intervened and opposed the motion. In May 2008, the Court ruled in favor of the Mr. Dunlap’s motion. The union has appealed and litigation around these issues continues. The union also is challenging a plan by Mr. Dunlap to lay off employees who have regular contact with residents who have not graduated from college, unless the employee passes a screening test or commits to obtaining a four-year college degree within a reasonable period of time. Mr. Dunlap maintains this process is necessary to bring the new centers into compliance with appropriate national standards. We are responding in support of Mr. Dunlap’s efforts.

U.S. v. Board of Education (Chicago School Desegregation)

ACLU serves as a Friend of the Court, along with the Lawyers Committee and MALDEF, in this case that was initiated by the United States in the Carter Administration and resolved by a consent decree in 1980. The suit sought to ensure desegregation to the extent practicable of a system which at that time had a minority student enrollment of more than 80% and today has a minority student population that is more than 90%. Over the past three decades, the case provided only limited substantive relief. Our primary concerns have been ensuring equality of resources and access for minority students to magnet and higher performing high schools. After years of raising questions about continuing the decree, the Court set a hearing date in January 2009 to consider the question of allowing the Chicago Public Schools to escape the provisions of the decree. Prior to the hearing, we submitted an amicus brief urging the court to maintain the decree until the Board has a specific plan to ensure that minority students have adequate access to the magnet and select-enrollment schools. We participated in a two-week hearing. With our amicus partners, we filed a post-hearing brief urging the court to maintain the decree because the Board has not make a consistent good-faith effort to deliver ELL services and has no plan to insure fair access to selective enrollment and magnet schools. In September 2009, the district court vacated the consent decree. CPS issued a new admissions’ plan for select enrollment schools, relying heavily on Socio-Economic Status (SES) and not race as the basis for admissions to these schools. We believe that race still may be used lawfully and that use of SES alone will result in less integration in Chicago. We have publicly advocated for CPS to include race as a factor. In recent public comments, the CPS Superintendent indicated that CPS will do a final review to ensure racial diversity after using SES factors. We have served a Freedom of Information Act request on CPS asking how they intend to use race as a factor in their new plan.

Sherman v. Township High School District 214

We are amici in a case filed by the Sherman family of Buffalo Grove, against their local public high school and the Illinois Superintendent of Education, challenging a recently-approved Illinois state statute mandating a moment of silence as “an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day” before each school day begins. The Illinois legislature, in adopting the provision, compared the public school “moment of silence” to legislative prayer, indicating a legislative intent that the new law to promote public school prayer. Our amicus merits brief in support of the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment argued that the law was unconstitutional because its principle purpose was religious, because the law had the effect of encouraging students to pray and because it favors silent prayer over religions with other forms of prayer. In January 2009, the Court struck down the law. The Superintendent of Education filed notice of appeal. In December 2009 we filed our amicus curiae brief in the appellate court arguing in support of the district court ruling. In January 2010, the appellate court granted our motion to participate in oral arguments, scheduled for February 2010.

Kirk v. Arnold

Victoria Kirk and Karissa Rothkopf were denied their request to correct the gender on their birth certificate by the Illinois Department of Vital Records, even though they have completed general reassignment steps, including medical treatment, to conform their bodies and their entire lives to their female gender identity. Since 1961, Illinois has allowed transgender persons to change their gender marker on their birth certificate after undergoing an operation to reassign their gender. However, in recent years, the State of Illinois has made it much more difficult to correct this gender marker. One way in which the State has changed its previous practice is the State’s newly-instituted requirement that the surgeon who completes gender confirmation surgery be licensed to practice medicine in the United States. It is this new restriction that prevented our clients from correcting their birth certificate – both chose a surgeon in Thailand based on the physician they believed would give them the best results. Our suit in state court asserts that the State is violating the Vital Records Act, as well as the equal protection, due process and privacy/autonomy rights guaranteed by the Illinois Constitution. In April 2009, we amended the complaint to add another plaintiff, Riley Johnson, who is challenging the state’s restrictive requirement that female-to-male transsexuals have complicated genital surgery before their birth certificate can be changed. After the amended complaint was filed, the State provided birth certificates with the correct gender listed for our clients and moved to dismiss the case as moot. The court has announced its intention to dismiss the case as moot pending resolution of questions about attorneys’ fees we seek under the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003.

Harrison v. Costco

In February 2009, we filed charges of sexual orientation, sex and race discrimination against a local Costco store where Brandy Harrison works as a part-time employee for several years. Soon after Brandy began working at Costco, co-workers and managers discovered she was gay and began to use epithets to address her – on a daily basis. Co-workers also made graphic sexual comments about Brandy and her partner. Brandy argues that these comments constitute sexual orientation discrimination since these same co-workers never make graphic sexual comments about the partners and relations of co-workers involved in heterosexual relationships. This case gives us an opportunity to help develop the law under this statutory provision as well as the sexual orientation non-discrimination provision added to the Human Relations Act a few years ago. The Illinois Department of Human Rights issued findings in favor of Brandy in early 2010.

Fields v. Raemisch (formerly Sundstrom v. Frank)

We are working with the ACLU of Wisconsin, the National LGBT Rights Project and Lambda Legal on behalf of two transgender prisoners in the custody of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections who are barred by statute from access to hormonal therapy treatment or sex reassignment surgery. A federal court granted a motion for a preliminary injunction, and ordered the DOC to restore our plaintiffs’ access to hormonal therapy. On three occasions since the original filing, we have been compelled to add new plaintiffs who were threatened with having their treatment cut off absent court intervention. A trial in this case was conducted in October 2007. We are awaiting the court’s decision.

Ligas, et.al., v. Maram, et.al.,

The RBF/ACLU of Illinois is collaborating with other advocacy organizations in this class action lawsuit on behalf of the thousands of individuals who are needlessly institutionalized in large ICF-DDs (Intermediate Care Facilities for the Developmentally Disabled) when they could be better served in smaller, community based settings. In November 2008 – shortly before the case was to go to trial – the parties agreed on a proposed Consent Decree. The agreement would have been phased in over six years, requiring the state offer the choice of leaving the institutions and living in appropriate, community-based settings to all of the roughly 6,000 people now living in intermediate care facilities for the developmentally-disabled as well as to thousands of others who are at risk of institutionalization in the future. A fairness hearing was held in July 2009 after which the Judge issued an order vacating his previous order certifying the class and denied approval of the consent decree. We have filed an amendment complaint seeking certification of a new class that includes only those thousands of people who have informed the state of their desire not to live in an institution. In January 2010, we presented a modified settlement proposal that has been negotiated with the state.

Williams, et.al., v. Blagojevich, et. al.

The RBF/ACLU of Illinois and other advocacy organizations are representing individuals in large nursing homes for the mentally ill in this groundbreaking litigation. Our complaint alleges that the State's decision to warehouse our clients needlessly in a large institution violates the Americans with Disabilities Act's mandate that state-funded services be provided in the most integrated appropriate setting. In late 2006, a federal court certified our clients as representative of a class for purposes of the litigation. Since mid-2007, we have engaged in substantial discovery, reviewing thousands of pages of documents, taking the deposition of key state officials and retaining experts in mental health services in order to prepare for trial. Our experts visited the IMDs in 2008 and filed reports in August 2008 that were sharply critical of IMDs. Additional expert discovery is now on-going. The parties are participating in settlement negotiations supervised by a magistrate judge. If those discussions do not lead to a settlement, we expect the case to go to trial in 2010.

Colbert, et.al., v. Blagojevich, et. al.

The RBF/ACLU of Illinois and other advocacy organizations filed a third lawsuit against the State of Illinois for violation of the Americans with Disability Act, the Rehabilitation Act and Medicaid for unnecessary institution of persons with physical disabilities. The case alleges that Illinois unnecessarily and illegally confines those with physical disabilities to nursing homes as a prerequisite to receiving necessary services. Like the other two cases, Williams and Ligas, the lawsuit seeks to compel the state to change its historic bias toward treatment in institutions and its failure to develop or allow sufficient treatment options in community settings. In September 2008, the Court certified the suit as a class action and class-wide discovery has begun.