Court Cases

The ACLU of Arkansas has initiated a lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) on behalf of five plaintiffs, contesting a recent emergency rule that restricts transgender and nonbinary individuals' ability to self-identify their gender on driver’s licenses.

Same-sex couples who had children before marriage equality was the law of the land filed suit in state court in July 2015 in order to amend their children’s birth certificates to include the names of both parents without having to procure a court order, as the state required, although non-biological fathers in opposite-sex marriages are added to Arkansas birth certificates upon request and without a court order. After a lower court ruled that the Department of Health’s refusal to amend the birth certificates violated the couples’ rights to equal protection, the state appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which overturned the ruling.

On April 25, 2017, the ACLU filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of three Fayetteville residents and PFLAG of Fayetteville/Northwest Arkansas, arguing that the Arkansas legislature’s attempts to nullify Fayetteville’s local non discrimination ordinance violates their right to equal prot

Victory! The ACLU, the ACLU of Arkansas, and private counsel filed suit in federal court on behalf of Patricia Dawson against her former employer, H & H Electric, for firing her after she made her transition from male to female apparent at her workplace.

Victory! In 2013, private counsel filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the constitutionality of Arkansas’ ban on same-sex couples marrying, and the state’s refusal to recognize such marriages performed in other states. On May 9, 2014, a state judge found the law unconstitutional and struck it down, but a week later the Arkansas Supreme Court put the decision on hold. However, in the interim, approximately 450 same-sex couples were married.

VICTORY! Cole v. Arkansas challenged Act 1 of 2008, a ballot initiative that prohibited fostering or adoption of children by unmarried couples; since Arkansas did not recognize the marriage of same-sex couples, this included not only unmarried same-sex couples, but same-sex couples married elsewhere. The intent of the law was to categorically ban same sex couples from consideration, without regard to the needs or relationships of the child to the potential foster or adoptive parents, or their suitability as parents.