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With the help of volunteer attorneys across the state, and your support, the ACLU is able to challenge laws and practices that violate the rights of Arkansans. Whether it's the right to protest, the right to obtain an abortion, or the right to be treated fairly by the courts, the ACLU is there to make the promises of liberty and justice for ALL become a reality.
Representing four Arkansas women, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed a lawsuit in federal court asserting that a monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the State Capitol violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S.
In 2016 the ACLU of Arkansas, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Morrison and Foerster law firm filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Sherwood, Pulaski County and Judge Milas Hale III, who presides over the Sherwood court where “hot check” cases are heard.
On September 26, 2017 a U.S. District Court blocked state-level restrictions on panhandling, granting a request by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas to enjoin the law on the grounds that it unconstitutionally infringed on the First Amendment right to free speech.
On June 28, 2017 the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed two lawsuits in federal district court challenging anti-panhandling ordinances in Fort Smith, Hot Springs and Rogers on the basis that they violate the First Amendment.
The federal lawsuit, brought on behalf of Little Rock Family Planning Services and Planned Parenthood Great Plains, challenges the constitutionality of targeted overregulation of reproductive health care facilities that provide abortion.
On July 28, 2017, the U.S. District Court granted plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction, thereby blocking enforcement of four challenged Arkansas laws restricting abortion care in the state until the litigation is resolved.
