Our legal work - and wins - are often years in the making as our recently released ‘Legal Docket’ demonstrates. In hopes of lifting your spirits, we want to highlight some of the incredible legal wins we achieved in 2025, given the onslaught of attacks on our constitutional rights this year. But if perusing the full breadth of our legal work gives you a jolt of happiness, by all means, check out the entire Legal Docket where you can read about ALL the current cases we are working on. Thanks for your ongoing support in making our legal work and wins possible.
Demanding Due Process for All
In July, the Trump administration announced a sweeping new policy that rendered any noncitizen who allegedly entered the country without permission a target for immediate arrest and detention without the possibility of being released on bond—no matter how long they have been in the country. This policy upended decades of federal agency practice and interpretation of the immigration laws, which guarantee a bond hearing for those same individuals. Because of the policy, thousands of detained immigrants are at risk of being torn from their loved ones and losing their opportunity to fight their immigration cases at home. The government has put them in jail and thrown away the key. We have been challenging some of the detentions, starting in August, when we filed a petition in federal court on behalf of Juan Lopez Campos, a noncitizen with no criminal history who had been residing in the country for 26 years before he was picked up by immigration agents after a routine traffic stop. He was detained at the Monroe County Jail and denied a bond hearing, which he was entitled to under immigration laws. Within three weeks, the federal court granted the petition and ordered that Mr. Lopez Campos be released or, at least, be given a bond hearing. The government quickly released Mr. Lopez Campos from custody. He continues to fight his immigration case from home—surrounded by his family.
In late September, we were back in federal court, this time on behalf of eight noncitizens who were arrested and detained under the same policy. The lead plaintiff in that lawsuit, Mr. Jose Daniel Contreras-Cervantes, is a father of three U.S. citizen children and has a rare, life-threatening form of leukemia which was not being adequately treated while in detention. His detention separated him from his medical team and jeopardized his health. In October, the court again ordered either release or a speedy bond hearing, and Mr. Contreras-Cervantes and our other clients were released days later.
We knew that many others like Mr. Lopez-Campos and Mr. Contreras-Cervantes were languishing in detention without an opportunity to go before a judge. So, in late October, the ACLU of Michigan, along with our partners at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, launched a habeas pro bono project to train volunteer lawyers so that the many other immigrants who were being illegally locked up could get the legal help they need to file similar cases and go home to their families.
More Justice for Young Offenders
For more than decade, the ACLU has fought against Michigan’s cruel policy of allowing youth to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As a continuation of work that began with a federal class action lawsuit we filed in 2010, there have been a number of crucial victories over the years resulting in important sentencing restrictions that help safeguard youthful offenders. The news got even better this year when, in a series of decisions issued in April, the court agreed with our position that mandatory sentences of life without possibility of parole for people aged 19 and 20 are unconstitutional, and that youth must be considered at the time of their sentencing, affecting hundreds of people sentenced when they were children.
Environmental Justice in Flint
After the state of Michigan stripped elected city officials of their power, an appointed emergency decided to use the Flint River as a water source without adding corrosion controls. As a result, lead leached from the water pipes and poisoned the drinking water, causing untold harm to the people of Flint. The ACLU of Michigan and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a federal lawsuit against state and city officials seeking a court order requiring them to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act. The goal of the lawsuit, filed in 2016, was to require the state and the city to replace the lead pipes and, in the meantime, ensure that officials deliver safe drinking water. In 2017 we reached an unprecedented $97 million settlement requiring the state and city to replace all lead and galvanized pipes throughout Flint, allocate resources for health and wellness programs, continue door-to-door filter installation and education, and extensively monitor Flint’s tap water for lead. When the pipe replacement stalled, we took legal action to get it back moving. Finally, in June, the state and city completed all the pipe replacements and restored the conditions of people’s properties.
Protecting International Students
In March, the federal government suddenly terminated the lawful status of thousands of international students who came to the United States on a visa to study at American universities. The action subjected international students to immediate arrest and deportation, and caused headline-making chaos nationwide. In reaction, the ACLU of Michigan and its co-counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf of four international students at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, alleging that the unexplained termination of their status was unlawful. We reached a settlement that fully restored the students’ status and negated any negative consequences that the temporary termination might have had.
Clearing the Smoke
Now that marijuana is legal under Michigan state law, smelling like marijuana is no longer a legitimate indication that you recently committed a crime. However, Detroit police officers detained a driver and her passenger after allegedly smelling marijuana coming from their parked car. A gun was found under the passenger’s seat. The passenger filed a motion to exclude evidence of the gun in court, arguing that the mere smell of marijuana, a lawful substance, did not justify the additional search and his detention in the first place. The trial court agreed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. After the Michigan Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in 2024, the ACLU of Michigan, joined by the Legal Defense Fund and the Michigan NAACP, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in People v. Armstrong to explain that the mere smell of marijuana cannot give rise to probable cause or reasonable suspicion to conduct a police stop or detention. We were granted special permission to participate in oral argument, which occurred in September 2024. This April, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in favor of the passenger, holding that the mere smell of marijuana can no longer be the sole motivation for a police stop.
Making Schools Safe for Transgender Students
An elementary school student in mid-Michigan came out as transgender when she was 10 years old and began treatment for gender dysphoria. Although her name and pronouns were respected by her teachers and peers, the school district prohibited her from using female restrooms, requiring her to instead use a single-user restroom in the school office. In September 2023, we filed a complaint on the student’s behalf with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. After an investigation of our complaint determined that the school district was violating Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, we advised the school district in July 2024 that we planned to file a lawsuit unless the student was permitted to use the restrooms that correspond with her gender identity when she returned to school in the fall. The day before we planned to file suit, the school district relented. In addition, the ACLU of Michigan filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights on behalf of a transgender female fifth-grade student in Fraser Public Schools who has been regarded as female by the district since she was in first grade. In April 2025, the district informed her mother that because of the Trump Administration’s Executive Order, threatening to take away federal monies from school districts that support the “social transition” of transgender students, that the student could no longer access the girls’ bathrooms and had to either use the boys’ bathrooms or a bathroom in the school office. We sent a demand letter to the school district and filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights arguing that the Executive Order did not alleviate the school district from its responsibility to ensure that students are not discriminated against based on their gender identity under Michigan’s civil rights laws. The district reversed itself and for now the student can access female restrooms while our complaint is being investigated by MDCR.
“Standing” Ovation for Ruling on Access to the Courts
“Standing” is a legal concept involving who is allowed to bring a lawsuit and have a court decide if the government is acting lawfully or not. In recent decades, federal courts have often restricted standing, resulting in a denial of rights by prohibiting people from having their day in court. Fortunately, Michigan’s state courts follow a better rule, and are supposed to hear lawsuits so long as the plaintiff who brings them has a “substantial interest” in the matter or will suffer a “special injury” that others will not experience for not doing so. During the 2022 election, the Republican Party sued the Flint city clerk, arguing that the clerk was not doing enough to ensure a partisan balance among the volunteer poll workers staffing Flint’s elections. Rather than rule on the case, the trial court threw it out because it found that the Republican Party lacked standing. In March 2024, the Court of Appeals agreed. In April 2024, the Republican Party filed an application for leave to appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court. Although we were skeptical about the underlying merits of the lawsuit, we firmly believe in the right of people to go to court and have their legal claims heard if they have standing. Consequently, we filed an amicus brief in support of the Republican Party’s standing argument in November 2024. Approximately a week later, the Michigan Supreme Court agreed to hear oral argument in the case. Along with our partners at Promote the Vote and the League of Women Voters, we filed another brief in January in support of the GOP’s claim to have standing. In July, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a decision agreeing with our view of standing and telling lower courts to actually determine if the lawsuit had merits. We have already relied on this decision in other lawsuits in which we are seeking to vindicate the rights of other Michiganders in response to attempts to slam the courthouse doors to litigants on the grounds of standing.
Stopping Censorship of LGBTQ Material in Schools
In March, we sent a letter to the Traverse Area District Library Board in response to a community member’s request to restrict access to the acclaimed children’s book “Granddad’s Pride” because it features gay characters. The Board was considering moving the book from the youth to the adult section of the library to limit access. Our letter disapproved of moving the book based on its content because it could be unconstitutional censorship. In response to our letter, the board rejected the book challenge and “Granddad’s Pride” remains in the youth section of the library.
Free Speech for All
One of the most basic rights protected by the First Amendment is the ability to share information with neighbors or ask them for things. In August, we learned that the city of Brighton was planning to enact an ordinance requiring almost all panhandlers or peddlers (with a special exception seemingly designed to protect trick-or-treaters or girl scouts selling cookies) to get a permit, which the chief of police could deny if they decided for any reason the person lacked “good moral character.” Some versions of the ordinance suggested that the city also intended to require permits for anyone who wanted to spread or obtain any kind of information from place to place, like asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar or sharing the details about a neighborhood BBQ in the park. Upon learning of this plainly unconstitutional ordinance, the ACLU of Michigan immediately sent a demand letter informing the mayor and city council that the proposed ordinance was hopelessly unconstitutional and never should have been proposed for a vote. The ordinance was taken off the city council agenda and, as of now, appears to have properly been indefinitely shelved.
With LGBTQ-Employment Rights at Risk, We Filled the Void
As explicitly spelled out in an Executive Order declaring in January that it was the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” transgender people were an immediate target for the Trump administration upon taking office. To comply with the Executive Order, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is the federal agency tasked with resolving employment discrimination claims, stopped investigating claims that involved transgender people. Further, it sought to withdraw from representation in all of the cases that the EEOC had previously filed on behalf of transgender plaintiffs. There were three such plaintiffs in Michigan — Asher Lucas, a transgender employee who was repeatedly bullied and harassed by a coworker, with management doing nothing to stop it, and Regina Zaviski and Savannah Nurme-Robinson, two of his coworkers who spoke out against the harassment. All three were fired by their employer after speaking out. The EEOC had previously filed suit on their behalf, but reversed course under the new administration and sought to withdraw themselves from the case. Mr. Lucas was already represented by another attorney, but Ms. Zaviski and Ms. Nurme-Robinson were left scrambling to find legal representation. The ACLU of Michigan intervened in the lawsuit on their behalf and worked alongside Mr. Lucas’s attorney to reach a fair resolution for the case, which allowed it to settle in August.
Holding Schools Accountable for Harassment
The Michigan Supreme Court announced in 2023 that it would consider a case involving peer-on-peer sexual harassment in the Alpena Public Schools. Working with Public Justice and A Better Balance, the ACLU of Michigan filed a friend-of-the-court brief in September 2023 arguing that the Supreme Court should construe our state’s civil rights law, the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, more expansively so as to provide greater legal protections and a better legal standard for students who are sexually harassed by peers in Michigan schools. In August 2024, the Michigan Supreme Court held that a school district cannot be held vicariously liable for harassment by students as suggested, and sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether the school district can be directly liable for its own action or inaction to stop or address peer harassment. In April, the Court of Appeals agreed with our position that a school may be directly liable for peer harassment if they failed to take prompt and appropriate remedial action in response to complaints about discrimination.
Stopping Legislative Flimflam
In 2018 citizens collected enough signatures to place initiatives on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage and guarantee paid sick leave. But instead of allowing citizens to vote on these important measures at the November 2018 election, the state legislature adopted them into law in order to keep them off the ballot—and then proceeded to gut them as soon as the election was over. This cynical move, unprecedented in Michigan history, was challenged in the Michigan Supreme Court. The road to victory was neither smooth nor short. It took years, and adverse rulings had to be overcome, but the Michigan Supreme Court, in 2024, finally agreed with the position we and our partners laid out in friend-of-the-court briefs, ruling that the legislature’s “adopt and amend” practice is unconstitutional. The legislative initiatives as originally passed were ordered to take effect at the start of this year.
Combatting Voter Disenfranchisement
In the 2020 election, two individuals orchestrated a scheme to direct fake “robocalls” to minority neighborhoods across the nation, including in Michigan. With an obvious intent to disenfranchise Black voters, the robocalls falsely stated, in the midst of the pandemic, that information about people who voted by mail could be used to pursue open warrants, debt collection, and mandatory vaccination. The attorney general of Michigan sought to prosecute the robocallers, and the robocallers argued that their calls were protected by the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech. The trial court and the Court of Appeals both held that the speech was not protected, and in November 2022 the Michigan Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. The ACLU of Michigan agreed that the First Amendment does not prohibit the state from prosecuting these robocallers for attempting to disenfranchise voters, but we were concerned that the Attorney General’s legal theory in the case was dangerously overbroad and could result in allowing the speech of voting-rights advocates and political activists to be criminalized. Therefore, in June 2023 the ACLU of Michigan worked with Promote the Vote to file a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Michigan Supreme Court to issue a ruling that would not chill important political speech during elections, while also providing a legal path for the court to rule that the prosecution of the robocallers in this case could proceed. In November 2023 we participated in oral argument with special permission from the Court. In June 2024 the Court issued a decision that agreed with our position on virtually every issue in this case and sent to the lower courts for further proceedings. Specifically, the Court rejected the attorney general’s overbroad legal theories that could have also allowed the criminalization of normal political speech, and also adopted a test very similar to the one we urged that ought to allow for prohibiting a limited range of speech such as that engaged in by the robocallers that deliberately seeks to trick voters out of voting by lying to them about how the election process works. On remand, the Court of Appeals allowed the prosecution to move forward, and in August 2025 the robocallers pleaded no contest to felony charges.
Stopping a Troubling Ordinance
In December 2024, we learned that the Traverse City Commission was contemplating enacting a series of ordinances, including an antiloitering ordinance and a criminal prohibition on “prowling”, a term that was barely defined in the statute. These vague and troubling ordinances had a very significant chance of being weaponized primarily against unhoused individuals. In January 2025, our lawyers committee in Northwest Michigan wrote a letter to the city council raising serious constitutional concerns about the draft ordinances, and the ordinances were pulled from the city council agenda. The city attempted to redraft the ordinances, but the new draft contained similar issues and also raised new problems implicating the right against self-incrimination, which we expressed to the city in March 2025. The city has subsequently indicated that it will not move forwards with these ordinances.