Civil Rights

One judge, 143 cases: A day inside new high-stakes mass immigration hearings

Immigration Judge Cynthia LaFuente-Gaona typically hears a few dozen cases a day in the Texas courtroom where men, women and children come to implore her to allow them to remain in the United States. But in recent days, her caseload has swelled. On Wednesday, there were 143 names on her docket.

Jun 8, 2026 9:42 AM CDT

Attorneys’ lack of candor over AI errors leads to stricter sanctions

A federal appeals court has sanctioned two lawyers for filing briefs that contained artificial intelligence-generated hallucinations and for their lack of candor over the mistakes.

Jun 4, 2026 11:24 AM CDT

Supreme Court allows Alabama to use voting map favoring GOP

The Supreme Court on Tuesday night allowed Alabama to hold upcoming elections using a congressional map that a lower court found discriminates on the basis of race and dilutes the political power of the state’s Black voters.

Jun 3, 2026 10:08 AM CDT

Attacks on Judges and Judicial Independence: The international dimension

The United States has long claimed a kind of exceptionalism in relation to international human rights standards, supporting their development, funding their enforcement elsewhere, and exempting itself from their application at home. Civil society organizations, including many that work on the rule of law, have often accommodated that posture, treating international mechanisms as tools for other contexts, rather than as standards that apply universally.

Jun 3, 2026 9:21 AM CDT

Supreme Court sides with Mississippi man on death row in racial bias case

The Supreme Court on Thursday tossed the conviction of a Mississippi man sent to death row for his role in the murder of a shopkeeper, finding that his attorneys were not given the proper chance to challenge potential racial bias during jury selection at his trial 20 years ago.

May 28, 2026 11:37 AM CDT

Chemerinsky: What to expect from SCOTUS in the coming month

As always, this time of year is filled with major decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court. Some of the most important cases of the term already have been decided, including Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, which invalidated President Donald Trump’s tariffs; and Louisiana v. Callais, which significantly lessened protections under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But many likely blockbuster decisions remain.

May 27, 2026 3:07 PM CDT

DOJ sues UCLA over alleged ‘deliberate indifference’ to antisemitism

The University of California at Los Angeles is being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from a discriminatory campus environment.

May 27, 2026 10:22 AM CDT

Supreme Court ducks clash over immigrant driver’s licenses

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to let Florida file an unusual lawsuit that accused California and Washington of making it too easy for undocumented immigrants to get commercial driver’s licenses.

May 26, 2026 11:19 AM CDT

DOJ swears in largest-ever class of new immigration judges

The Trump administration onboarded last week a record-setting class of new federal immigration judges, officials at the Department of Justice announced.

May 26, 2026 10:34 AM CDT

Will US immigration policies create ‘chilling effect’ on World Cup?

The FIFA World Cup has long been seen and billed itself as a nonpolitical tournament. But that label is being put to the test, thanks to the restrictive immigration agenda of President Donald Trump’s administration.

May 21, 2026 2:44 PM CDT

Law grad can move forward with suit over bar exam accommodations, appeals court says

The appellate court in Colorado has revived a lawyer’s disability discrimination claim against the state’s attorney regulation office.

May 21, 2026 9:50 AM CDT

Court orders hospital to resume gender-affirming care for transgender kids

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Children’s Hospital Colorado must resume offering gender-affirming care to transgender kids, after the hospital received pressure from the federal government to suspend services.

May 19, 2026 11:17 AM CDT

Justice Jackson criticizes Supreme Court’s handling of major voting case

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized the high court in a talk Monday, saying its decision to expedite a ruling in a major voting rights case this month made it appear political.

May 19, 2026 10:13 AM CDT

Woman gives birth during arraignment in NYC courtroom

A woman gave birth in a Brooklyn, New York City, courtroom Friday as she was waiting to appear before a judge on low-level charges.

May 19, 2026 9:31 AM CDT

SCOTUS will examine scope of Title IX protections and whether civil rights law covers work bias claims

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to weigh whether federally funded school employees can privately sue for sex discrimination under Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments Act, an issue that divides lower courts.

May 19, 2026 9:09 AM CDT