2025 was a year of enormous challenges. And yet we defended. We disrupted. And we dared to dream. As we look at all the work to come in 2026, one thing remains true: We were built for this, then, now, and always.
In the courtroom, in the street, and in the halls of power, LDF showed up to defend the rights of Black communities and protect our democracy. Standing alongside organizers, students, voters, and community leaders across the country, we reaffirmed what power looks like when advocacy, research, organizing, and litigation move as one.
We used every tool we have to defend fundamental rights and stop Project 2025 — filing 7 lawsuits against the Trump administration and securing 6 federal court orders blocking dangerous attacks on civil rights.
At the Supreme Court, Janai Nelson defended the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais. And after five years, we won justice for protesters harmed by police in Louisville, Kentucky.
We disrupted harmful narratives with truth, data, and action —fighting for access to clean, affordable water. supporting families facing food insecurity, exposing biased gang databases, uplifting Black educators, and revealing the dangers of Project 2025.
Joy fuels our liberation, and we must celebrate and continue dreaming.
We honored 85 years of LDF, 10 years of our Thurgood Marshall Institute and Justice in Public Safety Project, and 60 years since the Selma to Montgomery March and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On Oct. 15, President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais, a case about equal representation for Black voters in Louisiana and the role of race in redistricting. At the Supreme Court, LDF made the case that Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map fairly recognizes the political power of Black Louisianians who make up one third of the state’s population. Louisiana enacted the 2024 map after LDF won an earlier case, Robinson v. Ardoin, where a federal court found that Louisiana’s 2021 map violated the rights of Black voters who continue to face patterns of discrimination in voting and civic life. Louisiana’s 2024 map both balances other state redistricting priorities and contains two district where Black voters have opportunities to elect their candidates of choice.
In re-argument in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court addressed Louisiana and white voters’ challenge to the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 protects the rights of all voters to be free from racial discrimination in redistricting and all aspects of the voting process. Accordingly, the Callais case will impacts not only Black voters in Louisiana but every voter in this country, who risks losing their say in how America’s future unfolds if voter protections are further weakened. Louisiana v. Callais has always been about equal representation, but now the decision could forever transform the future of our elections and our democracy.
A coalition of voting rights organizations filed a lawsuit to challenge President Trump’s unlawful executive order on voting. President Trump’s order attempts to seize the power to set voter registration rules from Congress and the states by requiring a passport or similar documentation of citizenship in order to register to vote. These “show-me-your-papers” requirements would violate federal law and the Constitution if carried out by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Trump’s executive order could also disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, particularly voters of color, women voters, naturalized citizens, voters with disabilities, voters with low incomes, and first-time voters. LDF secured critical court wins blocking the most harmful provisions in the executive order.
On April 24, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the “show-your-papers” requirement. On November 3, the federal court permanently struck down this key part of the unlawful executive order. This ruling reaffirms a foundational principle of American democracy: no president can violate the Constitution’s separation of powers to change our elections and erect barriers that disenfranchise eligible voters.
LDF secured a major victory for Black voters in Fayette County, Tennessee. After challenging the racially discriminatory County Commission map passed in 2021, LDF succeeded in convincing county lawmakers to pass a new electoral map that provides fair representation to Black voters and complies with Section 2 of the VRA and the Constitution. The new map creates three new single-member districts that provide Black voters with the opportunity to elect candidates of choice to the County Commission. The new map will be used in the 2026 election cycle. For the first in years, this map will provide Black voters in Fayette County with an equal voice in the democratic process.
State Voting Rights Acts can provide key protections that prevent and protect against discriminatory voting practices and policies. This year, LDF helped secure passage of the Colorado Voting Rights Act, a crucial language access bill in Maryland, and full funding for the enforcement of the Connecticut Voting Rights Act. LDF’s work also saw a State VRAs introduced in key states like Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Illinois.
Voting is how we express our power in our democracy. It is how we use our voices to affect countless outcomes in our lives — from public education, affordable housing, basic health care, employment opportunities, and disaster relief, and beyond. Voting is our foundational right and the language of our democracy. When that right is infringed upon, our democracy weakens exponentially.
2025 marked the 10th anniversary of LDF’s Justice in Public Safety Project. LDF’s Justice in Public Safety Project works to design and advocate for new, racially just models of public safety and accountability that increase investment in Black communities, minimize contact with police, and leverage community-based approaches to public safety.
The NYPD has spent years targeting tens of thousands of Black and Latino New Yorkers and placing them onto a secret list called the Criminal Group Database, commonly known as the Gang Database. On Apr. 30, 2025, LDF, The Legal Aid Society, The BronxDefenders, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and the law firm Ballard Spahr filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, challenging the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) racially disparate targeting, surveillance, and criminalization of tens of thousands of Black and Latino New Yorkers through the Gang Database. The complaint asserts that the NYPD’s practices and policies related to the Database are in violation of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as state and local laws.
After five long years, LDF and co-counsel reached a settlement on behalf of protesters who faced excessive force by the Louisville Metro Police Department in an important victory for the right to protest free from police violence.
The lawsuit was filed in July 2020 on behalf of racial justice protesters by LDF, the ACLU of Kentucky, and law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP against the City of Louisville for the Louisville Metro Police Department’s (LMPD) repeated use of military-type force and intimidation to disperse peaceful demonstrations against police violence.
In North Carolina v. Bacote, Hasson Bacote challenged his death sentence under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act (RJA). Under the RJA, he argued that his death sentence was a product of racial discrimination, requiring a resentencing to life without parole.
In a landmark victory, a North Carolina judge ruled that race played an impermissible role in jury selection for Hasson Bacote and found evidence of discrimination in his case. The Court determined that prosecutors deliberately struck Black jurors at three times the rate of white jurors and set out guidance that could pave the way for others on death row to successfully challenge their own death sentences under the RJA. The ruling affirms LDF’s argument that the death penalty is infected with racial discrimination.
Every student’s right to a safe, inclusive, and quality education is crucial to a functioning multi-racial democracy. In 2025, LDF fought back against efforts to undermine equal access to education and the Trump administrations effort to abolish the Department of Education.
LDF filed a lawsuit on behalf of the NAACP challenging the U.S. Department of Education attempts to prohibit and chill lawful efforts to ensure that Black students are afforded equal educational opportunities. The lawsuit challenged a series of factually and legally inaccurate directives from the Department, including a Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague” letter, a Feb. 28 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document, and a certification requirement issued on April 3.
On April 24, a federal court blocked the enforcement of the certification requirement that threatened schools with a loss of federal funding based on harmful misinterpretations of civil rights laws, threatening Black students’ equal access to a quality education.
On May 8, LDF sued the U.S. Department of Education (ED) behalf of the NAACP and the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, Inc. (MAEC) challenging the unlawful termination of the federal equity assistance center program and related grants. Equity assistance centers, like MAEC, support state education agencies, school districts, and students with their efforts to promote equal educational opportunity. Terminating equity assistance programs and funding robs grantees of resources needed to continue working to prevent and remedy ongoing problems of discrimination.
On July 30, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction to block the unlawful termination of MAEC’s Equity Assistance Center grant and ordered the Education Department to reinstate federal funding. The order restored funding for MAEC’s school desegregation programs and other critical resources. The court’s decision sends a clear message that equity in education is not optional — it is a legal and moral imperative.
National Urban League v. Trump is a federal lawsuit challenging two anti-equity executive orders and one anti-gender executive order from President Trump related to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and transgender people. The lawsuit was filed on Feb. 19, 2025, by the Legal Defense Fund and Lambda Legalon behalf of the National Urban League and the AIDS Foundation Chicago. LDF and Lambda Legal argue that these and other organizations would lose federal funds and be unable to fulfill their missions if the orders are fully implemented, leaving people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities without critical — and often life-sustaining — services.
On June 27, immigrants rights’ advocates filed a nationwide class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s executive order attempting to restrict birthright citizenship. The lawsuit is in response to a Supreme Court ruling that potentially opens the door for partial enforcement of the executive order. This case seeks protection for all families in the country, filling the gaps that may be left by the existing litigation. The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration’s issuance of the order flouts the Constitution, congressional intent, and longstanding Supreme Court precedent, and it is national in scope.
Courts have repeatedly blocked the administration from implementing the executive order, finding it violates the Constitution, over a century of Supreme Court precedent, and a longstanding federal statute. However, on Dec. 5, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear an appeal in Barbara v. Trump.
85 years ago, LDF’s founders had the courage to imagine a radically different America — a society in which Black people could live free from discrimination and fear, and in which opportunity for a life of dignity and advancement could be reached. Our predecessors won many victories, but, as is painfully apparent, there are no permanent victories. Challenges remain on every front in the battle for civil rights and equality.
Standing at this crossroads for our nation, LDF is tasked with envisioning the form that the next 85 years of civil rights struggles will take.
The National Equal Justice Awards Dinner (NEJAD), LDF’s signature annual fundraising event, to honors those who have made a difference in the fight for racial justice and equality for all. NEJAD was held on Thurs., May 15, 2025 in New York City. LDF honored George Takei, the Mellon Foundation, and paid tribute to the spirit of Selma and the activists who marched and fought for voting rights.
