The New Jersey Department of Treasury maintains a policy that requires employers investigating workplace discrimination to “request” confidentiality from all witnesses with respect to any information related to the investigation. This case involves whether a confidentiality policy of this kind violates the free speech rights under the New Jersey Constitution of state employees who are witnesses, and whether those rights are broader than the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment free speech right. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative and Women’s Rights Project, along with the ACLU of New Jersey, filed an amicus brief in the New Jersey Supreme Court, urging that court to revive a government employee’s speech claim challenging the confidentiality policy and to interpret the New Jersey Constitution’s speech protection more broadly than federal constitutional law. In April 2024, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in our favor and reversed the judgment of the Appellate Division.

On June 7, 2018, the Women’s Rights Project, the Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, the ACLU of New Jersey, and Powell & Román, LLC filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on behalf of Marie Curto, Steve Lusardi, and Diana Lusardi, who faced fines for using their condominium’s pool contrary to the condominium association’s sex-segregated swimming pool hours. The condominium association’s policy limits when residents may use a communal swimming pool based explicitly and exclusively on the residents’ gender, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The district court upheld the explicitly sex-segregated schedule. On appeal, the Third Circuit reversed the district court’s decision.

Whether pension plans established by religiously affiliated health care providers are exempt as “church plans” from federal law protecting employees’ pension rights and retirement benefits.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of New Jersey and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, have filed a complaint with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) urging an investigation into New Jersey’s South Orange-Maplewood School District’s practices of tracking and school discipline that affect students differently based on race and disability status.