In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Virginia filed a federal lawsuit on April 17, 2020, challenging Virginia’s “witness requirement.” Under Virginia law, any voter who submits an absentee ballot by mail must open the envelope containing the ballot in front of another person, fill out the ballot, and then have that other person sign the outside of the ballot envelope before it is mailed back.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Virginia, along with Relman, Dane & Colfax, PLLC, a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights law firm, filed a federal lawsuit against the owner of a Chesterfield County apartment complex for application policies that discriminate against black people. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia, Inc. (HOME), explains how the blanket criminal record screening policy used at Sterling Glen Apartments is intended to keep African Americans from living there and disproportionately harms people of color.

The ACLU and ACLU of Virginia have filed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges against the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department and Fairfax County for retaliation on behalf of Battalion Chiefs Kathleen Stanley and Cheri Zosh.

The ACLU and its affiliates in the District of Columbia and Virginia challenged the Washington area transit system’s advertising restrictions as violations of the First Amendment. The free speech lawsuit follows the rejection of ads from four groups that hail from across the political spectrum.

In Bostic v. Schaefer, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Virginia, Lambda Legal, and Jenner & Block, LLP, represent a class of all unmarried same-sex couples in Virginia and all same-sex couples in Virginia who have already married in a different jurisdiction (the “Harris Class”). The class action was originally filed as separate litigation in the Western District of Virginia filed on behalf of Joanne Harris and Jessica Duff and Christy Berghoff and Victoria Kidd as class representatives for all same-sex couples in Virginia who wish to marry here or who have married in other jurisdictions. After a court in the Eastern District of Virginia struck down Virginia’s marriage bans in Bostic, the Harris Class intervened as a party at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to have its constitutional challenges decided as part of the Bostic litigation.