There is every reason for suspicion, skepticism, and outrage about the raid of a sitting member of Congress’s home after repeated and unjustified attacks on her character. www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home searched by federal agents in criminal probe

Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant, the DOJ said. A source familiar with the investigation said it involves whistleblowers.

nbcnews.com

LDF Forcefully Denounces U.S. Secretary of Defense Decision to Livestream Execution by Firing Squad www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

LDF Forcefully Denounces U.S. Secretary of Defense Decision to Livestream Execution by Firing Squad

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the military will livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, a wheelchair-bound man—the first military execution by firing squ...

naacpldf.org

It’s been nearly a year since I argued Louisiana v. Callais. This newly released conversation before a live audience in NOLA on Essence Fest 2026 weekend with Power Coalition CEO Ashley Shelton brought it all back—and points the way forward. Have a listen. designobserver.com/bonus-live-f...

BONUS: Live from Essence Fest - The Work Gets Personal - DesignObserver

If you spend enough time on voting rights work, you become more fluent than you ever thought you’d be in legal history, court cases, maps, and the enormously creative, and pretty ugly, ways some peopl...

designobserver.com

“There cannot be safety in NYC when ICE is allowed to engage in acts of brutality that endanger the lives of our neighbors and children. Black and immigrant communities are at particular risk of being victims of abuse.” Samuel Spital, LDF Assoc Dir-Counsel www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

LDF Condemns ICE Shooting in New York City and ICE Presence Writ Large

Last night, one or more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers shot and injured Oscar Belgal, an immigrant man from the Dominican Republic in a car while his 5-year-old son was in the back...

naacpldf.org

America, they are trying to desensitize you to violence. They want us to dehumanize one another so we become numb to their attacks on our liberty. They wish to normalize total state control thru visual terror. Attention is currency. Don’t invest it in evil. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Pentagon says execution of Fort Hood shooter will be livestreamed

Nidal Hasan, army psychiatrist who killed 13 people, will be executed by firing squad on 3 December

theguardian.com

The Supreme Court’s disgraceful decision in Callais helped lead to the erroneous dismissal of our challenge to Tennessee’s heinous gerrymander that intentionally fractures Black communities and disenfranchises voters for the sake of raw partisan power. Our vote is a threat. Use it.

Great to sit down with @CUNYLaw to discuss my path as a civil rights lawyer that led me to LDF and to assume the W. Haywood Burns Chair in honor of this legendary human rights law activist and LDF alum. Doing my part to prep next gen lawyers for the fight. www.law.cuny.edu/newsroom_pos...

Janai Nelson Brings a Legacy of Civil Rights Advocacy to CUNY Law

Janai Nelson knows precisely what it means to inherit a legacy—and what it means to carry it forward. As President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the nation’s premier civil…

law.cuny.edu

2026 SCOTUS Term officially began yesterday. Here from LDF’s Associate Director-Counsel Sam Spital about what to expect. legaldefensefund.substack.com/p/5-question...

5 Questions With a Supreme Court Expert as the New Term Begins

LDF’s Associate Director-Counsel Sam Spital on what to expect as the United States Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments.

legaldefensefund.substack.com

30 Days until the very last day to vote! 1. Register & double-check your registration. 2. Vote early in person, if possible. 3. Request a mail-in ballot now if you need to vote by mail. 4. Make an Election Day plan: confirm polling site, transport, etc. 5. Work the polls: www.powerthepolls.org

From 1972-1976, LDF secured a historic nationwide moratorium on capital punishment, saving 600+ lives. We commend TN Gov. Lee’s halt of all executions, pending investigation into the botched execution attempt of Christa Pike & urge SCOTUS to do the same. www.pbs.org/newshour/nat...

Tennessee governor halts executions after Christa Gail Pike survives lethal injection attempt

Pike, 50, was alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection and taken by ambulance from the prison, her attorneys said. She was being treated at a hospital, but they said they hadn’t b...

pbs.org

For decades, Black student-athletes have subsidized U.S. colleges & universities—& their athletic programs—by generating billions in revenue. The Senate just passed the so-called Protect College Sports Act which woefully fails to protect these athletes.1/5 www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/u...

Senate Resoundingly Approves Sweeping College Sports Measure

The outlook for the legislation, which seeks to stabilize the unsettled collegiate sports landscape, is uncertain in the House. It was one of the last congressional actions before the midterms.

nytimes.com

Supreme Court Opens the Door for Potential Voter Purges. Here’s How You Can Fight Back legaldefensefund.substack.com/p/administra...

Supreme Court Opens the Door for Potential Voter Purges. Here’s How You Can Fight Back.

IN BRIEF: Today, the U.S.

legaldefensefund.substack.com

LDF Strongly Condemns the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision to Restore Trump Administration’s SAVE Database www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

LDF Strongly Condemns the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision to Restore Trump Administration’s SAVE Database

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision allowing the Trump Administration to resume use of the flawed, expanded federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database t...

naacpldf.org

Happy 10-year anniversary to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture—a place of reckoning and reimagination. Let’s support our institutions of memory and maintain durable spaces for truth to live. Please consider donating to NMAAHC: nmaahc.si.edu/connect/ways...

SCOTUS undermined elections again in an unsigned 6-3 decision that revived the Trump Admin’s ability to use an error-prone federal citizenship check database that aggregates sensitive voter like social security numbers. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

DOJ’s decision to end its involvement in more than 50 longstanding school desegregation cases is an indefensible retreat from federal govt responsibility to ensure the promise of Brown v. Board of Education is realized in classrooms across the country. www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

LDF Decries U.S. Department of Justice Dismissal of Over Fifty Federal School Desegregation Cases

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a misleading announcement, claiming that it had “ended” more than 50 federal school desegregation cases. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) decried the...

naacpldf.org

Celebrating Carol Mason for winning a nearly 10-year battle after conviction for erroneously casting a provisional ballot while on supervised release. It’a time to reverse laws that unjustly strip citizens in the criminal system of their right to vote. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Texas woman triumphs as court upholds acquittal in voting error case

Crystal Mason has spent nearly a decade fighting conviction for casting provisional ballot that ultimately wasn’t counted

theguardian.com

Our prayers are with the family and friends of Nolan Wells in this dark hour. We renew our call to both Congress and the U.N. for an independent investigation into the recent suspicious deaths of Black people like Nolan Wells. www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

LDF Calls for Congressional and United Nations Investigations into Suspicious Deaths of Black People in the United States

Today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) submitted letters to Congress and to the United Nations urging officials to take immediate action to examine the growing number of suspicious deaths of Black people...

naacpldf.org

Kudos to the networks that have banned together to oppose Trump’s tyrannical attack on freedom of the press. Too many leaders of law firms, universities, and other corporations failed to follow this model of collective action to our collective detriment. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/b...

Networks Suspend Pool Coverage of Trump After White House Bars CNN

The move was an escalation of President Trump’s showdown with the White House press corps after he moved to bar journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

nytimes.com

Gratitude to Nikole Hannah Jones for courageously revealing the silent calculus of Black parents in struggling to raise healthy & secure children in a country where Black children’s potential is systemically undervalued, undermined & too often unrealized. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...

In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?

A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

nytimes.com

The alarms are deafening. This is an all-out assault on free press and a desecration of one of the foundational principles of our constitution. Every journalist and side with access to Trump must use their influence to force him to reverse course or be complicit in his deepening authoritarianism.

Raw Story@rawstory.com · 3w ago

Many of President Donald Trump's senior aides were caught off guard by his abrupt move to ban several news outlets, Politico reported Saturday.

Legal Defense Fund Celebrates Historic Enactment of Four State Voting Rights Acts in One Year as California Bill Is Signed into Law www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

Legal Defense Fund Celebrates Historic Enactment of Four State Voting Rights Acts in One Year as California Bill Is Signed into Law

Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) of 2026 legislative package into law. The CVRA of 2026 consists of two bills (SB1164 and SB1360) that together wi...

naacpldf.org

Thrilled to be litigating with you, @normeisen.bsky.social. This moment is bringing true defenders of democracy closer together. And that’s a deliciously dangerous thing.

Norm Eisen@normeisen.bsky.social · 4w ago

With the great @janainelson.bsky.social at the LDF reception at CBC My friend & cocounsel with other wonderful partners in our new case to stop ICE & FBI at the polls We @democracydefendersaction.org love working w/ her & the LDF team My last event of CBC ALC week, headed home for Shabbat dinner!

BREAKING: NEW LAWSUIT ALERT We will NOT be intimidated in this election. Civil rights and labor coalition files federal lawsuit challenging threatened use of ICE and federal law enforcement at polling locations. www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

Civil rights coalition files federal lawsuit challenging threatened use of ICE and federal law enforcement at polling locations

Lawsuit argues that the federal government is intimidating voters and chilling civic participation, violating the Voting Rights Act  WASHINGTON, DC — Nine organizations representing immigrants, commun...

naacpldf.org

On this Constitution Day, let’s lift up the Colored Conventions Movement, which shaped some of the most consequential provisions of this country’s foundational charter: the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments, aka the “Reconstruction Amendments.”

VICTORY! The Supreme Court held the Postal Service CANNOT enforce restrictions on mail-in voting that would have disenfranchised countless voters after LDF and co-counsel blocked the rule on behalf of a coalition of nonpartisan organizations. When we FIGHT,we WIN! www.naacpldf.org/press-releas...

U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Postal Service From Restricting Mail Ballots

Court leaves a preliminary injunction in place through the November election; USPS cannot withhold mail ballots from voters  In a major win for voting rights, election integrity, and democracy, the U....

naacpldf.org

BREAKING: Supreme Court blocks Trump mail-in ballot plan, dealing a major blow to his voter suppression plan and a huge win for voters. politi.co/4xOzAF8

Supreme Court blocks Trump mail-in ballot plan

Justices turn down administration’s bid to have Postal Service enforce new voting requirements before midterms.

politi.co

9/11 was an Election Day in NYC. I and several colleagues were in the office to staff an election protection hotline. We heard the attack on the first tower & saw the second from a rooftop. That day is forever seared in my memory. My heart goes out to all impacted by this tragedy

That beam when you know you just heard your colleague make the winning argument in her first appellate appearance. Our clients and legal team are fighting to preserve access to NYC’s specialized high schools and just defeated the latest attempt to undermine those efforts.

We thank Secretary Bunch for his extraordinary service to the Smithsonian and his leadership during these deeply troubling times. His remarkable legacy reminds us that preserving and sharing the full breadth of our history requires both brilliance and courage. www.naacpldf.org/news/ldf-sta...

LDF Statement on the Retirement of Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III

Read the PDF of our statement here. On Tuesday, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III announced his retirement from the Smithsonian Institution, marking the end of his historic tenure as its 14th Secretary of...

naacpldf.org