HURRAH FOR THE ACLU! HURRAH FOR CLASS ACTION!

LET’S APPLAUD THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION! Never has its activism been more critical. Zach Montague and Pat Grossmith’s article “Judge Blocks Trump’s Citizenship Order in Class-Action Challenge,” The New York Times, July 10, 2025, makes this all the more evident. 

Montague and Grossmith report, “A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a contentious executive order ending birthright citizenship, reigniting a legal standoff that has been underway since the beginning of President Trump’s second term.”

The Relevance of a Class Action. The Times researchers continue, “Ruling from the bench, Judge Joseph N. Laplante of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire also allowed the case to proceed as a class action, applying his order nationwide to babies born to undocumented parents.”

The Warren B. Rudman United States Courthouse, Concord, N.H. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

Montague and Grossmith stress, “After a recent Supreme Court decision limiting nationwide injunctions, lawsuits structured as class actions are effectively the only ones that can halt the president’s policies across broad sections of the country.”

That is, to quote Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times, June 27, 2025: “With their decision, the justices appeared to upend the ability of single federal judges to freeze policies across the country. The powerful legal tool, known as a nationwide injunction, had been used frequently in recent years to block policies put in place by Democratic and Republican administrations and gave rise to charges of judge shopping. But the immediate effect of the 6-to-3 decision, which was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and split along ideological lines, was to give Mr. Trump a major if perhaps temporary victory in his efforts to redefine citizenship in the United States.”

Not only citizenship, let’s emphasize, but any other redefinition of democracy enacted by Trump’s path to autocracy.

What Constitutes a Class Action? Wikipedia writes, “A class action, also known as a class action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly an American phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.”

Wikipedia continues, “The antecedent of the class action was what modern observers call ‘group litigation,’ which appears to have been quite common in medieval England from about 1200 onward.” See 1215 and the Magna Carta—albeit given that the class involved were the Barons (a lofty one indeed). 

Wikipedia notes, with increasing complexity, “The oldest predecessor to the class-action rule in the United States was in the Federal Equity Rules, specifically Equity Rule 48, promulgated in 1842…. The Federal Equity Rules were rules that governed civil procedure in suits of equity in the federal judiciary of the United States from 1822 until superseded by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938. A major revision of the FRCP in 1966 radically transformed Rule 23, made the opt-out class action the standard option, and gave birth to the modern class action.”

The ACLU’s Role in All This. Here is United States District Judge Joseph N. Laplante’s Civil Order No. 25-cv-244-JL-AJ, July 10, 2025, in the case of “Barbara,” et al. v. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, in his official capacity, et al. The ACLU represented “Barbara,” et al. as class action petitioners.

Wikipedia writes, “The ACLU [founded in 1920] provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.”

For an idea of the ACLU’s recent involvement in a multiplicity of matters, see The New York Times. To learn more (and if you wish to join me in contributing to their efforts), go to “Defend The Rights of All People Nationwide.” In any event, be aware of these legal actions ultimately affecting us all. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025