Equality and Opportunity

A federal court rejected Illinois' attempt to force organizations to expose their members' identities—including minors—when challenging discriminatory government programs, clearing the way for Pacific Legal Foundation's fight against race-based scholarships. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois denied the state's moti ...

The First Amendment right to speak includes the oft-forgotten right to listen. Few know it, but this right to receive information hides in the shadow of a controversial case now before the Supreme Court called Chiles v. Salazar. How the Court resolves Chiles will affect the rights of millions of patients to seek and receive medical advice. In Ch ...

The Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause forbids the government from using immutable characteristics—like race—to discriminate against individuals. Even so, governments have taken to using sneaky tactics that, while avoiding explicit racial classifications, are no less than discrimination by proxy. Nowhere is this seen more than in th ...

Illinois needs teachers. Earlier this year, the State Board of Education published a report on the state's teacher shortage, estimating that Illinois schools have nearly 4,000 vacancies. And 87% of education leaders say that teacher shortages are a problem. Meanwhile, a poll conducted last year for the Illinois Education Association found that 60% ...

Americans are generous with their time—coaching youth sports, feeding the hungry, cleaning parks, and serving their communities in countless ways. Many also volunteer on state boards and commissions, helping shape policies that affect us all. But what if your chance to serve depended not on your skills or dedication, but on your race or sex? Unti ...

Law schools are desperately changing hiring and admissions policies to increase diversity—not because of their own internal objectives, but because of pressure from accrediting agencies. New research from Pacific Legal Foundation reveals how the American Bar Association (ABA) pressures public law schools to adopt race- and sex-based hiring and ...

Lawmakers across the country are proposing reparations to black Americans for slavery and America's history of racial discrimination. Proposals have included direct cash payments, grants, formal apologies from the government, and government programs with race-based eligibility. Because certain reparations proposals would inevitably advantage and ...

"Justice is the end of government." —James Madison, Federalist 51 When people are wronged by the government, they can come to Pacific Legal Foundation for justice. Meanwhile, PLF is also constantly working outside courtrooms to make laws more just. In the 2025 legislative session, Pacific Legal Foundation partnered with state legislators an ...

One of the most personal healthcare decisions a woman can make is how she brings her babies into the world. Whether she chooses to deliver in a hospital with a doctor, or with a midwife in a birth center or at home, a mother has the fundamental right to make that choice for herself. And yet, in many states, governments routinely interfere in this d ...