As a second Trump administration approaches, we’re running out of time to confirm as many federal judges as possible to provide a check on his presidential power and curb his stated policy priorities.
There are 40 federal judicial vacancies and 16 nominations before the Senate right now—as our civil rights hang in the balance, take action now!
On October 4. 2024, NWLC joined the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and six other organizations in an amicus brief submitted to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in National Religious Broadcasters, American Family Association, and Texas Association of Broadcasters v. Federal Communications Commission and United States of America. The brief argues that the FCC’s collection and disclosure of demographic data via Form 395-B does not violate the First or Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The petitioners in this case advanced a novel and troubling argument that the mere collection and disclosure of demographic data violates the Constitution because it permits the FCC and the public to ascertain the racial and gender makeup of the broadcasters’ workforces. The amicus brief argues that, as courts have long recognized, the collection of demographic information, by itself, is a race- and gender-neutral activity that presents no equal protection concerns because it neither involves nor requires differential treatment. Nor do the demographic disclosures at issue, which involve only straightforward publication of statistical data without any viewpoint or message, implicate the petitioners’ First Amendment rights.
