In a resounding victory for civil liberties and nonprofit organizations nationwide, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that First Choice Women’s Resource Centers can challenge New Jersey’s demands for donor information in federal court, with Justice Neil Gorsuch delivering the opinion for the Court .
The case originated when New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin served a subpoena on First Choice, a religious nonprofit that has provided counseling and resources to pregnant women since 1985, demanding 28 categories of documents including names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of many donors, plus up to 10 years of internal confidential documents .
The subpoena came after Platkin established a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force” that issued a consumer alert accusing groups like First Choice of providing false or misleading abortion information, creating what opponents called a pro-abortion “Strike Force” that openly colluded with Planned Parenthood .
The Court’s decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport resolves a critical question about when advocacy organizations can seek federal court protection from state investigations they claim violate their constitutional rights. Gorsuch focused on whether First Choice had suffered an “actual or imminent” injury sufficient for Article III standing, concluding that the state’s demand for donor information deterred donors from associating with the group .
” An official demand for private donor information is enough to discourage reasonable individuals from associating with a group ,” the court wrote, adding that “From its allegations and declarations, and given our many and longstanding precedents in the area and reasonable inferences about third party behavior, First Choice has established that the Attorney General’s demand for private donor information injures the group’s First Amendment associational rights.”
The unanimous ruling reverses lower federal courts that had dismissed First Choice’s lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp twice refused to block the subpoena, initially ruling he could not decide the dispute because only a state court could enforce it, then concluding again that he lacked power to rule after a state court instructed First Choice to “respond fully” to New Jersey’s demands .
“We’re grateful that the Court has recognized that even before they’re enforced, law enforcement subpoenas seeking sensitive donor information can scare away the supporters that are essential to any nonprofit’s work,” said Brian Hauss, deputy project director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project .
The case attracted an unusual coalition of support spanning the ideological spectrum. The Foundation for Individual Rights & Expression (FIRE) and the American Civil Liberties Union joined in an amicus brief supporting First Choice’s right to seek federal relief , while “Groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” filed briefs explaining that subpoenas targeting First Amendment activity “will give its targets a very good reason to clam up” .
The decision builds on the Court’s 2021 ruling in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, which struck down California’s donor disclosure requirements. The Court had already “admonished California’s attorney general for requiring the disclosure of nonprofit donor identities just five” years before New Jersey made similar demands .
“In this resounding victory, the Supreme Court held to its long-standing precedent of recognizing that the Constitution protects First Choice and its donors from demands by a hostile state official to disclose donor identities and contact information,” said ADF Of Counsel Erin Hawley, who argued before the Supreme Court in December. “For more than two years, Attorney General Platkin targeted First Choice with aggressive demands for sensitive documents, including our donors’ identities,” said First Choice Executive Director Aimee Huber .
The Court grounded its decision in decades of First Amendment precedent, particularly the landmark 1958 case NAACP v. Alabama, which protected the civil rights organization from revealing its membership rolls to hostile state officials. Gorsuch emphasized that “the value of a sword of Damocles is that it hangs—not that it drops,” noting that even an unenforced subpoena would induce organizations “to trim its protected advocacy knowing it now stands in the government’s crosshairs” .
The decision carries important privacy implications for universities, hospitals, health care nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and other entities that maintain sensitive donor, member, or supporter data. While some media coverage has focused narrowly on the organizational mission of the petitioner, the practical upshot is broader: a government demand for such sensitive data can be challenged in federal court immediately .
“At a time when government officials throughout the country abuse regulatory powers to punish their ideological opponents, federal courts must remain a venue” for constitutional challenges, according to the ACLU. The organization argued that “To ensure that these investigatory tools are not abused to retaliate against the ideological opponents of those in office, federal courts must be available to promptly review claims that law enforcement subpoenas violate the First Amendment” .
The case now returns to federal district court in New Jersey, where First Choice can present its constitutional claims on the merits. ”