Four families of transgender youth and two doctors have challenged an Arkansas law that would prohibit healthcare professionals from providing or even referring transgender young people for medically necessary health care. The law would also bar any state funds or insurance coverage for gender-affirming health care for transgender people under 18, and it would allow private insurers to refuse to cover gender-affirming care for people of any age. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that House Bill 1570 is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

This case has two key parts: First, the Arkansas House district map diminishes the voting power of Black voters. Second, both the district court and Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals radically concluded that voters may not sue to protect their voting rights under Section 2, putting the VRA in further jeopardy and contradicting decades of precedent in which impacted voters — particularly Black voters — have challenged racially discriminatory voting laws.

Arkansas’s so-called “Social Media Safety Act” stifles freedom of expression online by requiring users to verify their ages and, if under 18, obtain explicit parental consent before using social media.

The issue in the case is whether federal prisoners who could not — because established law stood firmly against them — and therefore did not challenge their convictions can challenge those convictions when the Supreme Court later overrules the prior precedent upon which their convictions were based, making them legally innocent of the crime of conviction.

On July 28, 2017, the U.S. District Court granted plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction, thereby blocking enforcement of four challenged Arkansas laws restricting abortion care in the state until the litigation is resolved.