Compliance Stuff

On October 30, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied the government’s motion to narrow—and partially stay—the court’s April 14, 2025,  preliminary injunction  barring the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) from enforcing  Executive Order (EO) 14173’s  “Certification Provision” against any DOL grantee or contractor. The court held, despite the Supreme Court of the United States’ caution in  Trump v. CASA, Inc.  against universal injunctions, that a n injunction against DOL-wide enforcement of the executive order that tackles diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives is necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiff, Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), and to prevent a pervasive chilling effect on free speech and conduct rights protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Quick Hits An Illinois federal judge refused to limit a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of a provision in President...

District courts have increasingly asserted the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone during the litigation, even those not a party to a lawsuit, through a procedural tool called  universal injunctions . A federal judge in Texas, for example, issued a preliminary injunction nine years ago to  block the 2016 overtime rule nationwide . Such injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,” the Supreme Court ruled on June 27 in a 6-3 decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. In  Trump v. CASA Inc. , the court granted the federal government’s applications to partially stay injunctions entered by lower courts in birthright citizenship cases. The court stated that “partial stays will cause no harm to respondents because they will remain protected by the preliminary injunctions to the extent necessary and appropriate to afford them complete relief.” In addition, the court has lifted the prohibition on...

In a decision issued on June 27, 2025,  Trump v. CASA, Inc . (a 6-3 ruling), the U.S. Supreme Court held that federal District Courts lack authority to grant universal injunctions. In  CASA , the United States District Courts for the Districts of Massachusetts, Maryland, and the Western District of Washington had previously issued universal preliminary injunctions against the January 20, 2025 Executive Order ending birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to mothers either illegally in the country or visiting on a temporary basis and whose father is not a United States citizen or permanent legal resident (“the EO”) . The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the legality of the EO, but its ruling lifts the preliminary injunctions except as to the parties, paving the way for the Trump administration to implement the EO otherwise, at least for the time being. Prior to  CASA , the national trend was for the lower federal courts to issue universal (or “natio...