ACS is Committed to Growing the Progressive Community, Protecting Our Democracy, and Upholding the Constitution

The new administration has spent almost two months attempting to amass power through executive orders, executive actions, and threats of reprisal in its effort to unilaterally reshape the federal government by dismantling congressionally created federal agencies, firing or suspending federal employees, questioning and flouting the authority of the courts, and targeting the most vulnerable among us, including immigrant communities and transgender people. These actions threaten our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law, without which no one’s rights can be assured. 

In the face of such threats, the need and desire to react and respond is strong. But I think it is good to keep in mind recent advice from ACS friend and Progressive Champion Awardee Dahlia Lithwick: “Not a sprint. Not a marathon. A relay. Find your team.” We have our team here at ACS. We, our network, and allies are working every day to educate about the dangers to our democracy, speak out against abuses, and empower lawyers, law students, scholars, elected officials, and advocates to join us in the fight. 

Our work occurs along many paths, but here are some examples of our efforts over the past several months: 

• We are strengthening our Coalition Relationships: We are meeting with coalition partners and with Hill staff. We are working with groups like Democracy Forward and Democracy 2025 to unify and coordinate efforts for a united front against the actions of the new administration. We are also sharing volunteer opportunities with partner groups working on reproductive rights, immigration, voting/elections, racial justice, protest lawyering, and more. Right now, we are working with a small group to help source volunteer and low bono attorneys for employment and potentially criminal defense claims that arise from this administration’s actions. In fact, we organized a training this week with AFL-CIO and the People’s Parity Project, for lawyers willing to take recently fired federal employees' cases pro bono or low bono. 

• We are flexing the work of the ACS State Attorneys General Project: This project, founded in 2017, has not missed a beat in the years since. This group has been preparing by hosting a series of convenings on how state AGs can respond to this administration’s immigration policies, including through litigation, and the role state AGs can play in protecting access to healthcare, including reproductive and gender affirming healthcare.  We met immediately after the election and in the days before Inauguration Day and continue to meet. 

• We are continuing to build our thought leadership resources: ACS national has hosted virtual programming and podcasts focused on preparing for attacks on DEI as well as ways to defend against those attacks, regulatory rollbacks, attacks on the federal workforce and reproductive rights. We hosted a briefing on the administration’s extreme immigration policy recently as well as an episode of our biweekly podcast Broken Law focused on the flurry of illegal and unconstitutional executive orders. We are also bringing attention to attacks on democracy in the states, like the North Carolina Supreme Court election certification and hosted a really compelling briefing on that recently.   

• We are providing career counseling: We are offering support and sharing opportunities and connections to Honors tracked employees whose positions were cancelled and government employees who were recently fired or are facing termination. We are also providing career counseling to Federal employees still with the government who are figuring out their next steps.    

• We are continuing to build progressive community engagement through Path to the Bench working groups and chapters: Our chapters continue to host insightful and brave programming in their communities – in February alone, chapters organized over 100 programs on priority and urgent topics. We have new chapter interest weekly – so far in 2025, we have had interest in new or revived student chapters at 10 different law schools and 1 undergraduate university, and interest in new or revived lawyer chapters in 4 regions. Members of our faculty advisor network are also organizing together to work on briefs and impact statements. Just last week, we released a letter signed by more than 950 law scholars (and growing) that sounded the alarm on the constitutional crisis we’re facing and concluding that President Trump “has acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally” in a slew of executive orders and actions. We are working with Path to the Bench Leaders with similar cadence and are creating state-specific roadmaps to best use the network to impact state court judicial selection.    

The first seven weeks of this new administration have been punishing for those of us who hold dear the highest ideals and potential of our Constitution. But we have been here before; in fact, almost 25 years ago ACS was born from times like these. As we have done in the past and during the previous Trump administration, ACS will lean into the creativity and ingenuity of our network to map out new routes to achieve our goals by engaging, uniting, and growing our progressive communities, expanding our state-based work, and creating partnerships with like-minded advocates. Now more than ever, ACS is committed to bringing progressives together to create community, protect our democracy, and uphold the Constitution. Thank you for being part of our team.  

ACS Network and Chapters, Equality and Liberty, Executive Power, Immigration, LGBTQ Equality, Rule of Law, Separation of Powers and Federalism, State Courts