Legal Advocacy & Impact Litigation

We work strategically and collaboratively with co-counsel partners, community organizations, and named plaintiffs to bring impact litigation that represents broad classes of children and youth across multiple public systems.

Browse Legal Cases

Focus AreaCase Jurisdiction

StatusCase TypeLocation

Tonisha Smith v. Alameda County

Filing Date2021-08-01

Under California law, every youth in foster care is entitled to a safe place to live at all times. With partners Youth Law Center and Morgan Lewis LLP, National Center for Youth Law has filed a complaint against Alameda County and its Social Service Agency on behalf of a youth in extended foster care who experienced more than two weeks of homelessness because the agency failed to provide her with a place to live.

Active

Planned Parenthood v. Promesa Behavioral Health

Filing Date2016-02-19

The California Constitutional right to privacy protects the fundamental right of California women to retain personal control over the integrity of their bodies and to decide whether and when to parent.

Inactive

COPAA v. DeVos, 2020

Filing Date2020-08-10

In August 2020, NCYL, on behalf of The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Betsy DeVos for attempting to siphon emergency federal COVID-19 funding away from K-12 public schools and the students they serve.

Active

Women’s Student Union v. U.S. Department of Education

Filing Date2021-03-08

The Women's Student Union (WSU) at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California filed a legal challenge to Trump-era Department of Education regulations that put students nationwide in greater danger and represent a radical departure from the way previous Democratic and Republican administrations applied Title IX to school sexual harassment, including sexual assault.

Inactive

D.P. v. School Board of Palm Beach County

Filing Date2021-06-22

Police employed by the School District of Palm Beach County illegally use the Florida Mental Health Act, also known as the Baker Act, to subject hundreds of students each year to involuntary psychiatric examinations, without their parents' input, consent and, sometimes, over their objections.

Active

Sigma Beta XI v. County of Riverside

Filing Date2018-07-01

This lawsuit alleges that Riverside County, California, through its Probation office, targets, ensnares, and discriminates against children by stripping them of their constitutional rights.

Active

San Juan Unified School District Civil Rights Complaint

Filing Date2017-12-18

This civil rights complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education on December 18, 2017 alleges Mira Loma High School discriminates against African American students through its racially hostile educational environment.

Inactive

SurvJustice v. DeVos

Filing Date2018-01-25

This lawsuit was filed on behalf of SurvJustice, Equal Rights Advocates, and Victim Rights Law Center, three national public interest organizations, to stop U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the Trump Administration's Title IX policy.

Active

M.B. v. Tidball

Filing Date2017-07-03

Every day, the approximately 13,000 children in the foster care custody of the state of Missouri are exposed to an unreasonable risk of serious physical and psychological harm because the state fails to maintain an adequate oversight system to ensure that psychotropic drugs are administered safely and only when necessary.

Active