Supreme Court was right to protect donor privacy, and NC was ready
Supreme Court was right to protect donor privacy, and NC was ready
Publish Date: 2026-05-07 01:26:00
Source Domain: www.carolinajournal.com
Last September, when the John Locke Foundation filed an amicus brief in the case of First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, I wrote that New Jersey’s attorney general was not really trying to enforce a consumer protection law. He was sending a message: Support a cause the government dislikes, and you could pay the price. Last week, a unanimous Supreme Court held that organizations do not have to wait for a state court to force compliance before they can fight back in federal court.
The decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport is correct, important, and timely. It forecloses a tactic that government officials across the political spectrum have used to harass and silence organizations they oppose — and North Carolina, having just won this exact battle in our own legislature, understands better than most what is at stake.
What the Attorney General Did
First Choice has served pregnant women in New Jersey since 1985. In 2022, then-Attorney General Matthew Platkin created a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force” that accused groups like First Choice of spreading false information about abortion, despite receiving zero public complaints about the organization. He then served it with a sweeping subpoena demanding the names, addresses, phone numbers, and employers of virtually every donor who had given by any means other than one state-approved webpage. Nearly 5,000 contributions were at issue. Two federal courts dismissed the challenge, holding the subpoena was “non-self-executing” and caused no cognizable injury yet. The Supreme Court reversed, unanimously, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch.
Why the Court Got It Right
Donor privacy is not a new idea. In NAACP v. Alabama (1958), the Supreme Court held that compelled disclosure can suppress a protected association as effectively as an outright ban — and has reaffirmed that principle ever since. Justice Gorsuch applied it with clarity: The harm does not…
