Supreme Court Ruling in Census Citizenship Case Sides with Akin Gump Pro Bono Clients
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(Washington, D.C.) – The U.S. Supreme Court, on June 27, affirmed the district court’s decision blocking the Trump administration’s bid to add a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census. The opinion’s reasoning on the deciding issue paralleled Akin Gump’s amici curiae brief challenging the federal government’s use of the question.
Akin Gump served as lead counsel for amici, including former U.S. Commerce Secretary and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (national and New York chapters), and three U.S. citizens of Japanese descent whose removal and incarceration during World War II (among over 120,000 others) was facilitated by the Census Bureau’s sharing of confidential data.
Pratik Shah, co-head of Akin Gump’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, said, “The Chief Justice’s opinion for the Court calls out the government’s ‘contrived’ post hoc rationalization for adding the citizenship question to the census. It remains unclear how the government can undo its deception at this late stage.”
Joining Mr. Shah on the Akin Gump team were litigation partners Robert Pees and Julius Chen, corporate partner Alice Hsu, and labor and employment associate Geoffrey J. Derrick.
The case was Department of Commerce, et al. v. State of New York, et al., No. 18-966.
To read the brief in its entirety, please click here.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
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