The Supreme Court recognized that government requests for donor lists is enough to trigger First Amendment concerns.
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A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision suggests that sensitive donor information may be protected—for now.
On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport that a New Jersey nonprofit had standing to challenge a state subpoena demanding its donor information. The nation’s highest court overturned a lower court decision that had said the group had to wait until the subpoena was actually enforced.
The Court ruled that the non-profit didn’t have to wait for the government to force it to comply before it could challenge the subpoena. Just being asked to hand over sensitive donor information—especially because it could scare people away from donating—is enough to constitute a legal injury.
Importantly, the Court did not decide whether the subpoena itself is unconstitutional. It only decided that the nonprofit has the right to challenge it now, rather than later.
Justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court.
First Choice Background
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is a religious nonprofit that has operated in New Jersey since 1985, providing counseling and resources to pregnant women. The organization believes that life begins at conception and, consistent with that belief, does not provide abortions or refer clients to abortion providers.
In 2022, then–New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin established a “Reproductive Rights Strike Force,” which issued a consumer alert accusing organizations like First Choice of misleading women about their access to reproductive health care. Notably, the state had received no complaints from the public about First Choice.
Nevertheless, in 2023, the Attorney General served First Choice with a subpoena directing it to produce 28 categories of documents. Most significantly, the subpoena sought the names, addresses, phone numbers, and places of employment of nearly all donors who had contributed to the organization—except those who donated through one specific webpage. The request covered donations dating back to January 1, 2021, and warned twice that failure to comply could result in contempt of court and other penalties.
The Attorney General later explained that his office intended to contact a sample of donors to determine whether they had been misled about First Choice’s mission.
The First Choice Lower Court Proceedings
Two days before its compliance deadline, First Choice filed suit in federal district court, arguing that the demand for donor information violated its First Amendment rights, particularly its right to freedom of association. The organization asserted that it had promised donors anonymity and that forced disclosure would deter individuals from contributing.
Supporting declarations from anonymous donors stated that they would have been less likely to donate had they known their information might be disclosed to a government they viewed as hostile to pro-life organizations. The group’s executive director similarly warned that the subpoena threatened to reduce fundraising and impair the organization’s mission.
The district court dismissed the case, holding that First Choice lacked standing—the legal ability to bring a lawsuit. To proceed in federal court, a plaintiff must show that it has suffered, or is likely to suffer, a concrete injury caused by the defendant that the court can remedy. Without standing, a court will dismiss the case without reaching the merits because there is no justiciable controversy.
Here, the government argued that because no state court had yet ordered First Choice to comply with the subpoena, the organization had not suffered an injury. The Third Circuit affirmed in a divided decision, with one judge dissenting on the ground that the subpoena’s issuance itself burdened First Choice’s present associational rights.
First Choice then petitioned the Supreme Court for review. Most cases reach the Supreme Court this way. The losing party asks the Court to take the case by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari. If the Court agrees to hear the case, it grants that petition—and that is what happened here.
The Supreme Court Sides With First Choice
The Supreme Court heard the case on a very narrow issue: not whether the subpoena violated the First Amendment, but whether First Choice could bring the challenge at this point at all.
Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Gorsuch began by reviewing the Court’s long line of First Amendment cases on the right to associate, stretching back to NAACP v. Alabama (1958). In that case, the Court held that requiring groups to reveal their members can be as effective a restraint on freedom of association as more direct forms of government suppression. That principle has been reaffirmed repeatedly—in cases involving campaign finance disclosure, legislative investigations, and, most recently, in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021), where the Court struck down California’s demand for major donor lists from nonprofit charities.
With that history, the Court held that the Attorney General’s subpoena caused First Choice a present, ongoing injury to its First Amendment rights. Government demands for private donor information, the Court explained, inherently discourage individuals from associating with advocacy groups and pressure those groups to curtail protected speech. This chilling effect does not arise only when a court enforces the subpoena—it begins when the demand is made and persists for as long as it remains outstanding.
Rejecting the Attorney General’s Arguments
The Attorney General made three main arguments for why there was no real injury here, and the Court rejected all of them.
First, he said that his subpoenas are “non-self-executing”—in other words, they don’t compel anyone to act unless a court steps in to enforce them. So, in his view, First Choice couldn’t claim harm unless and until a court ordered compliance. The Court disagreed. Justice Gorsuch leaned on the classic “sword of Damocles” idea: the power of a threat lies in the fact that it’s hanging over you, not in whether it’s already fallen. Even without immediate enforcement, a demand like this would reasonably make donors think twice about making a donation, and could push the organization to change its behavior.
The Court also brushed aside the lower courts’ reliance on earlier cases like Reisman and Claire Furnace. In those cases, the Court explained, the people involved were worried about possible future harm. This case is different, Gorsuch wrote, because the harm—chilling people’s willingness to associate—was already happening.
What’s Next For First Choice
The Court ultimately reversed the Third Circuit and sent the case back for further proceedings. The Court did not rule on the underlying merits of the case, but rather ordered the lower court to hear them.
The decision makes clear that the government can’t avoid First Amendment challenges just by calling its demands “preliminary” or saying they might be enforced later. When officials go after a group—especially one with an unpopular viewpoint—and demand donor information, the harm isn’t something that might happen down the road. It’s happening right away. And that means courts can step in and hear the case.
What About Other Nonprofits?
Most nonprofits do not have to publicly disclose their donors on reporting forms like Form 990. Organizations described in Sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the tax code are generally required to report major donors to the IRS on a supplemental schedule (Schedule B), but that information is kept confidential. When these forms are made public, the donor names and identifying details are redacted. The main exception is political organizations, such as 527 groups, which are subject to separate disclosure rules and must publicly report their contributors.
That distinction helps explain why donor information can be so sensitive in cases like First Choice. While nonprofits are accustomed to sharing donor data confidentially with the IRS, a government demand outside that system—especially one tied to an investigation—raises different concerns. Even without public disclosure, the prospect that officials could access donor identities can discourage people from giving or associating with a group, which is exactly the kind of “chilling effect” the Supreme Court has treated as a First Amendment concern.
The case is First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport.
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