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On April 29, 2026, the US Supreme Court decided First Choice Women's Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport, No. 24-781, holding that First Choice Women's Resource Centers, Inc. (First Choice), a religious nonprofit organization, established a present injury to its First Amendment associational rights sufficient to confer Article III standing when the New Jersey Attorney General issued a subpoena seeking personal information about the organization's donors.
In 2023, New Jersey's Attorney General served a subpoena on First Choice Women's Resource Centers, Inc. (First Choice). The subpoena commanded First Choice to produce documents reflecting the personal information of its donors. The subpoena also twice warned that failure to comply may render First Choice liable for contempt of court and other penalties. First Choice sued in federal court to prevent enforcement of the subpoena, alleging the demand for information about its donors violated its First Amendment rights. First Choice also moved to seek a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the subpoena.
The federal district court denied First Choice's motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissed its complaint, holding that in the absence of a court order compelling First Choice to comply with the subpoena it had yet to suffer any injury and thus lacked Article III standing to challenge the subpoena in federal court. The Third Circuit affirmed.
The Supreme Court reversed, holding First Choice established that the Attorney General's subpoena demanding private donor information injures the group's First Amendment associational rights. The Court explained that demands for a charity's private member or donor information have the effect of discouraging people from associating with groups engaged in protected First Amendment advocacy. Further, those demands encourage groups and individuals to cease or modify protected First Amendment advocacy the government disfavors. Those effects occur not just when a demand is enforced, but when it is made and for as long as it remains outstanding.
The Court thus determined First Choice established injury in fact as shown by the subpoena's demands, First Choice's allegations that it keeps donor information private, and donors' declarations about the importance of anonymity. It rejected the Attorney General's arguments that the subpoena could not chill First Amendment rights because it was non-self-executing, and that any chill from the subpoena was cured by the Attorney General's later promise to refrain from making the donor information public.
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
