America First Legal, a group aligned with Trump, is preparing for a fight
Last month, Mr. Miller’s group sued Arizona’s largest public school district, headquartered in Mesa, for what the amended complaint described as “an astonishing situation that would once have been unthinkable.” It alleged that the district’s policy was to “encourage” students to change their gender identification and prohibit them from notifying parents if students chose to do so. The complaint went on to predict several outcomes of such policies, including sexual violence and genital mutilation.
Mesa County Attorney Robert D. Haws declined to comment, citing the pending status of the lawsuit. But in his motion to dismiss the case filed this month, he said the “parade of potential atrocities” proposed by America First Legal had gone “completely off the rails.” Mr. Haws also said the school district was simply following a policy that prohibits discrimination, including against transgender students.
Some of the lawsuits being pursued by Mr. Miller’s group suffer from questionable timing, at least from a legal perspective. In April 2021, America First Legal sued the San Antonio City Council for “cancelling” Chick-fil-A (whose chairman, Dan T. Cathy, opposes gay marriage) by refusing to give the chain a contract at the airport of the city. But the complaint was filed six months after Chick-fil-A, which has more than 40 restaurants in the San Antonio area, abandoned its plans for an airport location.
If the Chick-fil-A complaint seemed overdue, a more recent filing by America First Legal might seem premature. In October, the group sued New York University on behalf of a first-year law student, a white man, who claimed that if he applied for the school’s law review, he would most likely be rejected because of his race and gender. The school’s attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the lawsuit involves “fanciful speculation” about a selection process that has yet to take place.
Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at NYU, said America First Legal’s track record seems to indicate “more heat than light.” The group has yet to argue a case before the Supreme Court, and more than two years have passed since it succeeded in thwarting the Biden administration’s agenda.
Last week, during a hearing in federal court in the Trump documents caseJudge Aileen M. Cannon rejected Mr. Miller’s group’s argument in an amicus brief that the case should be dismissed because the National Archives and Records Administration did not have the authority to make a criminal referral. She called it “a red herring.”