FAIR has made another significant victory in our ongoing fight against institutional racial discrimination. On August 6, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia issued a ruling denying a motion to dismiss FAIR’s constitutional challenge to the West Virginia State Bar’s racially discriminatory election practices. This decisive ruling means our case will proceed to the merits, where we will have the opportunity to prove that the State Bar’s race-based restrictions violate the Equal Protection, Citizenship, and Fifteenth Amendment rights of all attorneys, regardless of their race.

The West Virginia State Bar maintains bylaws that reserve one seat on its 26-member Board of Governors exclusively for an “African-American lawyer” and restricts voting in that election to attorneys who “self-identify as African American.” FAIR argues that these provisions violate fundamental constitutional principles by:

• Denying equal treatment under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause
• Creating racial citizenship tiers in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause
• Restricting voting rights based on race in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment
  
  

As the court recognized, these discriminatory barriers prevent qualified attorneys like our members from having an equal opportunity to seek election to the Board and participate fully in the democratic governance of their own profession. In fact, the ruling systematically dismantled every argument the defendants raised to avoid accountability, including FAIR’s associational standing to bring this lawsuit on behalf of our attorney members and claims that the West Virginia State Bar is immune from constitutional violations arising from discriminatory barriers.

The court’s thorough analysis sends a clear message: constitutional rights cannot be sacrificed on the altar of racial preferences. As Judge Thomas Kleeh noted, the Supreme Court has long recognized that the Equal Protection Clause protects “the right to be considered for public service without the burden of invidiously discriminatory disqualifications.”

This case also demonstrates the Fifteenth Amendment’s continuing relevance beyond traditional electoral contexts. The court’s ruling that voting rights protections apply to professional bar elections could have significant implications for similar discriminatory practices in other licensed professions and regulatory bodies.

With the motion to dismiss denied, FAIR now moves forward to the discovery phase, where we will gather evidence demonstrating the full scope of the West Virginia State Bar’s discriminatory practices and their impact on our members and the legal profession more broadly.

We are confident that when the merits are fully litigated, the court will issue a permanent injunction ending these race-based restrictions and declaring them unconstitutional. This will ensure that all qualified attorneys can compete for Board positions based on their merit, qualifications, and vision for the profession – not their racial identity.

This victory would not have been possible without the support of our members and the expert advocacy of our partners at Pacific Legal Foundation. Together, we continue to prove that principled legal action can dismantle institutional discrimination and restore the promise of equal treatment under law. FAIR remains committed to defending the principle that equal protection means equal protection for all, regardless of race, color, or ethnicity. This ruling brings us one step closer to reinforcing this foundational value.