Current Cases

Case Status: Victory in District Court

Castro v. Doe

August 14th 2023

Case Name: Castro v. Doe What is it about: The Center for Individual Rights is defending an anonymous Wikipedia editor’s free speech rights against a baseless $180 million defamation lawsuit brought by a Texas political figure.

Case Status: Victory. Settled on Favorable Terms

Riotte v. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

March 8th 2023

Kate Riotte had worked for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (“Museum”) for six years when she was summarily fired for asking the wrong questions about an equity policy that the museum was developing. In February 2021, she volunteered to serve on a cross-level Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Working Group, which was formed to […]

Past Cases

Case Status: Pending

Texas Top Cop Shop: Fifth Circuit Amicus Briefs, December

December 18th 2024

CIR rallied the troops to challenge the Corporate Transparency Act and keep the feds from prying into the affairs of millions of small businesses nationwide. On December 3, the District Court issued a nationwide preliminary injunction, declaring the mass surveillance law “likely unconstitutional.” The federal government filed an appeal, and since then, the legal support […]

Case Status: Victory. Settled on Favorable Terms

Mattson v. Guyette, et al.

March 20th 2023

Daniel Mattson worked as a performer and adjunct professor at the Western Michigan University School of Music for more than twenty years. In 2017, Mattson wrote an autobiographical book describing his return to Catholicism after having spent most of his adulthood in a homosexual lifestyle. In 2021, an activist colleague at the university discovered Mattson’s […]

Case Status: Pending

Riotte v. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art: Who are the Lawyers?

March 8th 2023

Dennis Carnelli Dennis M. Carnelli is an experienced civil litigation attorney who represents people and businesses in private disputes, civil rights actions, and matters implicating their constitutional rights.  He received his J.D., cum laude, from Western New England University School of Law, where he was a Note Editor for the Western New England Law Review […]

Case Status: Pending

Riotte v. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art: Who is Kate Riotte?

March 8th 2023

Kate Riotte served the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut for six years before she was abruptly fired in 2021 because she asked questions about the museum’s proposed racial equity policy. Riotte earned a degree in museum studies and art history from Juniata College.  After graduating, she hoped to start a career in […]