# American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Pritzker

> District Court, C.D. Illinois · August 5, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11114901

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, C.D. Illinois
- **Decided:** August 5, 2025
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
SPRINGFIELD DIVISION

AMERICAN ALLIANCE FOR EQUAL )
RIGHTS, a nonprofit corporation, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) Case No. 3:24-cv-03299-SLD-RLH
)
JAY ROBERT PRITZKER, in his official )
capacity as Governor of the State of Illinois; )
and KEVIN HUBER, in his official capacity )
as Chairman of the Illinois Student )
Assistance Commission, )
)
Defendants. )

ORDER
Before the Court is Defendants Jay Robert Pritzker and Kevin Huber’s Motion to Dismiss
Plaintiff’s Complaint, ECF No. 11. For the following reasons, the motion is DENIED.
BACKGROUND1
The Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program (“the Scholarship Program”) was
established in 1992 to “encourage academically talented Illinois minority students to pursue
teaching careers . . . and to address and alleviate the teacher shortage crisis.” Compl. ¶ 2, ECF
No. 1 (quoting 110 ILCS 947/50(b)). Scholarship recipients are awarded up to $7,500 per year
to help cover tuition, fees, and room and board. The Scholarship Program is only available to
minority students who have graduated from high school or received a high school diploma,
maintained a cumulative grade point average [(“GPA”)] of at least 2.5 on a 4.0 scale, and are
enrolled or accepted on at least a half-time basis at an Illinois institution of higher education.

1 When reviewing a motion to dismiss, the court “accept[s] as true all well-pleaded facts in the complaint and
draw[s] reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff.” Kap Holdings, LLC v. Mar-Cone Appliance Parts Co., 55
F.4th 517, 523 (7th Cir. 2022). Unless otherwise noted, the factual background is drawn from the Complaint.
The Scholarship Program defines “minority student” as one who is “American Indian or Alaska
Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific
Islander.” Id. ¶ 17 (citing 110 ILCS 947/50(a)). Eligible applicants must meet the following
criteria to qualify: (i) be a resident of Illinois and a citizen or permanent resident of the United

States; (ii) be a minority student; (iii) make a timely application to the Scholarship Program; (iv)
be enrolled on at least a half-time basis at a qualified Illinois institution of higher learning to
become a licensed teacher; (v) maintain a GPA of no less than 2.5 on a 4.0 scale; and (vi)
continue to advance satisfactorily toward the attainment of a degree. The Scholarship Program is
administered by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (“ISAC”).
Plaintiff American Alliance for Equal Rights (“American Alliance”) is a nationwide
nonprofit membership organization headquartered in Austin, Texas. Its “mission is to challenge
racial classifications and racial preferences in America.” Id. ¶ 9. On October 22, 2024,
American Alliance sued Pritzker, as the Governor of Illinois, and Huber, as the Chairman of
ISAC, in their official capacities. American Alliance alleges that by appropriating funds and

administering the Scholarship Program, Pritzker and Huber (collectively, “the State”) are
enforcing “racial exclusion” and violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. See generally id. American Alliance brings this suit on behalf of its members and
specifically identifies “Member A,” alleging that she is “qualified, ready, willing, and able to
apply to the Scholarship Program” but is unable to do so because of her non-minority race. Id.
¶ 29. American Alliance seeks a declaratory judgment that the racial exclusion component of the
Scholarship Program violates the Fourteenth Amendment and a permanent injunction barring the
State from enforcing the Scholarship Program’s racial exclusion component, as well as attorneys’
fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988.
DISCUSSION
I. Legal Standard
The State moves to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), arguing that American Alliance has not sufficiently alleged the

requirements of Article III standing. See generally Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss, ECF No.
12. The State asserts that, even taking the Complaint’s well-pleaded factual allegations as true,
those allegations are inadequate to show that American Alliance has standing to sue. See id. at 1,
3–4, 8–9. Accordingly, the Court construes the State’s motion as a facial attack on American
Alliance’s standing.
“A facial attack tests whether the allegations, taken as true, support an inference that the
elements of standing exist . . . .” Prairie Rivers Network v. Dynegy Midwest Generation, LLC, 2
F.4th 1002, 1007 (7th Cir. 2021) (quotation marks omitted). The plaintiff, as the party invoking
federal jurisdiction, bears the burden of establishing the requisite elements of standing. Remijas
v. Neiman Marcus Grp., LLC, 794 F.3d 688, 691 (7th Cir. 2015). When a defendant challenges

the legal sufficiency of the allegations concerning subject-matter jurisdiction, the court accepts
all well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the
plaintiff. Id.
Standing is an essential component of Article III’s case-or-controversy requirement.
Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). “All plaintiffs, including organizations,
seeking to invoke federal jurisdiction must have standing.” Freedom from Religion Found., Inc.
v. Nicholson, 536 F.3d 730, 737 (7th Cir. 2008). To establish Article III standing, a plaintiff
must show (1) an “injury in fact” that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,
not conjectural or hypothetical,” (2) a “causal connection between the injury and the conduct
complained of,” and (3) a likelihood, as opposed to mere speculation, that the injury “will be
redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560–61 (alterations and quotation marks
omitted).
In cases where the plaintiff is an organization, as it is here, the standing requirements of

Article III can be met in one of two ways. Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President &
Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 199 (2023). The organization can either “claim that it
suffered an injury in its own right or, alternatively, it can assert ‘standing solely as the
representative of its members.’” Id. (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 511 (1975)). The
latter approach is known as associational standing, or sometimes representational or
organizational standing. Hunt v. Wash. State Apple Advert. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977);
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., 600 U.S. at 199. An organization has standing to bring suit
on behalf of its members when “(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their
own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (c)
neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual

members in the lawsuit.” Hunt, 432 U.S. at 343. This three-part test satisfies Article III “by
requiring an organization suing as representative to include at least one member with standing to
present, in his or her own right, the claim (or the type of claim) pleaded by the association.”
United Food & Com. Workers Union Loc. 751 v. Brown Grp., Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 555 (1996).
“Associational standing, then, is derivative of—and not independent from—individual standing.”
Prairie Rivers Network, 2 F.4th at 1008.
II. Analysis
The State challenges the sufficiency of American Alliance’s allegations regarding
associational standing and alternatively, requests the Court’s leave to conduct jurisdictional
discovery. Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss 3–11. American Alliance responds that its
allegations are sufficient at this stage and that discovery is not warranted. Pl.’s Mem. Opp. Mot.
Dismiss 2–12, ECF No. 14.
a. Associational Standing

American Alliance does not assert standing on its own behalf, but instead invokes
associational standing. See Pl.’s Mem. Opp. Mot. Dismiss 3 n.1 (“[The State’s] argument that
[American Alliance] lacks direct standing is irrelevant, as [American Alliance] does not assert
standing in its own right.”). The State does not challenge the second and third elements of the
associational standing test, but instead argues only that American Alliance has not satisfied the
first element “because it fails to name at least one member who would have standing to bring this
case in her own right.” Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss 5.
The State asserts that American Alliance’s failure to identify any injured member by
name means that it cannot rely on associational standing, and that providing a pseudonym is not
sufficiently “naming” a member. Id. The State contends that the Supreme Court’s decision in

Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U.S. 488 (2009), established a “naming requirement” that
plaintiff-organizations must fulfill to establish associational standing and that American Alliance
has not fulfilled such requirement. Id. at 5–10. American Alliance responds that it is not
required to provide the legal name of a member with individual standing at this stage—it need
only identify a member and plead facts that establish that member’s standing in her own right.
See Pl.’s Mem. Opp. Mot. Dismiss 4–11; see also id. at 7 (“[American Alliance] may identify
Member A without naming her.”). American Alliance argues that it has sufficiently pleaded
Article III standing because it “has identified Member A and described with specificity the
‘imminent and concrete harm’ she suffers due to the [S]cholarship [P]rogram’s racially
exclusionary requirement.” Id. at 5 (quoting Summers, 555 U.S. at 495). American Alliance
alleges that Member A is a representative example of a member who has standing to sue in her
own right because she is not a minority student but is “otherwise qualified, ready, willing, and
able to apply to the Scholarship Program.” Compl. ¶¶ 20–30.

The State misconstrues the Supreme Court’s decision in Summers to create a standard
that is satisfied simply by the literal naming of individual members. Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot.
Dismiss 5–10. In Summers, the question of pseudonymous litigants was not before the Supreme
Court. In fact, the Supreme Court considered the affidavits of two organization members and
concluded that they were insufficient to demonstrate standing not because the members were
unnamed—the affidavits were submitted by members Ara Marderosian and Jim Bensman—but
because the attestations did not support a concrete injury in fact. Summers, 555 U.S. at 494–96.
The dissent argued that the affidavits were sufficiently specific and disagreed that anything more
was needed to establish standing. Id. at 507–10 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The majority
characterized the dissent’s argument as “a hitherto unheard-of test for organizational standing:

whether, accepting the organization’s self-description of the activities of its members, there is a
statistical probability that some of those members are threatened with concrete injury.” Id. at
497. The Court rejected the notion that associational standing requirements could be met by
simply alleging a statistical probability that “some (unidentified) members have planned to visit
some (unidentified) small parcels affected by the Forest Service’s procedures and will suffer
(unidentified) concrete harm as a result.” Id. at 497–98.
Summers emphasizes the importance of requiring plaintiffs to “identify members who
have suffered the requisite harm” when bringing a suit by associational standing, id. at 499
(emphasis added), but this identification requirement has not been universally interpreted as a
naming requirement. The Seventh Circuit has explicitly reserved the question of whether
Summers overruled its prior decisions which “noted that the requirement for an individual
member to have standing ‘still allows for the member on whose behalf the suit is filed to remain
unnamed by the organization.’” Prairie Rivers Network, 2 F.4th at 1011 (quoting Disability Rts.

Wis., Inc. v. Walworth Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 522 F.3d 796, 802 (7th Cir. 2008)); accord Luce
v. Kelly, No. 21-cv-1250, 2022 WL 204373, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 24, 2022) (“To date, however,
the Seventh Circuit has not required organizations to name individual members who possess
standing.”).
The State points to the First Circuit’s decision in Draper v. Healey, 827 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.
2016) (Souter, J., sitting by designation), which held that an “association must, at the very least,
identify a member who has suffered the requisite harm” to have standing. Draper, 827 F.3d at 3
(alterations and quotation marks omitted). But Draper did not decide whether identification
requires the disclosure of legal names or merely a sufficient “degree of descriptive information”
about a member. Fac., Alumni, & Students Opposed to Racial Preferences v. Harvard L. Rev.

Ass’n, No. 18-12105-LTS, 2019 WL 3754023, at *6 (D. Mass. Aug. 8, 2019).
Moreover, other circuits have decided this question against the State’s view. In a similar
case also brought by American Alliance, the Eleventh Circuit held that Summers does not
“impose[] a requirement that an organizational plaintiff identify affected members by their legal
names.” Am. All. for Equal Rights v. Fearless Fund Mgmt., LLC, 103 F.4th 765, 773 (11th Cir.
2024); see also Speech First, Inc. v. Shrum, 92 F.4th 947, 949 (10th Cir. 2024) (“Anonymity was
not even an issue before the Supreme Court in Summers. Although one might read language in
that opinion to require that only persons identified by their legal names can have standing, that
was clearly not the intent of the [Supreme] Court.”).2 The State has not established that
Summers entitles the Court to ignore binding authority like Disability Rights Wisconsin or
persuasive authority like Fearless Fund Management and Speech First.
With that proper understanding of Summers, the Court turns to the instant case. Here, in

contrast to the plaintiffs’ allegations in Summers, American Alliance sufficiently identifies a
particular individual, “Member A,” and alleges specific personal facts about her, including her
current education level, GPA, higher education plans, career plans, financial concerns,
scholarships received, and race. Compl. ¶¶ 20–30. Such allegations identify a particular
member and do not rely on the statistical probabilities that Summers squarely rejected.
The State is correct that the Seventh Circuit generally disfavors “pseudonymous
litigation,” Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss 5 (quoting Doe v. Trs. of Ind. Univ., 101 F.4th 485,
492 (7th Cir. 2024)), but it is important to distinguish between a pseudonym used to identify an
individual plaintiff and a pseudonym used to identify a member of an organizational plaintiff,
Pl.’s Mem. Opp. Mot. Dismiss 9–11. For example, in Doe v. Village of Deerfield, 819 F.3d 372

(7th Cir. 2016), the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s weighing of the individual
plaintiff’s “stated reasons supporting anonymity—that having to proceed under his true name
would defeat the purpose of his criminal expungement and any resulting embarrassment he
might feel—against the public’s and parties’ rights to the identities of parties and the potential
prejudice to the opposing parties,” and agreed that “anonymity [wa]s not justified.” Village of
Deerfield, 819 F.3d at 377; see also Doe v. City of Chicago, 360 F.3d 667, 669 (7th Cir. 2004)

2 The State urges the Court not to follow these Tenth and Eleventh Circuit decisions, pointing instead to the Second
Circuit’s decision in Do No Harm v. Pfizer Inc., 96 F.4th 106 (2d Cir. 2024), op. vacated and superseded on reh’g,
126 F.4th 109 (2d Cir. 2025). Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss 6–7, 10. But, just three weeks after the State filed
its Motion to Dismiss, that opinion in Do No Harm was vacated, and this Court will not adopt the reasoning of that
now-vacated opinion.
(“The concealment of a party’s name impedes public access to the facts of the case, which
include the parties’ identity.”). Here, however, Member A is not the named plaintiff—American
Alliance is. Concealing for now the identity of a minor does not meaningfully frustrate the
public’s ability “to understand the grounds and motivations of a decision, why the case was

brought (and fought), and what exactly was at stake in it.” Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss 10
(quoting Mueller v. Raemisch, 740 F.3d 1128, 1135–36 (7th Cir. 2014)). The State has not
demonstrated that the Seventh Circuit’s generalized disfavor towards pseudonymous litigation
mandates the disclosure of Member A’s legal name at this stage of the litigation.
At the motion-to-dismiss stage, a complaint need only provide “general factual
allegations of injury resulting from the defendant’s conduct,” and the court must “presume that
general allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary to support the claim.” Lujan,
504 U.S. at 561 (alterations and quotation marks omitted). The Court finds that American
Alliance has satisfied its burden of pleading associational standing, and therefore, dismissal for
lack of subject-matter jurisdiction is improper.

b. Jurisdictional Discovery
In the alternative, the State seeks limited jurisdictional discovery to investigate whether
Member A in fact has standing to sue. Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss 10–11. This request is
denied. As explained above, the State advances a facial attack on American Alliance’s standing,
not a factual challenge. Therefore, American Alliance’s factual allegations must be taken as true
at this stage. See Prairie Rivers Network, 2 F.4th at 1007. Jurisdictional discovery as part of
resolving a facial challenge to subject-matter jurisdiction is unwarranted. See, e.g., Zurich Am.
Ins. Co. v. Tangiers Int’l LLC, No. 18 C 2115, 2018 WL 3770085, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 9, 2018)
(denying a request for jurisdictional discovery because the defendant brought “a facial and not
factual attack” on the jurisdictional allegations of the complaint); cf. Apex Digit., Inc. v. Sears,
Roebuck & Co., 572 F.3d 440, 443 (7th Cir. 2009) (“Facial challenges require only that the court
look to the complaint and see if the plaintiff has sufficiently alleged a basis of subject matter
jurisdiction.”).

Even if the Court were to construe the State’s challenge as a factual one, the State
provides no reason to doubt American Alliance’s allegations regarding Member A’s membership
status nor her satisfaction of all requirements of the Scholarship Program except race. See
Compl. ¶¶ 20–30; Pl.’s Mem. Opp. Mot. Dismiss 11–12. With nothing to suggest that American
Alliance’s allegations of standing are untrue or ambiguous, the Court finds that jurisdictional
discovery is not warranted at this stage. Contra Woodard v. Quote Storm Holdings, LLC, No. 23
C 55, 2023 WL 3627719, at *3 (N.D. Ill. May 24, 2023) (“Where the evidence offered by the
parties is inconclusive as to subject-matter jurisdiction, a district court can permit limited
jurisdictional discovery.”).
CONCLUSION

Accordingly, Defendants Jay Robert Pritzker and Kevin Huber’s Motion to Dismiss
Plaintiff’s Complaint, ECF No. 11, is DENIED. Defendants’ answer is due August 19, 2025.

Entered this 5th day of August, 2025.
s/ Sara Darrow
SARA DARROW
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11114901. Public record. Not legal advice.