Durham County v. Amanda Wallace

In 2021, Amanda Wallace started Operation Stop CPS, a non-profit organization, after 10 years as a Child Protective Services (CPS) caseworker. Based on her firsthand experience working inside the system, Wallace believes that CPS is forcefully and disproportionately removing Black and Brown children from loving homes. Wallace is now a recognized leader in the statewide and national movement to end the all-too-common practice of forcibly separating families.

On November 19, 2025, lawyers for Durham County secured an ex parte temporary restraining order against Wallace on behalf of the Director of the Durham Department of Social Services (DSS). The order was sought in reaction to Wallace exercising her First Amendment right to call out the harms and injustices of the family policing system in Durham County, which has had a reported 22 percent rate of reuniting children with their parents following DSS intervention, well below the national average of 46 percent. Durham County sought this extraordinary form of relief under the North Carolina Workplace Violence Prevention Act.  

On December 5, 2025, Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) represented Wallace during a day-long hearing in Durham County District Court. The courtroom was packed with attendees. The hearing included expert testimony from Professor Sarah Katz of Temple University Beasley School of Law, a published scholar on family justice law. Professor Katz testified about the history and purpose of the movement to abolish the family policing system, as well as how the terms “kidnapping” and “genocide” are used to describe the personal experiences of families involved in the family policing system. During her testimony, Professor Katz noted that the United Nations’ definition of the word genocide “includes the forcible removal of children from one group to another.” 

At the conclusion of the hearing, District Court Judge James Hill granted a permanent no-contact order, preventing Wallace from walking on certain sidewalks and from using specific words (such as “kidnapping” and “genocide”).  

On January 2, 2026, SCSJ filed a notice of appeal on behalf of Wallace to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. 

On March 16, 2026, SCSJ filed a Rule 60(b) motion to ask the court to modify its order to comply with the First Amendment. The ACLU of North Carolina filed an amicus brief in support of Wallace’s Rule 60(b) motion.