[6] Based in Washington, D.C., the firm is "dedicated to the defense of individual liberties against the increasingly aggressive and unchecked authority of federal and state governments".

CIR's primary focus for most of its existence has been challenges to what it regards as unconstitutional or unlawful preferences based on race, sex, or another identity group.

It has represented individuals and groups, often in university environments, challenging attempts to interfere with speech deemed "politically incorrect".

Its name was chosen to underscore that its objective would be to defend individual liberties, broadly understood to encompass both civil and economic rights.

From the outset, CIR specialized in a small number of areas of litigation: free speech and civil rights being the two most important.

[10][11] Similarly in Smith v. Virginia Commonwealth University CIR represented a high school student banned from attending a summer journalism workshop when it was determined he was white.

[12] In another case that reached the Supreme Court, CIR participated in the voting rights case of Reno v. Bossier Parish in which the Department of Justice refused to provide pre-clearance for a state redistricting plan which expanded minority districts because the DOJ felt even more minority districts could be created.

The Court held that DOJ could not deny pre-clearance to redistricting plans that did not show a discriminatory intent and which did not reduce the number of minority districts.

The school challenged a Maryland Program which provided private colleges and universities with funds based on the number of students they taught.

Numerous Catholic colleges received funding but CUC (run by Seventh Day Adventists) was deemed "pervasively sectarian" or too religious.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that CUC was entitled to equal access to funding.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the principle that civil rights laws could not be used to stifle legitimate political debate of these matters.

In that case, a female student at Virginia Tech accused several football players of rape but a grand jury found insufficient evidence to prosecute.