If I were briefing the other side, I'd rely on the SCOTUS decision in NAACP v. Alabama, 357 US 449 (1958). (Full text here, Wikipedia article about the case here)
The State of Alabama wanted to force the NAACP to turn over a complete list of its Alabama members. A unanimous Supreme Court held that the Alabama requirement violated the First Amendment. An excerpt:
It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as the forms of governmental action in the cases above were thought likely to produce upon the particular constitutional rights there involved. This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations. When referring to the varied forms of governmental action which might interfere with freedom of assembly, it said in American Communications Ass'n v. Douds, supra, 339 U.S. at page 402, 70 S.Ct. at page 686: 'A requirement that adherents of particular religious faiths or political parties wear identifying arm-bands, for example, is obviously of this nature.' Compelled disclosure of membership in an organization engaged in advocacy of particular beliefs is of the same order. Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs. Cf. United States v. Rumely, supra, 345 U.S. at pages 56 58, 73 S.Ct. at pages 550—551 (concurring opinion).
We think that the production order, in the respects here drawn in question, must be regarded as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association. Petitioner has made an uncontroverted showing that on past occasions revelation of the identity of its rank-and-file members has exposed these members to economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility. Under these circumstances, we think it apparent that compelled disclosure of petitioner's Alabama membership is likely to affect adversely the ability of petitioner and its members to pursue their collective effort to foster beliefs which they admittedly have the right to advocate, in that it may induce members to withdraw from the Association and dissuade others from joining it because of fear of exposure of their beliefs shown through their associations and of the consequences of this exposure. [emphasis added]
In the 1950s, Jim Crow was tottering but was by no means dead. Under the conditions then in existence, the Supreme Court was certainly correct to uphold "the immunity from state scrutiny of membership lists which the Association claims on behalf of its members" because the anonymity "is here so related to the right of the members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing" as to merit the protection of the Constitution.
Most of us like the people who were working for civil rights in 1950s Alabama. We dislike the big corporations that are working against many of our political objectives today. Our cheers and boos, however, are not a basis for sound legal doctrine. Is there a principled basis for distinguishing the
NAACP v. Alabama doctrine? The donors in the current case aren't going to be exposed to KKK lynching but they could well suffer adverse consequences. Drawing a distinction there would require me to get much more deeply into the precedents. (Sorry, but your free legal research time just ran out!)
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