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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Babiy v. Oregon Health and Science University, the District of Oregon dismissed claims for damages brought by a patient access specialist against a medical school and other individuals after she was denied a religious exemption from the school’s Covid vaccine mandate. University policy was to deny religious exemptions where their claim was based solely on fetal cell concerns, and the court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim against the individual defendants on the basis of qualified immunity.
  • Alliance Defending Freedom filed an amicus brief in Garrick v. Moody Bible Institute asking the 7th Circuit to support the freedom of religious institutions to make employment decisions in accordance with their beliefs. In the case, a professor’s contract was not renewed at Moody since she admittedly did not share Moody’s beliefs.
  • The Department of Education issued final rules under Title IX on sex discrimination in schools protecting against LGBTQ+ discrimination. However, in its release, the DOE said that the relevant sections of the rules “do not apply to an educational institution that is controlled by a religious organization to the extent that the provisions’ application would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization.”
  • President Biden issued a Statement on Passover in which he reiterated his commitment to the safety of Jewish people, the security of Israel and its right to exist independently. In addition, he promised to continue working toward a two-state solution to provide peace for Israelis and Palestinians.
  • In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that allows public school districts the option of hiring volunteer chaplains to counsel students. The program is entirely voluntary and takes effect on July 1.
  • Spain approved a plan providing for economic compensation and other reparations for victims of sex abuse committed by people within the Catholic Church. The plan, in addition to providing economic compensation, includes free legal assistance for all victims and it will reinforce the prevention supervision in schools.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Lozano v. Collier, the 5th Circuit reversed a lower court’s decision on several claims by a Muslim inmate. The inmate argued that his religious practices were burdened by the denial of private facilities for prayer and insufficient access to religious programming. Additionally, he challenged the neutrality of faith-based dormitories and the absence of a Muslim-designated unit.
  • In Diocese of Albany v. Harris, the New York Court of Appeals is rehearing a case regarding the New York Department of Financial Services’ mandate that employers cover abortion in their employee health insurance plans. The main issue is whether New York’s narrowing of the exemption to protect only religious groups that primarily teach religion and primarily serve and hire those who share their faith is valid as a religious exemption.
  • In Ex parte The Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, Inc., the Alabama Supreme Court decided that a property ownership dispute between a local Methodist church and its parent church bodies is a civil matter, not ecclesiastical. This decision allows the civil court to resolve the issue using neutral legal principles, as the local church’s property deed does not include a trust clause for the parent bodies.
  • In Matter of Ferrelli v State of New York, a New York State appellate court upheld the denial of a religious exemption from the Covid vaccine mandate for court system employees. The court ruled that the mandate was a neutral law of general applicability, subject only to rational basis review.
    In The King (On the application of TTT) v. Michaela Community Schools Trust, a British court upheld a secular school’s policy preventing a Muslim student from using lunchtime for prayer, citing school unity considerations The court noted that the student was aware of the school’s secular nature upon enrollment and found that missed prayers could be made up later. The policy was deemed proportionate, balancing the school’s aims against the rights of Muslim students.
  • A new paper by economist Devin G. Pope analyzes religious worship attendance using geodata from smartphones for over 2 million Americans and finds that 73% of people step into a religious place of worship at least once during the year on the primary day of worship. However, only 5% of Americans attend services “weekly”, which is far fewer than the ~22% who report to do so in surveys.
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Legal Spirits 059: Daniel McCarthy on “the Other Nones”

Daniel McCarthy

In this episode, Center Director Mark Movsesian interviews journalist Daniel McCarthy on his recent essay in Modern Age, “The Other Nones.” Dan argues that the decline of traditional Christianity in the West hasn’t led to the age of rationalism and progress that many secularists predicted, but instead to an age of entropy, in which people have lost faith in unifying narratives of all kinds, political and ideological as well as religious. Can we restore some idea of the common good? Listen in!

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Here some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Farrakhan v. Anti-Defamation League, a New York federal district court dismissed a complaint alleging that the Anti-Defamation League violated Farrakhan’s First Amendment Rights by repeatedly referring to him and his organization as antisemitic. In the dismissal, the Court reasoned that Farrakhan failed to allege that his injuries were concrete or traceable to the ADL.
  • The City of New York has agreed to settle a class action damage claim brought by Muslim women protesting a policy that required wearers of hijabs to remove them when sitting for arrest photos. The NYPD agreed to change the policy in an earlier settlement in 2020, and the settlement amounts to $17.5 million.
  • In Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods v. Village of Chestnut Ridge, New York, the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a complaint challenging a new zoning law that allowed places of worship to be more easily built, claiming that the law improperly promoted religion. The Court reasoned that the plaintiffs lacked standing, suffering no cognizable harm apart from tax dollars passing the law.
  • In United States v. Safehouse, a Pennsylvania district court held that the prosecution of a nonprofit providing safe injection sites for drug users did not violate the Free Exercise Clause. Despite the leaders of the nonprofit claiming religious motivation, the entity itself has no religious affiliation, and the Court therefore held that the religious inspiration of its leaders doesn’t protect it against prosecution for the violation of a federal statute criminalizing the maintenance of drug-involved premises.
  • In Ocean Grove, New Jersey, the NJ State Department for Environmental Protection ordered the Christian nonprofit owners of the waterfront area to allow beach access to the public on Sunday mornings or face up to $25,000 in fines per day. State officials claim that the closure violates the Coastal Area Facilities Review Act, which itself is based on the public-trust doctrine, outlining that certain natural goods like waterfront areas are to be reserved for public use.
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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Garrick v. Moody Bible Institute, the Seventh Circuit permitted a sex discrimination lawsuit against the Moody Bible Institute to proceed, rejecting the institution’s argument for dismissal based on the religious autonomy doctrine. The court reasoned that while religious autonomy is important, it does not provide immunity in cases of non-ministerial employee discrimination.
  • In The Satanic Temple v. The City of Chicago, an Illinois district court allowed the Satanic Temple’s claim that the city violated the Establishment Clause by consistently delaying a request for a Satanic clergyman to deliver an invocation at a City Council meeting to proceed, stating that the city must treat the Satanic clergy member equally with those of other religions.
  • Iowa enacted a state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protects individuals’ religious exercise from government interference unless the government proves a compelling interest and uses the least restrictive means.
  • In Omid v. Ahmadi, a Connecticut trial court declined to enforce an Islamic mahr agreement in a divorce case. The court found the agreement’s terms ambiguous and intertwined with Islamic law and therefore deemed the agreement unenforceable due to difficulty in separating secular from religious considerations.
  • In Ramirez v. World Mission Society, Church of God, a plaintiff sued a church and its pastor for fraud, emotional distress, and negligence. The plaintiff alleges she was pressured into joining the church through concealment of its leader’s identity and coerced into donating money based on a misrepresented charitable use of funds.
  • Six inmates at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in New York filed a lawsuit against a statewide prison lockdown preventing them from viewing the solar eclipse. The inmates are arguing they hold sincerely-held religious belief that this eclipse is important to the practice of their religion.
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Legal Spirits 058: Law & Justice in Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”

“Measure for Measure” in the First Folio (1623)

First performed 400 years ago, William Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” addresses an enduring human dilemma. No society can safely exist without law, but law itself depends on human judgment, which is prone to error and corruption. In this episode, Center Director Mark Movsesian and Northwestern Law Professor John McGinnis discuss this great but problematic play and explore why it remains so humbling for lawyers and judges today. Listen in!

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Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis that the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from requiring a wedding website designer to design websites for same-sex weddings in violation of her religious beliefs. On remand, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the District of Colorado entered a final order in the case in favor of the designer.
  • The Department of Justice filed suit in federal court seeking to enjoin the California Department of Corrections from requiring Muslim and Sikh officers to be clean shaven so that they can properly wear tight-fitting respirators. The complaint argues that wearing a beard is a sincerely held religious belief and that the Department of Corrections has not made an effort to accommodate the officers by, for example, placing them in positions that do not require use of respirators or offering alternative respirators that fit over beards. 
  • In St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church v. City of Brookings, a federal district court held that a zoning ordinance limiting the number of days a church can serve free meals to needy people violates RLUIPA. The church has been serving meals three to four times per week, but, in 2021, the city amended its zoning code to require a permit to continue serving meals and limited the service to two times per week.
  • In Shlomo Hyman v. Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey, the New Jersey Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a suit brought by a rabbi who was terminated by an Orthodox Jewish day school for allegedly engaging in inappropriate conduct with elementary school-aged female students. The rabbi alleged the investigation that led to his termination was a “sham” and that he had been defamed, while the day school argued that he could not sue the school because its decision to terminate him is covered under the ministerial exception.
  • In T.I. v. R.I., a New York state trial court held that it would recognize a couple’s religious marriage even though the marriage was later annulled by a religious tribunal. The husband claimed that after the annulment, the marriage no longer existed and sought to have the wife’s civil divorce action dismissed, but the court refused to do so.
  • In S.E. v. Edelstein, an Ohio state appellate court affirmed dismissal of a suit brought by an Orthodox Jewish wife alleging her father-in-law intentionally interfered with a Jewish-law marriage contract she had with her husband. The court found that the suit, although couched as an intentional interference with contract claim, essentially sought damages for alienation of affections and breach of promise to marry, and those claims were barred by Ohio law. 
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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart v. City of Madison, Wisconsin, the 7th Circuit ruled against a religious school’s appeal for zoning approval to install lights for nighttime athletic events. The court found that the inability to host these events does not constitute a “substantial burden” on the school’s religious mission, noting that alternative venues could host such events, thus not impeding the school’s religious mission.
  • In Pendleton v. Jividen, the 4th Circuit found that a West Virginia prison’s dismissal of a Sufi inmate’s religious diet claim was incorrect. The inmate’s Sufi beliefs require a diet excluding soy, which cause him health issues, making soy-based foods religiously “Haram.” The court emphasized that an inmate does not need a medical allergy test to prove a substantial burden on religious practices, thus allowing his RLUIPA claim to proceed.
  • The Satanic Temple has filed a lawsuit in a Tennessee federal district court against the Memphis-Shelby County School Board, alleging unconstitutional hurdles in renting space for an After-School Satan Club.
  • Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb vetoed House Enrolled Act 1002, aimed at defining antisemitism in educational settings, citing its failure to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition and examples, particularly concerning criticism of Israel.
  • The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey violated Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (concerning freedom of thought, consciousness, and religion) by convicting a conscientious objector for refusing reserve duty. The Court emphasized the absence of alternative service options for conscientious objectors in Turkish law, upholding previous case law on balancing societal interests and individual rights. Turkey is ordered to compensate the objector for non-pecuniary damage and costs.
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Here are some important law-and-religion stories from around the web:

  • In Bardonner v. Bardonner, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld a custody order that prohibited a father from taking his son to his church. The court held that his free exercise rights were not infringed upon by this restriction as the child’s mother, the legal guardian of the child, had the right to determine the religious upbringing of her child.
  • In Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. State of Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Catholic Charities Bureau and four of its sub-entities were not exempted from the state’s unemployment compensation law. The court reasoned that the controlling factor for qualification was whether the charity was operated primarily for religious purposes, and held that the charity’s purposes were instead charitable and secular.
  • The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom ended an official visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia following a demand by Saudi officials to have USCIRF Chairman Rabbi Abraham Cooper remove his kippah while visiting a religious site.
  • In Miller v. McDonald, the District Court for the Western District of New York upheld the State of New York’s removal of religious exemptions from its mandatory student vaccination requirement. The Court held that the law was facially neutral, and the mere removal of existing religious exemptions is insufficient to prove hostility towards religion.
  • An observant Jewish passenger on a JetBlue flight filed suit against the airliner in the District Court for the Southern District of New York after being forced off the flight when he refused to sit next to a woman who wasn’t his wife or blood relative, on account of his religious beliefs.
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Student Writing Competition: The Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School

The Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School has announced a writing competition for law students focused on scholarship related to the intersection of church, state & society, and in particular, how the law structures and governs that intersection.

Papers should be focused broadly on topics related to church, state & society. The competition is open to law students and recent graduates not yet practicing law. Papers must be between 9,000-13,000 words, including footnotes and/or endnotes. Papers must be submitted by April 12th, 2024.

First Place, $3,000 cash award; Second Place, $2,000 cash award; Third Place, $1,000 cash award; Honorable Mention awards of $500.

For more information, please visit the competition’s website.