Here are some important law-and-religion stories from around the web:
- The Second Circuit held that a preliminary injunction should issue to allow funding of a high school student’s college enrollment under Vermont’s Dual Enrollment Program, which denied a student participation because her high school was religious.
- The Eighth Circuit heard oral argument in two cases in which a Missouri federal district court rejected constitutional challenges by parents to the form that Missouri requires in order to claim a religious exemption from vaccination for a school child.
- The Eighth Circuit heard oral argument in a case in which a Iowa federal district court held that the University of Iowa and three of its administrators violated the free speech and free exercise rights of a Christian student organization when it revoked the group’s registration.
- Suit was filed in the Southern District of New York by seven advocacy groups challenging the Trump Administration’s loosening of restrictions on faith-based organizations’ operation of programs and activities funded by federal grants.
- Suit was filed in an Arizona federal district court on behalf of traditional Apache religious and cultural leaders seeking to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from transferring to mining companies a parcel of land used by the Western Apache Peoples for traditional religious ceremonies.
- A North Dakota federal district court granted a number of Catholic-affiliated health care entities and employers an injunction barring enforcement against them of transgender anti-discrimination rules that require them to provide or provide insurance coverage for transgender transition procedures.
- President Trump issued a Proclamation declaring December 16, 2020 as Religious Freedom Day, which marks the anniversary of Virginia’s adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786.
- The U.S. Department of Labor released a Wage and Hour Opinion Letter concluding that the “ministerial exception” doctrine can create an exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s requirements.