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

  • In Greene v. Teslik, the 7th Circuit dismissed a Protestant inmate’s complaint that prison officials violated the Free Exercise clause by denying his access to prayer oil. The court concluded that the officials were protected by qualified immunity. The court remanded the prisoner’s Establishment Clause claim for further development at trial, however.
  • In Harmon v. City of Norman, Oklahoma, the 10th Circuit affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of challenges to the city’s disturbing-the-peace ordinance brought by anti-abortion activates who demonstrate outside abortion clinics. The court reasoned, in part, that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the city ordinance.
  • In Ravan v. Talton, the 11th Circuit held that a Jewish plaintiff should have been able to move ahead with RLUIPA claims against a food service, and First Amendment Free Exercise claims against two food service workers, for denial of kosher meals on seven different occasions while he was in a county detention center. The court stated that “the number of missed meals is not necessarily determinative because being denied three Kosher meals in a row might be more substantial of a burden on religion [than] being denied three meals in three months.”
  • Becket, a non-profit religious freedom law firm, has petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari in Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia v. Belya. The petition comes after the 2nd Circuit denied a bid by the Church to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by a former priest who claims he lost an appointment to become the bishop of Miami due to false accusations of fraud and forgery by church officials. In a 6-6 ruling, the court declined to reconsider the ruling made by a three-judge panel last September, with dissenting judges arguing that the decision would infringe on church autonomy.
  • The West Virginia Legislature passed the Equal Protection for Religion Act. The bill prohibits state action that hinders a person’s exercise of religion, unless there is a compelling governmental interest, and the least restrictive means are used. The bill passed the Senate in accelerated fashion after it voted 30-3 to suspend its rules that normally require three readings before a vote. 
  • The Department of Labor has rescinded a Trump-era rule that broadly defined the religious exemption in anti-discrimination requirements for government contractors and subcontractors. The DOL criticized the 2020 rule for increasing “confusion and uncertainty” and for raising a “serious risk” of allowing “contractors to discriminate against individuals based on protected classes other than religion.” The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has emphasized that a qualifying religious organization cannot discriminate against employees based on any protected characteristics other than religion.
  • At a New York Public Library interfaith breakfast, Mayor Eric Adams delivered remarks in which he argued against a separation of church and state in American society. Adams’ chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, declared at the event that the mayor’s administration “does not believe” it must “separate church from state.” Adams stated that many societal issues can be traced to a decline in faith. “When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” the mayor said.
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Around the Web

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

  • In Abiding Place Ministries v. Newsom, a California federal district court allowed a church to move ahead with its Free Exercise, Freedom of Assembly, Establishment Clause, Free Speech and Equal Protection claims against San Diego County for enforcing Covid restrictions against public gatherings. However, the court held that the county’s public health officer had qualified immunity against damage claims because there was “no clear precedent” in 2020 that would have put the officer on notice that such restrictions were “clearly and definitively unconstitutional.”
  • An ex-deputy sheriff filed a lawsuit in a Washington federal district court alleging that Chelan County Sheriff’s Office employees pressured him to join the “‘alt-right’ militant” Grace City Church and to attend its twelve-week marriage counseling program. The complaint in Shepard v. Chelan County alleges violation of Title VII, the Washington Law Against Discrimination and the Establishment Clause.
  • Three anti-abortion protesters filed suit against the National Archives after its security officers required them to cover their pro-life t-shirts and remove pro-life buttons and hats while they were visiting the museum. The suit, Tamara R. v. National Archives and Records Administration, filed in the D.C. federal district court, was settled and a consent decree was signed which enjoined the National Archives from prohibiting visitors from wearing attire that displays religious or political speech.
  • In Grullon v. City of New York, a New York trial court held that the New York Police Department was arbitrary and capricious in its denial of a police officer’s religious objections to the Department’s Covid vaccine. The court determined that the police officer is entitled to employment with a reasonable accommodation of weekly Covid testing.
  • In New Brunswick v. His Tabernacle Family Church Inc., a trial court in New Brunswick, Canada refused to hold a church in contempt for a violation of Covid restrictions, stating that it was not unequivocally clear that the church knew it was in violation of a previous consent decree. After signing the consent decree, the church had moved its services to a commercial tent in order to avoid restrictions on gatherings in “public indoor spaces” but once the weather became colder, the church lowered the sides of the tent, which the Province contended created an enclosed space.
  • In Volokh v. James, a New York federal district court issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of New York’s Hateful Conduct Law against social media platforms. The court found that the social media platforms were likely to succeed in both their facial and “as applied” free speech challenges because the law both compelled “social media networks to speak about the contours of hate speech” and it chilled “the constitutionally protected speech of social media users”, without articulating a compelling governmental interest.
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Around the Web

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

  • In Jones v. Shinn, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court should not have dismissed an inmate’s claim that his rights under RLUIPA were violated when prison authorities denied him access to four texts by Elijah Muhammad. However, the court affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiff’s First Amendment free exercise claim because the defendants showed the exclusion was reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest. 
  • A federal class action lawsuit has been filed in Phillips v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, alleging that the University of Virginia Health System violated free exercise and establishment clause provisions of the federal and state constitutions, as well as equal protection rights, in the manner in which it administered applications from employees for religious exemptions from its COVID vaccine mandate. 
  • In YU Pride Alliance v. Yeshiva University, a New York state appellate court affirmed a trial court’s decision that New York City’s public accommodation law requires Yeshiva University to officially recognize as a student organization an LGBTQ group, YU Pride Alliance.
  • In Beaudoin v. Attorney General of British Columbia, the highest court in the Canadian province of British Columbia upheld 2020 and 2021 COVID orders of BC’s Provincial Health Officer that prohibited in-person worship services. The court concluded that the Gathering and Events Order did not violate §15 of the Charter of Rights of Freedoms, which protects the equality rights of the churches that were plaintiffs in the suit. The court also concluded that Plaintiffs’ religious freedom rights under §2 of the Charter were not infringed. 
  • In Tonchev v. Bulgaria, the European Court of Human Rights, in a Chamber Judgment, held that municipal officials in Bulgaria violated Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights when they circulated materials to schools containing hostile information about Christian evangelical churches. 
  • In Zemmour v. France, the European Court of Human Rights upheld France’s conviction of a journalist for inciting discrimination and religious hatred against the French Muslim community through anti-Muslim remarks he made on a 2016 television talk show. The Court found no violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protecting freedom of expression. 
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Legal Spirits Episode 046: Sunday Closing Laws and New Year’s Eve

Last month, a federal court ruled that New York could constitutionally restrict the sale of alcohol when New Year’s falls on a Sunday, as it will this year. In our final podcast of 2022, we discuss this ruling and the Supreme Court’s longstanding view that Sunday alcohol restrictions and closing laws do not violate the Establishment Clause. How has the Court’s jurisprudence shaped the way Americans view Sundays? And what are the implications for religious freedom? Listen in–and Happy New Year!

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Posted on by Mark Movsesian

American Shtetl

Most of us who teach church and state courses are familiar with the Kiryas Joel case, decided almost 30 years ago, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a public school district drawn on religious lines violated the Establishment Clause. We’re a little late getting to it, but earlier this year Princeton published a book on the history of the Hasidic community that gave rise to the case.: American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, A Hasidic Village in Upstate New York, by law professor Nomi Stolzenberg (USC) and historian David Myers (UCLA). Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:

Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history—but many precedents among religious communities in the United States. This book tells the story of how this group of pious, Yiddish-speaking Jews has grown to become a thriving insular enclave and a powerful local government in upstate New York. While rejecting the norms of mainstream American society, Kiryas Joel has been stunningly successful in creating a world apart by using the very instruments of secular political and legal power that it disavows.

Nomi Stolzenberg and David Myers paint a richly textured portrait of daily life in Kiryas Joel, exploring the community’s guiding religious, social, and economic norms. They delve into the roots of Satmar Hasidism and its charismatic founder, Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, following his journey from nineteenth-century Hungary to post–World War II Brooklyn, where he dreamed of founding an ideal Jewish town modeled on the shtetls of eastern Europe. Stolzenberg and Myers chart the rise of Kiryas Joel as an official municipality with its own elected local government. They show how constant legal and political battles defined and even bolstered the community, whose very success has coincided with the rise of political conservatism and multiculturalism in American society over the past forty years.

Timely and accessible, American Shtetl unravels the strands of cultural and legal conflict that gave rise to one of the most vibrant religious communities in America, and reveals a way of life shaped by both self-segregation and unwitting assimilation.

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Around the Web

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

  • The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Haaland v. Brackeen. At issue is the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which attempts to prevent child welfare and adoption agencies from placing Native American children outside their tribe. Issues of religion and religious culture underlie the controversy in the four consolidated cases heard. 
  • An Emergency Application for an Injunction Pending Appellate Review was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in New Yorkers for Religious Liberty v. City of New York. The petition seeks an injunction against enforcing New York City’s Covid vaccine mandate for city workers against those with religious objections to the vaccine. 
  • In Richardson v. Clarke, the Fourth Circuit held that a prison’s former policy requiring inmates to remove head coverings, including religious head coverings, in certain areas of the prison imposed a substantial burden on Plaintiff’s religious exercise. 
  • Suit was filed in a New York federal district court challenging the constitutionality of New York’s ban on carrying firearms in houses of worship. The complaint in His Tabernacle Family Church, Inc. v. Nigrelli alleges that the ban violates the Free Exercise Clause, Establishment Clause, Second Amendment, and the equal protection rights of a church and its pastor. 
  • In Dunbar v. Disney, a California federal district court dismissed an amended complaint filed by actor Rockmond Dunbar in his Title VII disparate-impact religious discrimination claim against Walt Disney Company. His disparate impact claim was initially rejected because Dunbar could not identify other Universal Wisdom Church members who were similarly impacted by a Covid vaccine mandate. 
  • In Loste v. France, the European Court of Human Rights, in a Chamber judgment, held that France’s child welfare service violated Article IX of the European Convention on Human Rights when it failed to assure that a Jehovah’s Witness foster family was respecting the Muslim beliefs of its foster child’s birth family. 
Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

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

  • The U.S. Supreme Court has denied review in Doe v. McKee. The certiorari petition asked the Supreme Court to review a decision made by the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which held that unborn fetuses do not have due process and equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution and do not have standing to challenge Rhode Island’s Reproductive Privacy Act.  
  • In Redlich v. City of St. Louis, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit brought by a Christian pastor and his assistant challenging a city ordinance that required a permit to distribute potentially hazardous food. Plaintiffs had previously been cited for distributing bologna sandwiches to hungry people they encountered in St. Louis.
  • In Marte v. Montefiore Medical Center, a New York federal district court dismissed claims by a former Medical Center employee who sued after the Medical Center denied her a reasonable accommodation when she refused to receive the COVID vaccine. Among other things, the court rejected Plaintiff’s Title VII, free exercise, and equal protection claims. 
  • Suit was filed in a Maryland federal district court alleging that Baltimore’s sign permit ordinance violates Plaintiff’s free speech and free exercise rights. The complaint, in Roswell v. City of Baltimore, seeks a preliminary injunction to prevent the city from requiring Plaintiff to obtain permits in order to use A-frame signs when engaging in religiously-motivated sidewalk anti-abortion counseling near a Planned Parenthood facility. 
  • In Kariye v. Mayorkas, three Muslim plaintiffs sued the Department of Homeland Security alleging that border officers routinely and intentionally single out Muslim-American travelers to demand they answer religious questions. Applying the Supreme Court’s test articulated in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the California federal district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ Establishment Clause challenge. The court also rejected, among other things, plaintiffs’ free exercise, freedom of association, and RFRA challenges.
  • Suit was filed in a Michigan federal district court by a woman who had worked as a physician assistant for seventeen years but was then fired for refusing, on religious grounds, to refer patients for gender-transitioning drugs and procedures and to use pronouns that corresponded to a patient’s gender identity rather than their biological sex. The complaint in Kloosterman v. Metropolitan Hospital brings Free Exercise and Equal Protection claims against Defendant. 
  • In Congregation 3401 Prairie Bais Yeshaya D’Kerestir, Inc. v. City of Miami, a Florida federal district court refused to dismiss claims that city officials’ harassment of a rabbi who hosted daily minyans at his home for guests violated the First Amendment. Private groups worshiping at a person’s home are permitted in residential areas under the city’s zoning code. 
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Around the Web

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

  • In West v. Radtke, the Seventh Circuit held that a Muslim inmate’s rights under RLUIPA were violated when prison authorities refused to exempt him from strip searches conducted by transgender men. The court rejected the prison’s Title VII and equal protection defenses and remanded the case for further development of the inmate’s Fourth Amendment claims.
  • In Maisonet v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit by a Muslim volunteer chaplain who claimed that his free exercise rights were infringed when he was prevented from being in the execution chamber when two inmates to whom he ministered were executed. 
  • A Christian rescue mission filed suit in a Wyoming federal district court by a challenging interpretations by the EEOC and the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services (“WDWS”) of the employment discrimination provisions of state and federal law. The complaint in Rescue Mission v. EEOC contends that the Rescue Mission’s free exercise and free expression rights were violated when the EEOC and WDWS found probable cause that the Mission engaged in religious discrimination in refusing to hire non-Christians as associates in its Thrift Stores. 
  • Four former employees of a continuing care retirement community filed suit in an Alabama federal district court alleging that they were wrongly fired for refusing the COVID vaccine on religious grounds. The complaint in Hamil v. Acts Retirement-Life Communities, Inc. contends that plaintiffs were subjected to a hostile work environment, harassment, and wrongful termination based on their sincerely held religious beliefs. 
  • Suit was filed in a South Carolina state trial court contending that a state budget appropriation to Christian Learning Centers of Greenville County violates the provision in South Carolina’s constitution that bars the use of public funds “for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.” The complaint in Parker v. McMaster asserts that the appropriation also contravenes the state constitution’s Establishment Clause.
  • The Hindu American Foundation (“HAF”) has sued the California Department of Civil Rights for alleged misrepresentation of Hindu beliefs and practices. HAF’s lawsuit claims that the Department of Civil Rights wrongly asserts that the caste system and caste-based system are integral parts of Hindu teaching and practices, and that in doing so, the California Department of Civil Rights violated the First Amendment rights of Hindus. 
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Around the Web

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

  • In Hernandez v. City of Phoenix, the Ninth Circuit held that a Phoenix police officer’s social media posts disparaging Muslims related to a public concern and potentially qualified as protected speech under the First Amendment. The Ninth Circuit remanded the case for further factual development.  
  • In Sabra v. Maricopa County Community College District, the Ninth Circuit held that a Community College professor was entitled to qualified immunity in a suit against him claiming that his online module on Islamic terrorism in a World Politics course violated plaintiffs’ Establishment Clause and Free Exercise rights. Plaintiffs claimed the module’s primary message was disapproval of Islam and that the end-of-module quiz forced a Muslim student to disavow his religion by choosing answers reflecting a radical interpretation of Islam. 
  • The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. San Jose Unified School District Board of Education. In the case, a California federal district court upheld a high school’s non-discrimination policy for recognized student groups that precluded Fellowship of Christian Athletes from requiring its leaders to agree with and live in accordance with the group’s Christian beliefs. 
  • In Katz v. New York City Housing Preservation & Development, a New York federal district court rejected Free Exercise and Affordable Housing Act claims brought by an Orthodox Jewish family whose applications for an affordable housing unit were denied because their family size exceeded the apartments’ maximum occupancy limit. Plaintiffs claim that their religious beliefs require them to have a large family. 
  • In Doe v. Catholic Relief Services, a Maryland federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiff who was denied spousal health insurance coverage for his same-sex husband. The court rejected a church-autonomy defense and held that the Catholic Relief Services violated Title VII. The court also held that the exemption in Title VII for religious organizations only applies to discrimination by them on the basis of religion and that RFRA does not provide a defense because it applies only to claims against the government. The court went on to find a violation of the federal and state Equal Pay Acts and ordered certification to the state court of a question of coverage by Maryland’s Fair Employment Practice Act. 
  • In In re Kelly, the Delaware Supreme Court accepted the report of its Board of Professional Responsibility and involuntarily transferred a state bar member to disability inactive status. The attorney’s incoherent court filings, many containing religious references, led to the proceedings to move respondent to inactive status. While respondent claimed that the proceedings violated her free exercise rights, the court held that respondent’s submissions led to the proceeding – not her religious or political beliefs, as she contends. 
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Around the Web

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

  • In Taylor v. Nelson, the Fifth Circuit held that Texas prison authorities who confiscated a female inmate’s hijab that exceeded the size permitted by prison policies could claim qualified immunity in a suit for damages against them. The court held that Plaintiff failed to identify a clearly established right that officials violated and that reasonable officials would not have understood that enforcing the policy on hijabs was unconstitutional. 
  • The Fifth Circuit recently heard oral arguments in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra. In the case, a Texas federal district court permanently enjoined enforcing the anti-discrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act and implementing regulations against Christian health care providers and health plans in a manner that would require them to perform or provide insurance coverage for gender-transition procedures or abortions. 
  • A class action Settlement Agreement was recently filed in an Illinois federal district court in Doe 1 v. NorthShore University HealthSystem. The suit was brought on behalf of approximately 523 employees who requested, but were denied, a religious exemption or accommodation from the hospital system’s COVID vaccination mandate. The hospital system will pay $10,330,500 in damages if the court approves the settlement. 
  • In Archdiocese of Milwaukee v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections, a Wisconsin trial court issued a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction requiring the Wisconsin prison system to allow Catholic clergy the opportunity to conduct in-person religious services in state correctional institutions. While the clergy were initially restricted due to COVID-19 concerns, the court concluded that once the prison system allowed some external visitors to enter correctional institutions, it was required to honor the clergy’s statutory privilege to do so ­– and refusal to do so violated Plaintiff’s free exercise rights under the Wisconsin Constitution. 
  • Seven clergy members in Florida have filed lawsuits contending that Florida’s 15-week abortion ban violates their free exercise, free speech, and Establishment Clause rights. 
  • France’s Constitutional Council last month, in Union of Diocesan Associations of France and others, upheld the constitutionality of several provisions of law governing religious institutions in France. The Council upheld the requirement that a religious organization must register with a governmental official in order to enjoy benefits available specifically to a religious association. The Council found that this did not infringe freedom of association and did not hinder the free exercise of religion.