Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The Taming of Employment Division v. Smith

When Employment Division v. Smith was decided, it had committed opponents and supporters.  Opponents claimed that it represented the end of free exercise; supporters argued that at long last, the Court adopted an appropriately equal, predictable, and univocal principle of free exercise which limited the scope of its political interventions.  There was disagreement about the wisdom of Smith (including in Congress, which reacted negatively to Smith with some statutes), but few doubted that Smith was a very big deal for constitutional religious liberty.

CLR Forum readers will know that Smith carved out various exceptions to the rule that neutral laws of general application are constitutional.  The first exception dealt with the idea of hybrid rights.  The idea was that a less than independently viable free exercise claim, when coupled with another constitutional right of uncertain strength, would become viable.  Lower courts have adopted various interpretations of this exception: some have treated it as non-binding dicta, while others have tried to operationalize it in various ways.  The second exception has proved to be far more important: where the law at issue is not truly a law of general application — where a system of individualized assessments with respect to exemption from the law has been adopted — then the law is again subject to strict scrutiny.  I’ve looked into the question of how much, and how often, lower courts are using this exception (and I also inquired a bit about the extent to which litigants are using it).  It turns out…a whole lot.  Indeed, the latest example of the application of the individual assessment exception appears in a case reported by my colleague, Mark, just below, and just decided in the Sixth Circuit, where Judge Sutton held that a student who was dismissed from a counseling program because she refused on religious grounds to counsel homosexual couples and non-married couples could proceed with her claim.  The court held that the school’s “no referral to other counselors” policy was not one of general application, because referrals for secular reasons had been permitted.  For more on the case, see Mark’s item below.  You might wonder just how powerful the individualized assessment exception is…you will have to wait for my book to see just how much!  For the third exception…follow the jump!

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Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Sixth Circuit Rules in Favor of Christian University Student in Religious Discrimination Case

A Sixth Circuit panel has ruled unanimously in favor of a Christian university student who claims that Eastern Michigan University expelled her from its graduate counseling program because of her religious beliefs. Julea Ward told the university that as a Christian she could not affirm same-sex relationships (as well as non-marital heterosexual relationships); when a client in her counseling practicum sought counseling about a same-sex relationship, Ward asked that the client be referred to a different counselor. As a result, the university commenced a disciplinary proceeding and eventually expelled her from the program, ostensibly because the university had a blanket policy against students referring clients to other counselors. When Ward sued the university under title VII, claiming the university had dismissed her in violation of her free speech and free exercise rights, the district court granted summary judgment for the university.

Today, the Sixth Circuit reversed. Writing for the panel, Judge Sutton held that a jury could reasonably find that the “no referral” policy was merely a pretext the university had manufactured after the fact. Even worse, a jury could find that it was a poor pretext: there was evidence that the university allowed students to refer clients to other counselors for certain “secular” reasons.  A jury could thus find that the no-referrals rule was not neutral with respect to religion; as a result, under Employment Division v. Smith, the university would have to show a compelling interest to justify the rule – which, on the record, seemed very unlikely. The Sixth Circuit distinguished last month’s decision by the Eleventh Circuit in Keeton v. Anderson Wiley, which CLR Forum discussed here. Today’s case is Ward v. Polite (6th Cir., slip op. Jan. 27, 2012).

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Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Oklahoma Anti-Sharia Amendment

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently affirmed a preliminary injunction against an Oklahoma constitutional amendment forbidding consideration of Sharia by its state courts.  The amendment forbade Oklahoma courts from considering international law, the legal precepts of other nations and cultures, and, expressly, Islamic Sharia.  The amendment did not expressly forbid consideration of any other religion’s legal precepts and, thus, the Tenth Circuit determined it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause because it constituted a government’s disfavoring one religion against others.  See Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982).  The plaintiff had directed in his will that his estate be probated according to Sharia, a directive that would be unenforceable under the amendment.  The Tenth Circuit did not credit Oklahoma’s argument that the amendment forbade considering all religious law:  Based on the amendment’s text, the court determined that it singled out Islam because, again, the amendment expressly mentioned Sharia only.  On remand, the district court must consider whether to make its preliminary injunction permanent.  Read the case, Awad v. Ziriax, No. 10-6273, 2012 WL 50636 (10th Cir. Jan. 10, 2012), here.  (Note that the provision was jingoistically entitled the “Save our State” amendment.)

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Volokh on Austrian Freedom of Expression—Are Austria’s Restrictions Legitimate?

Recently, Professor Volokh criticized an Austrian ruling that affirmed a criminal conviction for “denigrating religious beliefs.”  Professor Movsesian then discussed  Professor Volokh’s criticism here at CLR.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

The Austrian ruling is virtually unthinkable in the United States, where we enjoy broad freedom of expression.  (The defendant is Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an outspoken “anti-jihad” Austrian activist who, among other causes, also opposes what she understands to be the treatment of women under Islam.)  But, in a nation with Austria’s Second World War history, criminalizing such expression may not, as Professor Volokh asserts, be an instance of the “disappoint[ing] . . . intoleran[ce] of condemnation of religion” by “a European democracy such as Austria.”  Rather, it may be an appropriate way to remedy a truly reprehensible period in Austrian history.

Americans nurtured on grade-school civics may find prosecuting someone for “denigrating” a religious belief very difficult to accept; however, Austria’s social tapestry, which includes some of the worst atrocities of WWII, is not readily comparable to America’s constitutional framework and historical experience.  As Americans, we frequently pride ourselves for allowing—protecting, even—very ugly speech.  That is to say, as a constitutional ideal, the great weight we accord freedom of expression outweighs any abhorrence we might feel toward the belief expressed.  So that, as a legal matter, mere expression is rarely punishable (exceptions, such as those for obscenity and incitement, or, on the civil side, defamation, are judicially disfavored and strictly curtailed).  But our ability to maintain this moral and legal regard for free expression on religious matters may be a result of the deviating historical experiences that make our and Austria’s socio-criminal needs so different.  For more elaboration, please follow the jump. Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Austrian Court Upholds Conviction for “Denigrating Religious Beliefs”

Eugene Volokh has a very interesting post about a recent Austrian case in which a woman was convicted of “denigrating religious beliefs” in connection with a series of lectures on Islam. Eugene puts the case in perspective by comparing it with other recent European blasphemy prosecutions and 19th century American analogues. Actually, I’m not sure that Austria was prosecuting the woman for “blasphemy,” which connotes insults to the majority religion of a state; the prosecution seems more to be about “hate speech” targeting the religion of a minority. The case is a good example of the differences between the American and European approaches to speech about religion, though, as Eugene suggests.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Same Name, Different Case

American law and religion scholars know the case of St. Nicholas Cathedral, a Supreme Court decision from the 1950s, about which Rick Garnett has  written recently. Briefly, the case involved a dispute over a Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York between two parish councils, one loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate and the other loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), a group that broke away from the Communist-dominated Patriarchate in the twentieth century. It turns out that a similar dispute has been making its way through the French courts. Since the fall of Communism, the Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR have reestablished communion, and the Patriarchate has been reasserting its right to church properties around the world, including St. Nicholas Cathedral in Nice (above), an impressive, onion-domed structure, reputedly the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe. The local parish council objected to returning St. Nicholas to Moscow and a six-year legal battle ensued. The battle ended last week, when the local council sadly turned over the keys to the Patriarch’s representative. The story is here, from a local paper (in French).

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

11th Circuit Rules Against Christian Student in Religious Discrimination Case

Last Friday, the 11th Circuit dismissed a lawsuit a graduate student had brought against Augusta State University in Georgia, arguing her expulsion from the university’s school-counseling program violated her constitutional rights. The student, a Christian, had expressed skeptical views about homosexual identity and conduct, and the university required her to participate in a “remediation plan” to make sure that her views did not affect the counseling she would provide clients in the program’s clinical practicum, particularly clients from the “gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (GLBTQ) populations.” When she refused to do so, the university expelled her. The 11th Circuit ruled that her expulsion violated neither her free speech nor free exercise rights. Briefly, with respect to the former, the court noted that the student would be advising clients in a university-sponsored clinic; the university thus could require her to conduct herself in accordance with the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics, which forbids counselors from imposing moral views on clients. The university was not disciplining the student for her religious views, in other words, but for failing to agree to put them aside in accordance with her professional responsibilities. With respect to the student’s free exercise claims, the court held that school’s requirement that students abide by the ACA code, notwithstanding their own religious convictions, was neutral and generally applicable, and rationally related to the university’s legitimate interest in maintaining its accreditation. The case is Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley (Dec. 16, 2011).

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 2 Comments

NY High Court Rules against Parishioners in Catholic Church Property Dispute

Another state high-court ruling highlighting the importance of the neutral principles of law doctrine in church property disputes. This week, the New York Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit that parishioners of Our Lady of Vilnius Roman Catholic Church in downtown New York City (left) had brought against the church’s board of trustees, seeking to overturn a decision to dissolve the parish and demolish the church building. In 2007, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, citing the parish’s declining membership and the decayed state of the church building, directed that the parish be dissolved; shortly thereafter, the church’s board of trustees voted to demolish the church building. A group of parishioners then sued, arguing that as members of the parish they, not the board of trustees, had the ultimate say. Applying the neutral principles of law doctrine, the Court of Appeals examined the relevant legal instruments and rejected the parishioners’ argument. The church held the deed, the court explained, and the church’s bylaws gave the board of trustees, not the parishioners, control of the property, to be exercised in conformity with archdiocesan directives.  Our Lady of Vilnius Church, about 100 years old, was the traditional Lithuanian Catholic parish in New York City. The case is Blaudziunas v. Egan (N.Y. 2011).

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Military Allows Chaplain to Keep Beard

This morning, Rabbi Menachem Stern, a Chabad Lubavitch rabbi, will join the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. It wasn’t always clear he could. Like other Hasidic Jews, Rabbi Stern interprets a passage from Leviticus to require men to wear beards. Army regulations generally forbid beards. Rabbi Stern sued, arguing that the no-beards rule, as applied to a Hasidic Jew like him, violated the Free Exercise Clause. The Army settled the case and granted Stern a waiver, as it has done for Sikh and Muslim soldiers whose religious beliefs also require them to wear beards.

I haven’t seen Rabbi Stern’s complaint, but I imagine he relied heavily on then-Judge Alito’s famous decision in Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Newark (3d Cir. 1999), which struck down a police department’s no-beards rule. The rule exempted police officers who grew beards for medical reasons, but not those who grew beards for religious reasons. Alito concluded that denying an exemption for religious reasons, while allowing an exemption for secular reasons, violated the Free Exercise Clause. Like the police department regulations in Fraternal Order of Police, Army regulations appear to allow soldiers to wear beards if a medical condition requires it.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Georgia Supreme Court Decides Two Church Property Disputes

The Georgia Supreme Court last week decided two important church property cases. The rulings, handed down the same day, favor national bodies in disputes with local congregations and add nuance to the “neutral principles of law” doctrine, associated with the US Supreme Court’s holding in Jones v. Wolf, which allows judges to resolve intra-church disputes by interpreting relevant legal documents in terms of neutral civil law principles. The first case, Rector, Wardens, and Vestrymen of Christ Church, Savannah v. Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, applied the neutral principles doctrine to rule that an Episcopal parish in Savannah held property in trust for the parent body, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA. As a consequence of this ruling, the parish, which has seceded from the national body and affiliated itself with an African diocese, must vacate the property and turn it over to the national church. In the second case, Presbytery of Greater Atlanta v. Timberridge Presbyterian Church, the court similarly concluded, again under the neutral principles doctrine, that a local Presbyterian congregation held its property in trust for the national body, the Presbyterian Church-USA.

Two points about these cases. First, they demonstrate that “hierarchical churches” – and both the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches qualify as such for purposes of American law – have learned, presumably in response to earlier court decisions, to amend and in some cases draw up church rules in a way that insures that local congregations hold property only in trust for the national body. Second, one typically thinks of the neutral principles doctrine in the context of “external” documents like deeds, contracts, and trust instruments.  In these cases, however, the court applied the doctrine to “internal” church rules. There’s a danger in applying the doctrine in that context. Canon law may operate in ways that lawyers trained in the civil law system do not fully appreciate; from the perspective of the church, “neutral” civil law principles may not seem neutral at all. In these two cases, the court believed, that was not a problem, as the relevant canons did not implicate religious principles. In future cases, that may not be so clear.