Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

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

  • In Zinman v. Nova Southeastern University, Inc., the 11th Circuit dismissed a lawsuit by a Jewish law student challenging his school’s COVID mask mandates on religious grounds, stating that the mandates were neutral rules of general application and did not violate the First Amendment. The court also found that not wearing a mask did not constitute protected speech or expressive conduct.
  • The 9th Circuit heard argument in Hittle v. City of Stockton, a case involving former Fire Chief Ronald Hittle’s claims of religious discrimination and retaliation. A California federal district court had previously rejected Hittle’s claims. He was fired for attending a two-day religious “Global Leadership Summit” with three other city employees on city time and using a city vehicle.
  • In Gaddy v. Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an Utah federal district court dismissed a class action lawsuit brought by former members of the LDS Church. The plaintiffs alleged fraudulent misrepresentation of the Church’s founding and the use of tithing money. The court ruled that the church autonomy doctrine protected the Church’s beliefs and teachings.
  • A Christian school in Maine filed suit against the state’s 2021 amendments to the Human Rights Act, which prevent the school from participating in the tuition payment program for students from districts without public high schools. The school argues that the requirement to comply with sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination provisions, as well as the prohibition on discriminating between religions infringe upon the Free Exercise, Free Speech, and Establishment Clauses. 
  • In In re Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools v. Young, a New York state trial court granted a partial victory to Orthodox Jewish day schools challenging the state’s “substantial equivalency” regulations. While the court rejected the schools’ constitutional challenges, it held that the Department of Education exceeded its authority by requiring parents to withdraw their children from non-compliant schools.
  • In Matter of Quagliata v New York City Police Department, a New York state trial court remanded a case where an administrative panel denied an NYPD officer a religious exemption from New York City’s COVID vaccine mandate. The court found the panel’s determination arbitrary and capricious, but did not rule on whether the officer’s request for an exemption based on religious doctrine was valid.
Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

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.
Posted on by Daniel Vitagliano

Around the Web

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

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Grume & Caher, “The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel: The Rise of a Village Theocracy and the Battle to Defend the Separation of Church and State”

In April, Chicago Review Press will release “The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel: The Rise of a Village Theocracy and the Battle to Defend the Separation of Church and State” by Louis Grume (former executive director of the New York State School Boards Association) and John M. Caher (Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications with the New York State Unified Court System). The publisher’s description follows:

Twenty years ago, in the middle of the night and on the last day of the legislative session, the New York State Legislature created a publicly funded school district to cater to the interests of a religious sect called the Satmar, an insular group of Hasidic Jews that objects to, among other things, female school bus drivers. The rapidly growing sect had bought land in rural Upstate New York, populated it solely with members of its faction, and created a village called Kiryas Joel that exerted extraordinary political pressure over both political parties. Marking the first time in American history that a governmental unit was established for a religious group, the legislature’s action prompted years of litigation that eventually went to the US Supreme Court. As today’s Supreme Court signals its willingness to view a religious viewpoint like any other speech and accord it equal protection, the 1994 case, Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, stands as the most important legal precedent in the fight to uphold the separation of church and state. In The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel, plaintiff Louis Grumet opens a window onto the Satmar Hasidic community, where language, customs, and dress have led to estrangement from and clashes with neighboring communities, and details the inside story of his fight for the First Amendment and against New York’s most powerful politicians. Informed by numerous interviews with key figures such as Governor George Pataki, media accounts, court transcripts, and more, The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel not only tantalizes with a peek at cynical power politics driven by votes and Supreme Court justice squabbling and negotiation; it also provides an important demonstration of how a small, insular, and politically savvy religious group can grasp legal and political power. This story—a blend of politics, religion, cultural clashes, and constitutional tension—is an object lesson in the ongoing debate over freedom of versus freedom from religion.