On April 30, 2025, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the consolidated cases of Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. If the...more
On January 24, 2025, the United States Supreme Court granted two petitions for certiorari in the cases of Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond,...more
Enhanced Airport Screening Did Not Violate Free Exercise Clause In Haidari v. Mayorkas, No. 22-cv-2939 (ECT/ECW), 2023 WL 5487351 (D. Minn. Aug. 24, 2023), the court dismissed the plaintiff's claim that federal agents have...more
Vaccination Mandate Conforms with First Amendment In Kane v. De Blasio, No. 21 Civ. 7863, 21 Civ. 8773, 2022 WL 3701183 (S.D. N.Y. Aug. 26, 2022), the district court ruled that New York City Department of Education employees...more
The Supreme Court addressed the intersection of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Speech clauses as they relate to a public employee’s personal religious expression when done in the public eye. In a 6-to-3...more
Historically, the ability of a governmental conduit issuer to issue bonds to facilitate a financing for a religious organization or a religiously affiliated school, university, senior housing facility or other nonprofit...more
The widely reported Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) warrants all the attention it has been getting. The Court’s penalty flag against the local Washington school...more
The United States Supreme Court holding in Carson v. Makin could result in public assistance for religiously affiliated institutions of higher education. The Court ruled that Maine’s tuition assistance program is an...more
On Monday June 27, the Supreme Court issued their ruling in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. (We previously reported on this case.) In a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative majority...more
The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday released its opinion in Carson v. Makin, holding that Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement for otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise...more
On April 25, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which we previously reported on. As you may recall, the case involves a high school football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who was...more
As I explained in greater detail here, on May 5, 2021, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia determined in Alabama Association of Realtors, et al. v. United States Department of Health and Human...more
Title IX has long had an exemption for religious institutions, which was put in place to protect religious rights under the First Amendment. That exemption is now coming under fire. In Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education,...more
On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which has potential ramifications for public schools across the country that are losing money when students attend...more
In three cases this term, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the freedom of religious institutions to access government benefits and to make employment decisions....more
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which held that a State’s decision to bar aid to religious schools violates the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution....more
In another high-profile 5-4 decision, the majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled on June 30 in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that Montana’s Supreme Court violated the U.S. Constitution when it struck...more
In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, No. 18-1195, 2020 WL 3518364 (June 30, 2020), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Montana could not exclude religious schools from a tax credit scholarship program on the grounds...more
In a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on June 30 that the “no-aid” to sectarian schools provision, in Article X, Section 6, of the Montana Constitution, which was used...more
On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, No. 18-1195, holding that if a state subsidizes private education, the Free Exercise Clause does not allow the state to deny that...more
This seventh edition of Unprecedented, our weekly update on COVID-19-related litigation, sees a continuation of the trend we identified last week: shutdown challenges, workers' compensation claims, and wrongful death lawsuits...more
On June 20, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided American Legion v. American Humanist Ass’n, holding that longstanding public memorials with historical importance that also have religious associations are entitled to a strong...more
Courts continue to grapple with the scope and meaning of the ministerial exception doctrine. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012), the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that a...more
Earlier this month, an Islamic community center filed suit against the City of Troy, Michigan (“City”) after the City denied the group’s application for a variance needed to operate a mosque at the property it owns in the...more