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
In Ratliff v. Wycliffe Assoc., Inc., No. 6:22-cv-1185-PGB-RMN, 2023 WL 3688082 (M.D. Fla. May 26, 2023), the plaintiff, a software developer, sued the defendant, a Bible translation ministry, for sex discrimination under...more
If you take on a federal contract, does that make you a state actor? No, according to a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel in Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company. During World War II, the Army included Smucker’s apple butter in its...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
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. __ (2022) (The United States Supreme Court concludes that a coach praying at mid-field following a high school football game was engaged in private religious expression...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
Connecticut law has required public and private schools to condition a student’s entry into school upon providing proof of immunizations against certain communicable diseases (including but not limited to diphtheria,...more
While the topic of vaccines dominates today’s news, the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of constitutional challenges to Missouri’s mandatory form for requesting a religious exemption to the state’s...more
In this episode, recorded on Sept. 14, Akin Gump Supreme Court and appellate practice co-head Pratik Shah returns to review the 2019 Supreme Court Term and preview the big cases and topics in the October 2020 Term. Among...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
This 17th edition of Unprecedented, our weekly update on COVID-19-related litigation, discusses everything from insurance coverage disputes to statewide shutdown orders. Despite an uphill climb towards liability, businesses...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
The extraordinary measures designed to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) continue to cause constitutional clashes. My last post’s opening hypothetical about members of a congregation being ticketed for attending...more