Religious Use Law in South Florida
Failure to Extend Extracurricular Opportunities to Parochial School Students Violates Free Exercise In Religious Rights Foundation of Pa. v. State College Area Sch. Dist., No. 23-CV-01144, 2023 WL 8359957 (M.D. Pa. Dec. 1,...more
Religious schools in New Jersey that make employment decisions based on the tenets of their faith just received a favorable ruling from the state’s highest court last week. The case involves an unmarried Catholic school...more
Supreme Court Decides Freedom of Speech Trumps Public Accommodations Law In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, No. 21-476 (June 30, 2023), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed 6-3 the lower courts' denial of the injunction the plaintiff...more
On February 23, 2023, an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that a Catholic university in Florida is exempt from the Board’s jurisdiction as a religious institution. But the case tees...more
In a highly anticipated decision earlier this month, OCR reaffirmed the broad discretion that religious institutions may have under the religious exemption in Title IX. ...more
Religious Exemption to States' Mandatory Vaccination Statute Not Necessary In Does 1-6 v. Mills, No. 1:21-cv-00242, 2021 WL 4783626 (D. Me. Oct. 13, 2021), the court denied injunctive relief to plaintiff healthcare workers...more
Oregon AG Ellen Rosenblum led a coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia in filing an amicus brief in support of students who brought a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon...more
Morals Clause Ruled Not Within Title VII Religious Exemptions Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any...more
On August 23, 2021, the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Ohio, ruled that a Michigan mask requirement does not violate an individual’s religious freedom. In October 2020, the...more
Ministerial Exception Doctrine Bars Minister-on-Minister Hostile Work Environment Claim In Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Parish, Calumet City, No. 19-2142, 2021 WL 2880232 (7th Cir. July 9, 2021), the U.S. Court of...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
Attendance Limitations on Houses of Worship Enjoined In Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, 983 F. 3d 620 (2d Cir. 2020), the court of appeals reversed two district courts and ruled that an executive order that limited...more
The Sunshine State will once again be the center of national attention in what could be one of the first battles before the Biden NLRB regarding the ever-shifting issue of the Board’s jurisdiction over religious educational...more
That this past year was the most challenging year in your professional life is an almost certainty. You were forced to learn entirely new statutory schemes, absorb new local health directives on a near-daily basis, create a...more
On December 7, 2020, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs issued a Final Rule codifying an expansion of the agency’s exemption from Executive Order 11246’s nondiscrimination requirements for federal contractors...more
The EEOC recently released a draft of its updated guidance on religious discrimination, which – if adopted and finalized – could alter the legal standards applied in workplace disputes for the nation’s employers generally and...more
On July 8, 2020, the United States Supreme Court decided two cases addressing employers’ religious freedoms in very different contexts: one concerning whether religious school teachers could challenge adverse employment...more
On July 8, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two 7-2 decisions involving religious exemptions to federal employment and benefits laws....more
The last few years have seen numerous controversies surrounding childhood vaccinations. Many parents are choosing to not vaccinate their children because they feel the process is unnecessary and dangerous, or goes against...more
Rehearing Denied for Elementary School Against Catholic Teacher's ADA Claim - In Biel v. St. James Sch., 926 F. 3d 1238 (9th Cir. 2019), the petition for rehearing and the petition for rehearing en banc was denied, subject...more
Timely Topics - By Shannon B. Hartsfield - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Jan. 18, 2018, the creation of a new division within its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR is described as...more
Religious employers can rejoice once again, as yet another court upholds the ministerial exception and dismisses an employee's discrimination and termination claims....more
In a decision notable for not just one, but two revisions to established National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) analytical framework, the Board appears to open the door toward increased unionization of private...more