Hussey v. City of Cambridge

Police veteran punished for a brief, private Facebook post 

Brian Hussey has served as a police officer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for over two decades. For years, he maintained a personal, private Facebook page—which did not identify him as a Cambridge police officer—where he shared comments or articles of personal interest. In February 2021, Hussey reposted a news headline about a federal police-reform bill named for George Floyd and added a short comment criticizing the decision to name the bill after Floyd. Of his own volition, he deleted the post within a few hours. But after the police department received a complaint about the post, it launched an investigation into Hussey, placed him on administrative leave for nearly two months, and ultimately suspended him for four days without pay.

Hussey’s story is part of a broader and accelerating trend of government employers punishing employees for their private speech, especially their religious speech. For example, former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran was fired after publishing a Christian book in which he expressed his traditional religious views on human sexuality. Similarly, Dr. Andrew Fox, a former volunteer fire chaplain in Texas, lost his job after posting his religious view that men should not compete on women’s sports teams. And Dr. Eric Walsh, a health official and lay pastor in Georgia, was fired for the content of the sermons he preached for his Seventh-day Adventist Church on the weekends.

A dangerous exception that invites governmental muzzling of unpopular speech

Hussey filed a lawsuit against the City of Cambridge, arguing that the City had violated his First Amendment rights by punishing him for his speech. A trial court dismissed his lawsuit. On appeal, a divided panel of the First Circuit also ruled against Hussey. The court concluded that his speech “touched on important political issues,” and acknowledged that “normally” this kind ofspeech is entitled to heightened legal protection. But it nonetheless ruled that Hussey’s speech did not qualify for that protection because it was “mocking, derogatory, and disparaging.” Hussey successfully asked the full First Circuit to rehear his case, and the court granted en banc review.

Becket urges the full First Circuit to protect core speech

If allowed to stand, the panel’s anti-disparagement standard would create a slippery slope, giving governments across the political spectrum vast discretion to silence employee speech they dislikeor find politically inconvenient. One administration might use it to silence criticism of a sitting president or advocacy for gun rights. Another might use it to punish pro-life advocacy or traditional religious views on marriage and sexuality.

On February 25, 2026, Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Hussey. The brief explains that the anti-disparagement standard would leave religious government employees particularly vulnerable. Many religious believers hold views that differ from the prevailing social consensus on deeply contested issues, and critics seeking to suppress those views routinely label them “disparaging” and offensive. That pattern is not new. In Anglo-American history, government suppression of speech has repeatedly and disproportionally targeted religious speech, which is why religious speech has long been treated as core speech and given the strongest protection. Becket is asking the full court to reaffirm that speech does not lose protection simply because the speaker works for the government and speaks as a private citizen outside the workplace.

Becket has repeatedly defended the right of free expression and freedom of assembly before the appellate courts and the Supreme Court, including in 303 Creative v. Elenis, Heffernan v. City of Paterson, and Matal v. Tam. 

Importance to religious liberty:  

  • Free speech: The First Amendment protects our right to speak freely on issues without fear of government censorship or punishment, even when, and especially when, that view is unpopular.  
  • Individual freedom: Religious freedom protects the rights of individuals to observe their faith at all times, including in the workplace. 

Roake v. Brumley

America’s tradition of religious symbols in the public square 

Religious symbols have been a fixture of American public life since before the founding. Just after declaring independence, the Continental Congress tasked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams with designing a national seal. Both Franklin and Jefferson proposed overtly religious designs drawn from the Hebrew Bible: Franklin’s featured Moses causing the Red Sea to overwhelm Pharaoh, and Jefferson’s depicted the Israelites guided by a cloud and a pillar of fire. While the Great Seal eventually adopted a different design, it still includes religious imagery—an eye of Providence above the Latin phrase “He (God) has favored our undertakings.” 

Over the centuries, many state and local governments have followed the Founders’ lead by including religious elements in their flags, seals, and buildings to commemorate history and culture and to acknowledge the beliefs that motivated their settlers. Among the most enduring of these religious symbols is the Ten Commandments, which is even featured prominently on the walls of the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law 

Louisiana recently passed H.B. 71, which requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms by January 1, 2025. The displays must contain a specific context statement explaining the history of the Commandments in American public education, and schools have flexibility in how to design them. For example, schools may choose to incorporate the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents, like the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, and the Northwest Ordinance. No school board is required to spend its funds to purchase the displays; they must instead accept private donations or donated displays. 

Schools can also be even more creative in implementing the law. For example, mockups of potential displays show  how the Ten Commandments can be used to draw comparisons between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Moses, explain the structure of the House of Representatives, or explore important Supreme Court cases. 

Courts shall not stop Louisiana from displaying religious symbols 

Just five days after the governor signed H.B. 71 into law—and before any actual displays ever appeared in any classroom—the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Louisiana in federal district court. The ACLU claims the displays will harm schoolchildren by forcing them to be in the presence of religious messages in public school classrooms.

With Becket’s help, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga are defending Louisiana against the ACLU lawsuit. Louisiana argues that the ACLU’s lawsuit is premature and should be dismissed because no displays have been installed, and that Louisiana is following a long national tradition of displaying passive religious symbols within the public view. Indeed, this case is very similar to atheist activist challenges to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. Becket was able to help beat challenges to the Pledge and Motto. Courts should reject this lawsuit just as they rejected those ones.

After a federal judge agreed with the ACLU and temporarily put Louisiana’s law on hold, Louisiana filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. A panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit left the lower court’s ruling in place. On October 6, 2025, the Fifth Circuit vacated the panel’s opinion and agreed to rehear the case “en banc,” or in front of all active judges on the court. 

After oral argument in early 2026, the full Fifth Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling and allowed Louisiana to display the Ten Commandments in schools. The Fifth Circuit determined that the ACLU could not sue to block future displays no one has ever seen and whose details have not yet been decided, explaining that because the Ten Commandments have a “dual character” as both religiously and historically significant, there was no “categorical rule against their display on public property.”  

The ACLU has 90 days to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Public square: Religion is a natural part of human culture and should not be scrubbed from the public square. 

Huntsman v. Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Revitalizing the spiritual home of the Church 

During the late 1840s, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints migrated to the American West to escape religious persecution in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and other states. Led by the Church’s second president, Brigham Young, these pioneers eventually settled in the Salt Lake Valley, where Young selected a plot of land to build a temple dedicated to God. Today, that site—known as Temple Square—serves as the spiritual seat of the Church’s worldwide leadership and is home to the iconic Salt Lake City Temple and renowned Tabernacle Choir. 

When the area south of Temple Square needed renovation in the early 2000s, Church leaders made a religious decision to invest in its revitalization. Through its then-president Gordon B. Hinckley, the Church announced it was developing the property to protect the environment surrounding the Temple and to promote the economic vitality of the local community. Church leaders explained that the Church would not directly finance the project through tithing, the millennia-old, Scripture-based practice of voluntarily donating a portion of one’s income to the Church as an act of financial support and trust in God. Instead, it would use earnings from invested funds it had set aside for future use.  

A church community attacked from within 

Over a decade after the Church decided to revitalize the area surrounding Temple Square, businessman James Huntsman—who has deep family ties and a long history of leadership roles within the Church—sued to recoup millions of tithing dollars he had paid in religious offerings over the prior two decades. He argued the Church had committed fraud by not describing with greater clarity that the earnings from reserve funds used to finance the revitalization project had tithing as their principal. The Church explained that its statements were all true, since it never solicited, let alone used, tithes themselves for the project. Moreover, its statements could not have possibly misled anyone, least of all someone as knowledgeable about Church affairs as Huntsman, who was well aware that all Church assets have their origin in tithing. 

Protecting the Church from disgruntled donors 

In 2021, Huntsman filed a lawsuit against the Church in federal court, attempting to recover at least five million dollars of his tithing offerings. The district court ruled for the Church, concluding that all its statements about the use of tithes for the revitalization project were true. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court’s decision, ruling that a jury ought to decide whether the Church had committed fraud in not describing more clearly how it would fund the project.  

On September 20, 2023, the Church asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the case in front of a full panel of judges. Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of rehearing, arguing that the court’s decision poses a serious threat to religious institutions’ ability to carry out their missions. The brief explains that courts have no business second-guessing a church’s inherently religious decision about how to define tithing, which is itself an inherently spiritual practice. The ruling threatened religious organizations by allowing disaffected members to sue anytime they disagree with how a Church, through the exercise of its spiritual judgement, chooses to carry out its mission. 

On January 31, 2025, an eleven-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled in favor of the Church. The court held that the Church spoke truthfully in describing how tithing would be expended. Five of the judges argued further that the church autonomy doctrine bars courts from resolving disputes about a church’s internal governance. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Religious Communities— Churches and religious organizations have a right to live, teach, and govern in accordance with the tenets of their faith. When the government unjustly interferes in internal church affairs, the separation of church and state is threatened. The First Amendment ensures a church’s right to self-definition and free association.