Cases

St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy

Colorado parents Dan and Lisa Sheley are raising their seven children in the Catholic faith. In 2022, Colorado promised families “universal” preschool funding—worth more than $6,000 per eligible child—to use at the public, private, or faith-based preschool of their choice. ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Education, Religious Communities

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is a pro-life, Christian ministry in New Jersey that offers free counseling, medical services, and material support to women facing unplanned pregnancies. In 2023, New Jersey tried to force First Choice to disclose how it ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops v. EEOC

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is a federal law designed to protect expecting mothers in the workforce so that they can have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. But a federal agency hijacked the law to impose an abortion ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Practice Area(s):

Third Church of Christ, Scientist v. District of Columbia

After years of litigation, Washington DC’s Third Church of Christ, Scientist finally won its battle with DC preservationists, and will soon enjoy a new church building. Its previous building was an...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Practice Area(s):: Property Rights

McMahon v. World Vision

World Vision is a Christian ministry dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to vulnerable children and families around the globe. To carry out this life-saving mission, World Vision asks all its employees to uphold its religious beliefs in word and deed. ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy

The City of Quincy, Massachusetts, is building a new public safety headquarters for its police and fire departments. As part of the design, the city planned to install statues of Michael the Archangel and Florian, two figures with deep significance ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Practice Area(s):: Public Square

National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, Inc. v. Drummond

Families across Oklahoma need better educational options for their children. The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation wants to help meet this need by joining Oklahoma’s charter school program and offering families a rigorous, values-based education that integrates ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma
Practice Area(s):: Education

Belya v. Metropolitan Hilarion

Father Alexander Belya, a defrocked priest in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), lost his bid to become bishop after Church leaders found him unqualified and suspended him pending an internal investigation. Rather than submit to investigation, Father ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops v. O’Connell

Catholic faithful worldwide have given annually to directly support the Pope and his charitable works for over a millennium. This annual donation is known as Peter’s Pence, after Saint Peter, and it helps support the Pope’s ministry. In 2020, ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Chiles v. Salazar

Recent years have seen an explosion in the number of children identifying as transgender. Many of these children have been led down a path of “gender transition”—enduring a regime of drugs, hormones, and surgeries that often results in profound ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Free Speech, Individual Freedom, Parental Rights

Little Sisters of the Poor v. Azar

In August 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a federal mandate that required employers to provide services like the week-after pill in their health insurance plans, free of cost. The mandate did not exempt religious non-profits with religious ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom, Religious Communities

Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety

Damon Landor’s religious dreadlocks, a crucial symbol of his Rastafarian faith, were forcibly shaved by Louisiana prison officials while he was imprisoned. After being released, Landor sued for money damages under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Burke v. Mahaniah

Mike and Kitty Burke are a loving couple from Massachusetts who want to welcome children into their family. They applied to become foster parents to care for vulnerable children in need of a loving home like theirs. Unfortunately, the Burkes ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Mahmoud v. Taylor

In 2023, Maryland’s Montgomery County Board of Education took away parental notice and opt-outs for storybooks that promote gender transitioning, Pride parades, and pronoun preferences to children as young as three and four. A coalition of religious parents, including Muslims, ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Education, Parental Rights

Mirabelli v. Bonta

California requires its public schools to hide children’s expressed transgender status at school from their parents and to facilitate those children’s transitions regardless of their parents’ religious beliefs. Religious parents and teachers challenged this policy after families learned ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Parental Rights

Dumont v. Lyon

Nationwide, we face a crisis-level shortage of families willing to foster and adopt. But in 2017, the ACLU sued the State of Michigan to shut down its partnerships with faith-based foster and adoption agencies, putting at risk thousands of children who ...

Case Status:: Dismissed
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: Eastern District Court of Michigan
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom, Public Square

St. Vincent Catholic Charities v. Ingham County Board of Commissioners

For more than 40 years, St. Vincent Catholic Charities has been resettling refugee adults and families in the Lansing, Michigan area. St. Vincent helps refugees obtain housing, get needed medical care, find jobs, and build new lives safe from the dangers ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: Western District of Michigan
Practice Area(s):: Free Speech, Public Square, Religious Communities

Hussey v. City of Cambridge

Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they come to work for the government—and particularly not when they speak as private citizens outside the workplace. Yet governments across America have fired employees for expressing their political and ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Free Speech

Roake v. Brumley

A new Louisiana law requires state public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Schools have broad flexibility in designing the displays, and no public funds are needed for their installation. This kind of passive religious symbolism in the public ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Education, Parental Rights

Diocese of Albany v. Harris

In 2017, New York state mandated that employers pay for abortions in their employee health insurance plans. That included churches, soup kitchens, and nuns. Following the order, a diverse coalition of religious groups that includes contemplative goat-herding Anglican nuns asked the ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: New York Court of Appeals
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom, Religious Communities

Lorenzo v. San Francisco Zen Center

Religious groups should be free to choose and govern their ministers without government interference. But a California court has weakened that protection by letting a wage-and-hour lawsuit against San Francisco Zen Center move forward, forcing religious groups into piecemeal litigation ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: California Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Negusie v. Mukasey

Daniel Negusie, an Eritrean Christian, was imprisoned in inhumane conditions for his refusal to serve in his country’s military. While in prison, he was punished and threatened with death for his...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Southern Methodist University v. South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church founded Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1911 to carry out its religious mission and ensured in SMU’s governing documents that the Church would continue to oversee SMU. For over a century thereafter, the Church played a ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: Texas Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

East Texas Baptist University & Houston Baptist University v. Azar

When a government mandate threatened their Baptist beliefs, two Texas universities were forced to court to defend their religious freedom. The 2011 HHS Mandate forced religious non-profits like the to either violate their faith-driven mission by providing services, such as the ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Education, Individual Freedom, Religious Communities

Reaching Souls International, Inc. v. Azar

In August 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a federal mandate that required employers to provide services like the week-after pill in their health insurance plans. The mandate forced evangelical Christian ministries like Reaching Souls International, Truett-McConnell College, ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Education, Individual Freedom, Religious Communities

Garner v. Southern Baptist Convention

Churches strive to protect their flocks from wayward shepherds. And many religious organizations require their cooperating churches to take that duty seriously. That’s true here, where the Southern Baptists Convention (SBC) requires cooperating churches to align with its Biblical ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: Supreme Court of Tennessee
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Loe v. Jett

Minnesota created the Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program nearly 40 years ago to encourage and enable high school students to earn college credit tuition-free. Since 1985, the program has allowed thousands of students to enroll at universities throughout the state and ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota
Practice Area(s):: Education

Catholic Charities v. Whitmer

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Free Speech, Individual Freedom, Parental Rights

Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission

Catholic Charities Bureau provides loving support to people with disabilities, the elderly, and those in poverty throughout the Diocese of Superior. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court told Catholic Charities that its ministry to those in need was not sufficiently religious—...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Treto

Illinois law forces pro-life healthcare professionals to tell women about the “benefits” of abortion and to refer them to abortion providers. A group of pro-life pregnancy centers and doctors sued the state, and a lower court recently blocked the “benefits-discussion” ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Free Speech, Religious Communities

Winder v. United States

Military chaplains play a unique role in the lives of servicemembers. They lead worship, offer spiritual counsel, walk with troops through stress, trauma, deployment, and loss, and provide the kind of pastoral care people can get only from a religious ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Cathy Miller v. Civil Rights Department

Cathy Miller, a faithful Christian and owner of Tastries Bakery, has created custom wedding cakes and baked goods for over a decade. In 2017, a same-sex couple asked Cathy to design a custom cake for their wedding—something she could not ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Co-Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Weiss v. The Permanente Medical Group

After over two decades working as a Senior Consultant and Department Manager for Kaiser Permanente, Mimi Weiss was fired for following her faith. When the healthcare giant imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on employees, Weiss requested a religious exemption, explaining ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Wyatt Bury, LLC v. City of Kansas City

Across the country, children struggling with gender dysphoria are often pushed toward “gender transition”—involving drugs, hormones, and surgeries that can cause profound regret and irreversible harm. Recognizing these risks, 26 states and several European countries have banned or limited such ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Free Speech, Individual Freedom, Parental Rights

Tagore v. Department of Homeland Security

In April 2005, Kawal Tagore reported to her IRS job, as she always did. But that day was different: her supervisor sent her away from the office and told her not to return. Ms. Tagore had recently...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Etienne v. Ferguson

Catholic priests in Washington faced an impossible choice between obeying their faith or complying with the law. A state law enacted in 2025 mandated that priests report instances of abuse or neglect that they hear about in the sacrament of confession, ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Co-Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Apache Stronghold v. United States

Oak Flat (known in Apache as Chi'chil Biłdagoteel) is a sacred site in Arizona’s vibrant Tonto National Forest where Native Americans have gone to worship, pray, and conduct religious ceremonies since time immemorial. Recognizing its responsibility to Native ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: District Court for the District of Arizona
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

McCutchan v. Nicholson

Texas law permits religious leaders and judges to officiate weddings. A secular humanist group filed a lawsuit seeking to have its secular celebrants allowed to officiate as well, even though they are admittedly not religious and generally antireligious. Becket filed ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Public Square

Weems v. Association of Related Churches

Churches should be free to choose their leaders without being dragged into court. Yet a pastor sued a national church network and two of its leaders over his removal from his former church. He claimed they conspired with his former ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

West Virginia v. B.P.J.

West Virginia passed the Save Women’s Sports Act to ensure girls’ athletic teams remain based on biological sex—preserving fairness, safety, and equal opportunity for female athletes. A federal appeals court blocked the law from taking effect after a ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Supreme Court
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists v. Horton

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, led by its General Conference, is a Christian denomination with over 22 million members worldwide. To ensure that the Church continues to uphold its religious mission, the General Conference requires all of its employees to be faithful ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

McRaney v. The North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

Religious groups should be free to choose their leaders without being dragged into court. Yet a former Baptist leader, after losing his job over disagreements over the direction of a shared ministry, filed a lawsuit against the North American Mission ...

Case Status:: Active
Becket Role:: Amicus
Deciding Court:: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Practice Area(s):: Religious Communities

Bella Health and Wellness v. Weiser

Bella Health and Wellness is a nonprofit Catholic healthcare clinic in Colorado that offers life-affirming, dignified healthcare to men, women, and children from all backgrounds and faith traditions. Consistent with its religious duty to honor the dignity of human life, ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado
Practice Area(s):: Individual Freedom

Frankel v. Regents of the University of California

In the wake of the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, anti-Jewish protests emerged on college campuses nationwide. At UCLA, activists first set up an encampment in the heart of campus where they enforced a “Jew Exclusion Zone,” segregating Jewish ...

Case Status:: Won
Becket Role:: Counsel
Deciding Court:: U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
Practice Area(s):: Education, Free Speech, Individual Freedom, Public Square