Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. Board of Education of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District

A fellowship of faith, service, and sports 

Founded in 1954, FCA is a religious ministry that supports student-athletes committed to living out their Christian faith on and off the playing field. FCA helps form “Huddles” on college, high school, and middle school campuses, where student-athletes come together for fellowship, prayer, Bible study, games, and to enjoy the occasional pizza. In addition to its huddle ministry, FCA operates athletic camps and other community service events for tens of thousands of studentsannually.  

For years, students at Timberlane Middle School and Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, New Jersey, have run and attended FCA Huddles without incident. These Huddles are student-initiated and student led: studentsthemselves lead the prayers, devotionals, Bible studies, and other religious activities during lunch. They also invite local FCA staff and volunteers to attend, including particularly an athlete graduate of Central High who used to lead her Central High FCA club when she was a student. Other student clubs also regularly welcome the support of outside volunteers. As the school district itself has recognized, volunteers at student organizations and events provide students with knowledge, personal attention, and caring role models who help them succeed. FCA’s volunteers do just that: they mentor students, answer questions about life, faith, and sports, help student leaders grow, and yes, bring the pizza.  

Atheist group targets FCA’s faith 

In March 2025, FFRF sent a letter to the Hopewell Valley Regional School District complaining about adult volunteers attending FCA Huddles. FFRF demanded that the district investigate and prevent these volunteers from regularly attending or participating in religious student clubs. 

The district quickly caved. Despite not speaking to FCA student leaders or volunteers, within days, the district said it had investigated the complaint and was taking action against FCA. Before the 2025-26 school year began, the district announced a new policy categorically barring outside individuals from attending meetings of religious clubs. The rule applied specifically and only to religious groups. Other clubs could and did continue undisturbed. The district claimed that the law required this restriction—yet never identified exactly which law supposedly did so. 

FCA seeks an equal playing field 

The district’s new policy is pure discrimination against religious students. Secular groups remain free to host adult mentors, speakers, and volunteers. For example, Hopewell Valley Central High School’s Robotics Club actively recruits outside visitors to serve as adult mentors helping kids not only build robots but also manage the club’s operations. The Youth Environmental Society invites outside guests to speak at its “Lunch and Learn” programs. And the district continues topromote the value of involvement by adult volunteers. 

FCA students and volunteers repeatedly asked the district to reverse course. FCA’s staff and attorneys explained why the rule violated the Constitution and the Equal Access Act. After the district refused to budge and FCA students lost an entire school year of adult mentorship their peers continue to enjoy with no end in sight, Becket filed a federal lawsuit on August 11, 2026, asking the court to end the religion-only restriction and restore equal treatment as the next school year begins.

Importance to religious liberty: 

  • Education: Students do not forfeit their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religious exercise, and freedom of association when studying at a public school.
  • Religious Communities: Religious student groups deserve the same access and support as other student organizations. Public schools cannot single them out for worse treatment simply because they are religious.

Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Letitia James

A legacy of compassionate care rooted in faith

For millennia, Catholics around the world have operated healthcare ministries to serve the sick and dying. Rooted in Christ’s command to care for the “least of these,” these ministries put their faith into practice by offering excellent medical care, spiritual support, sacramental care, and end-of-life accompaniment to the most vulnerable. Even when a patient is facing a terminal illness and cannot be cured, Catholic providers give their all to surround them with the greatest love imaginable, to alleviate their suffering, and to ignite in them a hope for the world to come.

New York has long benefited from this compassionate service. For decades, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm have cared for the elderly New Yorkers at Ozanam Hall in Queens, guided by their philosophy that “the difference is love.” They provide skilled nursing, dementia and palliative care, daily prayer, and loving presence so that no patient dies alone. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have spent more than 125 years at Rosary Hill Home caring for the poor patients with incurable cancer with dignity and love in their final days. The Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, after escaping persecution in war-torn Europe, founded St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, which offers elderly New Yorkers a religious and spiritual haven as they live out their final years. Since 1868, the Little Sisters of the Poor have welcomed low-income New Yorkers to their homes, where the Sisters live alongside them in spirit of hospitality, companionship, and trust in God’s providence.  

Likewise, the Diocese of Rockville Centre serves hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders each year through hospitals, nursing homes, home health, hospice, and other care services including comprehensive cancer care.

New York tries to strong-arm nuns into helping their patients commit suicide 

In 2026, New York passed its Medical Aid in Dying Act, allowing terminally ill adults to obtain lethal drugs to end their lives. Yet the law does not merely permit assisted suicide: it also forces healthcare providers across the state into its machinery by creating a “Suicide Counseling Mandate” that requires New York doctors to counsel their terminally ill patients about the so-called benefits of killing themselves. Religious healthcare institutions, doctors, and nurses must now inform and counsel terminal patients about the “benefits” of suicide and qualify them for the drugs used to end their lives, or else refer them to a “willing” provider. Refusal invites significant fines, license revocation, or even time behind bars. In practice, New York is making it unlawful to care for terminally ill patients without also offering them suicide pills—regardless of whether the patients want them or not. 

That is something Catholic healthcare ministries cannot do. Their faith forbids them from prescribing life-ending drugs, directing patients to obtain them, or helping facilitate a patient’s suicide in any way. The Church teaches that when a person is suffering deeply, the proper response is loving accompaniment—not abandonment to death. Rather, they accept death as the natural end to a life well-lived: to accept it as it comes, neither artificially hastening it through any means, nor artificially prolonging it through burdensome technological and medical advancements that provide no reasonable benefit.

Rather than respecting these decent and honorable beliefs—beliefs that are shared by many of their patients and residents—New York is now putting Catholic healthcare ministries and other religious caregivers to an impossible choice: betray their deepest convictions or shut their doors.  

Catholic ministries fight for their freedom to care

With Becket’s help, the Carmelite Sisters, the Dominican Sisters, the Benedictine Sisters, the Little Sisters, Bishop John Barres of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and Catholic Health filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York’s assisted-suicide mandate. The lawsuit asks the court to protect their freedom to continue caring for the sick, elderly, and dying in accordance with the Catholic faith. The lawsuit also seeks to protect the rights of patients who want the freedom to choose care providers who will not offer them suicide.

On July 30, 2026, Becket secured temporary relief for these Catholic healthcare ministries, allowing them to remain free to serve the sick and dying according to their faith. The order forbids New York from enforcing its assisted suicide mandate while the court considers the healthcare ministries’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

New York’s actions violate core constitutional protections for religious freedom and freedom of speech. The government cannot force Catholic ministries to violate their faith by helping patients obtain suicide pills. Nor can it compel Catholic doctors, nurses, and caregivers to deliver the state’s preferred message about suicide. And it cannot interfere with Bishop Barres’ responsibility to guide Catholic healthcare institutions in his Diocese according to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Federal law further protects these providers by banning the use of federal health care funds for assisted suicide and by forbidding New York from discriminating against those who, like the sisters, refuse to participate in assisted suicide.

For generations, Catholic healthcare ministries have offered sick and dying New Yorkers a place of peace, prayer, and love at the end of life. New York should stop trampling religious freedom and forcing its message of death on vulnerable patients. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Individual freedom: Religious individuals and organizations are free to follow their faith in all aspects of their lives, including in the workplace and not just in houses of worship.
  • Religious communities: Religious communities have the right to organize and operate according to their beliefs without the government discriminating among sincere religious beliefs. 

Taylor v. Sunnyvale School District

Sunnyvale’s sweeping Pride curriculum

California’s Sunnyvale School District has promoted a curriculum with contested views on gender and sexuality. Relying on teaching guidance from Santa Clara County, the district integrates these views into ordinary classroom instruction—including math, science, history, and literacy lessons—and applies the instruction across all grade levels. The County’s teaching guidance lays bare its motivations in quoting a famous LGBTQ activist: “the struggle is really won in the hearts and minds of the community.” For Sunnyvale, that means converting the impressionable hearts and minds of four-to ten-year-olds.

The same County guidance embraced by Sunnyvale encourages health and science teachers to teach that “women” can’t produce eggs; instead, only “ovaries” produce eggs. History lessons include instruction on “Two Spirit and Non-Traditional Families” that is designed to “disrupt traditional definitions of the family.” Even math lessons use problems that incorporate same-sex marriage, gender-neutral bathrooms, and other LGBTQ topics. Sunnyvale teachers are also encouraged to read students the same Pride storybooks at issue in Mahmoud, which celebrate pride parades, gender transitions, and pronoun preferences for young children.

A family seeking to live its faith

Justin and Rose Taylor have a son and daughter entering the third and first grades at a Sunnyvale elementary school. As devout Christians, the Taylors believe that God created each person male or female, that biological sex is part of a person’s God-given identity, and that parents have a sacred duty to guide their children’s religious and moral formation. The district’s curriculum directly conflicts with those beliefs and also exposes the Taylors’ young children to ideas they believe are age inappropriate.

In September of 2025, the Taylors asked Sunnyvale simply to notify them and to excuse their children from lessons that used the Pride storybooks or similar materials.  At first, the district worked with the Taylors. In early October, it sent Justin and Rose an opt-out form—one that expressly listed religious objections as grounds to excuse a child from instruction—and promised to review their request. The Taylors’ principal also instructed school librarians not to check out any of the Pride storybooks to the Taylor children. Then, after months of cordial back-and-forth, the district abruptly reversed course. In a letter denying the Taylors’ request, Sunnyvale declared that its curriculum “is not optional and is not subject to parent opt-out provisions,” and flippantly dismissed Mahmoud as a case about “another state.”

Sunnyvale is defying the law of the land

Sunnyvale has thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court in brazen defiance of its Mahmoud decision. In Mahmoud, the Court held that Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools violated religious freedom by denying parents notice and opt-outs from storybooks and instruction that conflicted with their faith. That is exactly what happened here—and Sunnyvale even promotes many of the same storybooks for its mandatory LGBTQ+ instruction. Like the parents in Mahmoud, the Taylors asked only to be notified when the instruction would occur and to excuse their own children from it. Like Montgomery County, Sunnyvale refused. And Sunnyvale’s defiance was no accident. After Mahmoud came down, Sunnyvale told its teachers to “resist pressures” that might get in the way of its curriculum

With Becket’s help, the Taylors filed a federal lawsuit against Sunnyvale in June 2026, asking the court to ensure Sunnyvale respects the Taylors’ clearly protected parental rights.

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Parental Rights: Parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children—an authority which parents do not surrender at the schoolhouse door. Teachings around family life and human sexuality lie at the heart of many religions. On such core questions, Becket defends the religious authority of parents.   

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

Opening doors to educational opportunities in the Sooner State  

Since 2007, Peter Deutsch has built a network of Hebrew-language charter schools, known as the Ben Gamla Charter Schools, across the state of Florida. They have served over twenty thousand diverse students and offer an education focused on Hebrew language, culture, and history. Ben Gamla schools have an outstanding record of academic excellence and ethical instruction, while also maintaining open admissions and diverse hiring of individuals who support their mission. 

Drawing on that experience, Deutsch incorporated the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation in Oklahoma and applied for charter authorization in Oklahoma to start an online charter school open to students of all faiths. He wants to give Sooner families a high-quality option that pairs strong academics with religious learning and spiritual formation. Oklahoma’s charter school regulations are uniquely suited to such educational innovation and would allow Ben Gamla to provide an education tailored to the individual needs of many diverse students. 

Oklahoma Supreme Court excludes faith-based charter schools  

Unfortunately, in March 2026, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board denied Ben Gamla’s application. While members of the Charter School Board praised Ben Gamla’s model, they determined that under the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling in St. Isidore v. Drummond, faith-based charter schools are not allowed to participate on equal footing with other private schools. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which split 4–4, leaving the constitutional questions unresolved. Oklahoma has continued to treat St. Isidore as a blanket prohibition on religious charter schools. 

Becket fights for Ben Gamla’s right to serve Oklahoma families

This is yet another example of government officials attempting to exclude religious groups from publicly available education benefits. In fact, Attorney General Drummond was honored as “Secularist of the Week” by anti-religion group Freedom From Religion Foundation for opposing Ben Gamla and other religious schools. Despite the Supreme Court’s clear guidance in Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and Carson—which held that religious institutions cannot be denied access to public funding simply because of their religious character—states continue to take steps that shut out religious schools from programs offered to other private institutions.

Importance to Religious Liberty:  

  • Education: Religious schools should be able to participate in publicly available programs without discrimination, and religious school students should be able to participate in these programs on equal footing as students who attend non-religious schools.   

Etienne v. Ferguson

A sanctuary for the soul

Since the Church’s earliest centuries, Catholics have approached the sacrament of confession seeking mercy and reconciliation—what is said during that time is completely confidential. That protection is known as the seal of confession or sacramental seal, and it is one of the oldest and most solemn rules in the Catholic Church. A priest is bound by sacred vow to never speak about what he hears during the sacrament of confession – not even to the penitent himself. The seal is so central to the Catholic faith that any priest who breaks it is automatically excommunicated.

The Church teaches that priests must defend the seal even at the cost of their lives. History is replete with examples of priests who have been martyred for refusing to violate the sacramental seal—like St. John Nepomucene, Fr. Andreas Faulhaber, and Blessed Felipe Císcar Puig. That same commitment holds true today in parishes across Washington. 

Clergy singled out while lawyers get a pass on reporting 

In 2025, Washington passed a law requiring clergy to report suspected abuse or neglect, even when the information is learned during confession. Despite purporting to protect minors from “abuse and harm,” the law did not extend to others who might hear—or are even more likely to hear—about the same information, like lawyers or family members. Instead, it singled out clergy and threatened them with up to 364 days in jail, a $5,000 fine, and potential civil liability if they refused to break the seal of confession.

The Church already requires priests to report abuse and neglect to law enforcement and other state authorities  

The Catholic Church in Washington has spent years strengthening its approach to protecting minors from abuse. All Church personnel at every diocese in the state are required by diocesan policy to report any instances of abuse. These policies cover diocesan parishes, schools, and other ministries. Even beyond that—and beyond state law—all Catholic priests in Washington state are required by diocesan policies to report to law enforcement even suspected instances of abuse. Across the Archdiocese of Seattle and the Dioceses of Spokane and Yakima, priests are required to report suspected abuse to law enforcement or child protection agencies.  

On May 29, 2025, Becket, WilmerHale, and First Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit against Washington’s Governor, Attorney General, and other prosecuting authorities on behalf of Archbishop Paul Étienne, Bishop Thomas Daly, Bishop Joseph Tyson, and several other clergy. The lawsuit asked the court to stop Washington from punishing priests for refusing to violate an ancient and untouchable sacrament Christ instituted over 2,000 years ago. 

Days before the law was scheduled to take effect, a Tacoma federal district court blocked the law and protected the sacred seal of confession.  

In a landmark settlement approved by the Court on October 14, 2025, the State of Washington agreed to not force priests to violate the sacramental seal. Now clergy throughout the state won’t have to make the impossible choice between obeying their faith or following the law.  

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. 

 

Dier v. Landry

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 of their citizens. 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 rid Louisiana of religious symbols 

Soon after the governor signed H.B. 71 into law—and before any actual displays ever appeared in any classroom—a teacher in New Orleans filed a lawsuit against Louisiana in federal district court. He claims the displays are religiously “coercive” in violation of the First Amendment.  

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga, and Becket are working together to defend Louisiana’s law. The teacher’s lawsuit is the second attempt to stop Louisiana from following our nation’s long tradition of passively displaying religious symbols within the public view. The other lawsuit, filed by the ACLU, is scheduled to be heard by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 23, 2025. 

Both cases are 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. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

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

 

Lasche v. New Jersey Department of Children and Families

Religious couple opens their home to children in need 

Mike and Jen Lasche are a Christian couple in New Jersey who have long provided love and support to foster children. Jen’s deep interest in fostering children began in her own childhood; she was adopted and grew up in a family that fostered over 22 children. Mike and Jen are also strongly motivated by their Christian faith to foster children, driven by the biblical command to care for “orphans and widows.”  

The Lasches first became foster parents in 2007. They spent about six to eight weeks in initial classes and around thirty hours on classes, paperwork, and interviews. Over the years, Mike and Jen have repeatedly received recognition from the state for their service as foster parents. From the start, Mike and Jen have been transparent with New Jersey about their entire lives—including their love of God, their Christian faith, and their desire to help children in need, all from a Christian perspective.

New Jersey removes foster child from loving home

In 2017, the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency asked the Lasches if they would be willing to foster two girls who had recently been removed from another foster home. Mike and Jen happily welcomed the girls into their home, taking them on hikes, visits to the museum, and frequent trips to the beach. They also attended Church as a family, participated in family devotions each morning, and studied the Bible together. In fact, the placement was such a great fitthat the state told Mike and Jen they would have the first choice to adopt the girls when the time came.  

However, the state later informed the Lasches that they had identified a same-sex couple in Illinois interested in adopting the girls—but hid from Mike, Jen, and the girls that this was a same-sex couple. From that moment on, the state became increasingly hostile toward the Lasches and one of their foster children over their Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality. They began to treat Mike and Jen’s faith as a disqualifying factor for being both adoptive and foster parents, subjecting them to repeated interrogations and questioning their ability to provide a loving home. In fact, one caseworker remarked that the foster child in Mike and Jen’s home would require counseling to deal with the “harm” of hearing Christian teachings.

A state-provided therapist also used intimidation to pressure one of their foster children to abandon her own religious beliefs out of fear that they had been influenced by Mike and Jen. And the state foster employees later interrogated that same child in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, trying to convince her that she didn’t really want to live with Mike and Jen. When none of this worked, the state then took the child from the Lasche’s home—equating their religious beliefs with emotional trauma—and then suspended Mike and Jen’s ability to foster other children. As one caseworker said, the Lasches religious beliefs about marriage are “not something we can support,” so foster children could not be in their home. After a decade serving children, the Lasches were heartbroken—and so was the child who was ripped from their home. 

The law protects religious families and the children they serve 

On November 19, 2018, the Lasches filed a lawsuit against New Jersey to restore their ability to serve as foster parents consistent with their faith. They argued that that the state retaliated against them for their religious beliefs.

After a court initially dismissed their case, the Lasches appealed, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor, allowing Mike and Jen’s lawsuit to continue in the lower court. On July 26, 2024, the Lasches, with Becket’s help, asked for permission to file an amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. They argue that New Jersey violated their rights because the law protects the ability of religious people and organizations to foster children in need without having to forfeit their beliefs.

Additionally, recent Becket cases, including Burke v. Walsh and the unanimous Supreme Court victory in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, make clear that state child welfare agencies cannot exclude, suspend, or target religious families because of their faith. A federal court agreed with Becket that these new claims can now proceed against New Jersey, ensuring that the state cannot engage in this kind of religious discrimination again. New Jersey should support loving foster families, not banish them from public life. 

In May 2026, the district court denied New Jersey’s request to dismiss the case. The ruling is a significant victory for the Lasches, who have been fighting against the state’s discrimination for almost a decade. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Individual freedom: The government discriminates against religious groups if it prevents them from providing services simply based on their religious beliefs.

Frankel v. Regents of the University of California

UCLA’s exclusion of Jews

In the months following the terrorist attacks on Israel in October of 2023, pro-Hamas, anti-Jewish protests emerged throughout the country, most notably on college campuses. In spring 2024, extremist students and outside agitators at UCLA set up barricades in the most popular area of campus and established an encampment in violation of the school’s policies.  

Those agitators refused to let students through unless they disavowed Israel’s right to exist. The effect of this encampment was a Jew Exclusion Zone, which segregated Jewish students and faculty with religious and ethnic obligations not to condemn Israel, preventing them from accessing the encampment and other parts of campus, including the campus’s most popular undergraduate library and classroom buildings. The activists used checkpoints, built barriers, and locked arms to prevent Jews from walking through the encampment.  They also created an identification system, giving wristbands to those who had passed their anti-Israel ideological test and preventing those without one from entering. 

For a full week, UCLA’s administration failed to clear the Jew Exclusion Zone and instead ordered campus police to stand down and allow the illegal encampment to stay. The administration even stationed security staff around the encampment to keep students unapproved by the protesters out of the area. Even after the first encampment was cleared, activists continued to stage encampments and occupations of public spaces at UCLA.  

Jewish students and faculty harassed, intimidated, and assaulted

Agitators within the encampments viciously targeted Jewish students and faculty. Yitzchok Frankel, a law student and father of four, faced antisemitic harassment and was forced to abandon his regular routes through campus because of the Jew Exclusion Zone. Joshua Ghayoum, a sophomore and history major, was repeatedly blocked from attending classes, meetings, and study sessions. He also heard chants at the encampment like “death to Israel” and “death to Jews.” Eden Shemuelian, another law student, had her final exam studies severely compromised when she was forced to walk around the encampment to access the law school and forced to endure antisemitic chants rising from the Jew Exclusion Zone as she studied. Dr. Kamran Shamsa, a cardiologist and faculty member at UCLA’s medical school, was shoved to the ground by activists and stopped from accessing public parts of campus by UCLA security. These students and faculty were hardly alone; many other Jews were assaulted by antisemitic agitators. 

Even after UCLA’s belated decision to disband the initial encampment, agitators continued to erect encampments replete with anti-Semitic imagery and, in one case, an attack on a campus rabbi. 

UCLA taken to court over Jew Exclusion Zone  

With Becket’s help, three students filed a federal lawsuit against UCLA on June 5, 2024. They asked the court to hold UCLA accountable for enabling the Jew Exclusion Zone and other encampments and to ensure that no such encampment exists on campus in the future.   

On August 13, 2024, the court ordered UCLA to protect its Jewish students and allow them to access all parts of campus, saying that the previous exclusion of Jewish students from parts of the UCLA campus was “unimaginable” and “abhorrent.” On October 22, the three UCLA Jewish students, joined by Dr. Shamsa, filed an amended complaint with the help of Becket and co-counsel Clement & Murphy PLLC and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. It highlighted UCLA’s continued failure to stop antisemitism on campus and described how student groups responded to the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attacks on Israel, with one student group even memorializing the October 7 massacre.  

The complaint also mentioned a report by UCLA’s own antisemitism task force, which sharply criticized the university for its antisemitic actions and environment. The report, which surveyed 428 members of UCLA’s Jewish community, detailed the systematic exclusion of Jews from UCLA’s campus and documents over 100 reports of individuals who were physically attacked or threatened. The task force noted that it was “troubled by the defense that was offered by the university” in this case and urged the university to stop fighting it: “Jews and Israelis have been victims of discrimination and harassment on the UCLA campus, and the University should commit to remediation, rather than fighting the case.”  

UCLA finally agrees to end antisemitic exclusion

Despite losing in court, UCLA defended its actions for over a year, denying responsibility and even questioning whether Jewish students had been harmed. Finally, on July 29, 2025, UCLA surrendered. The university accepted judgment resolving the students’ and professor’s claims under the First Amendment and numerous civil rights laws, including Title VI and the Ku Klux Klan Act. It agreed to make permanent the court’s order prohibiting exclusion of Jewish faculty and students and to pay $6.13 million in damages and fees.  

UCLA boasts of its commitment to diversity and its welcoming campus environment. But it failed miserably to live up to those ideals when it comes to the Jewish members of its community. No person should have to fear for their safety when walking around any public space or pass a religious test to access any public area, let alone on the campus of a prominent American university. The court’s permanent order helps ensure that Jewish members of the UCLA community will not have to face such “abhorrent” barriers on their own campus again.  

Importance to religious liberty:   

  • Education: Students don’t give up their rights when they attend a public college. Establishments of higher education are meant to ensure that all students have equal access to campus and receive equal protection under the law.   
  • Free Speech: Free speech includes the right to a free and peaceful exchange of ideas with others—including religious ideas. It also prevents the government from forcing individuals to parrot approved opinions. Freedom of speech and religious liberty go hand-in-hand; protecting one protects the other. 
  • Public Square: Religion is a natural part of human culture and should not be scrubbed from the public square. This includes public university campuses, which are reflections of the students who attend them and the taxpayers who support them, including religious students and taxpayers. 

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops v. EEOC

Stronger protections for pregnant women, healthy pregnancies, and healthy babies  

Congress passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) in 2022 to provide more robust protections for pregnant women in the workforce. Among those protections, the PWFA makes it illegal for employers to deny reasonable accommodations—like time off, bathroom breaks, and modified work schedules—to women who have physical limitations brought on by pregnancy or childbirth. The PWFA also bars employers from denying employment opportunities for pregnant women because they require accommodations. During the PWFA’s Congressional debates, lawmakers made it clear that the PWFA does not require employers to accommodate abortion. In fact, not a single legislator supporting the law argued on the floor of Congress that the law concerned abortion—and the law doesn’t mention abortion at all. Instead, they emphasized over and over that the law provided “very simple” protections for pregnant women, and that it was hard to imagine “a more commonsense, less controversial” law. 

Throughout the legislative process, USCCB—an organization of Catholic bishops who are the senior religious leadership of the Catholic Church in the United States—enthusiastically supported the PWFA’s passage. That support reflected the law’s purpose of protecting the well-being of expecting mothers and their unborn children, a goal consistent with the Catholic Church’s belief in the inherent dignity of all human life. 

A law to protect pregnant women is weaponized 

Despite the law’s text, purpose, and legislative history, and after a sharply divided 3-2 vote, EEOC—the federal agency that Congress granted authority to issue regulations under the law—mandated that employers nationwide must accommodate employee abortions. The rule requires that employers must knowingly agree to allow their employees to take leave to have an abortion. Employers cannot enforce life-affirming workplace policies and practices against employees who choose to obtain an abortion. Employers also may not communicate about pro-life beliefs in ways that “interfere” with abortion accommodations, and must censor some forms of pro-life employee speech.

At the same time that EEOC issued its new and unprecedented abortion mandate, it also tore down existing religious liberty protections. EEOC will consider these defenses only on a “case-by-case” basis—i.e., after expensive and entangling investigations and litigation.  

Catholic leaders stand against federal abortion mandate 

On May 22, 2024, several Catholic ministries filed a lawsuit in federal district court to block EEOC from enforcing its abortion mandate. The ministries believe EEOC hijacked a law that was intended to protect women and their unborn children and weaponized it against more than 130 million Americans to turn their workplaces into pro-abortion zones. After a ruling that only partially protected the ministries from the abortion mandate in May 2025, Becket appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On September 3, 2025, the lower court agreed to protect the Catholic ministries from the mandate while the case is ongoing. The ministries are continuing to seek full protection of their religious beliefs in the district court and the Fifth Circuit. 

The EEOC’s actions follow a lengthy and sorry history of federal agencies weaponizing their regulatory authority against religious objectors. For nearly 15 years, federal agencies attempted to impose a mandate requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortion pills. That meant groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns that runs homes for the elderly poor, had to go to court for years to receive an exemption from the mandate. And after all that litigation, the federal government ultimately admitted that it never needed to conscript the Little Sisters or other religious objectors in the first place. EEOC shouldn’t repeat the same illegal error, forcing employers who object to abortion into a needless decades-long legal battle. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Federal mandate cases: Winning this case confirms important precedent that federal agencies cannot unnecessarily force religious people to violate their beliefs.
  • Individual freedom: Religious individuals, employers, and organizations must be free to follow their faith in all aspects of their lives, both privately and publicly, at home and in the workplace.
  • Free Speech: Religious people have a right to hold onto and profess their teachings, including in the workplace and not just in houses of worship. 
  • Religious communities: Religious communities have the right to organize and operate according to their beliefs without threat of government interference. 

Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. District of Columbia

Bringing together faith, service, and sports 

Founded in 1954, FCA is a religious ministry that supports student-athletes committed to living out their Christian faith on and off the playing field. FCA helps form “huddles” on college, high school, and middle school campuses, where student-athletes come together for prayer, testimonies, and Bible study. In addition to its huddle ministry, FCA operates athletic camps and other community service events for tens of thousands of students annually. FCA clubs are open to students of all faiths or none, and there is no membership requirement for those who participate. 

FCA has long served schools in Washington, D.C. Each year, FCA’s DC chapter offers $30,000 in scholarships for local student-athletes to attend FCA-run summer sports camps. FCA also partners with the D.C. Dream Center, a community center in Southeast D.C., to host “all abilities” sports camps for student-athletes with disabilities. Beyond helping students gather for fellowship and service, FCA DC’s huddles help local schools address high rates of student absences—a well-known problem in the District. FCA meetings, which are on-campus and during the school day, build high-quality friendships among students and encourage them to attend class.  

FCA sidelined for its faith 

In 2022, an FCA huddle returned to campus at Jackson-Reed High School in D.C. after a brief pause during the pandemic. Two weeks later, however, a part-time freshman baseball coach told local FCA staff that, because of FCA’s beliefs, there was “no place for a group like FCA in a public school.” He filed a complaint with D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) accusing Jackson-Reed of violating the District of Columbia Human Rights Act by allowing FCA on campus.  

Because of the coach’s complaint, DCPS immediately stripped the Jackson-Reed FCA huddle of official recognition, stopped it from meeting, removed it from the list of student clubs, deleted its club website, and launched a formal investigation into FCA. During the investigation, FCA representatives explained to DCPS that any student is welcome to participate in FCA huddles; all FCA asks is that its student leaders—those who lead prayer, Bible study, and religious teaching—agree with its religious beliefs. Despite these facts, DCPS kicked FCA off campus at Jackson-Reed, and offered to let Jackson-Reed back on campus only if it assured that anyone could lead FCA, “regardless of … religious affiliation, or personal belief.” As a result, Jackson-Reed students who wished to meet as a recognized FCA huddle on campus, couldn’t. 

FCA seeks equal access to public school campuses 

After losing official recognition, FCA unsuccessfully appealed the decision to DCPS, pointing out that DCPS could not exclude FCA from campus because it asks its leaders to agree with its beliefs. In fact, Jackson-Reed already recognized many student groups formed around particular beliefs and characteristics—including the Asian Student Union, which is “for students of Asian heritage,” and the Wise Club, which offers a “separate space for young women.” DCPS itself even runs entire schools that condition admission on race and sex. Thus, DCPS’s selective targeting of FCA over its religious leadership requirements clearly violates the law. 

With the help of Becket, FCA filed a federal lawsuit against DCPS on May 7, 2024. The complaint points to a similar Becket case involving FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes v. San Jose Unified School District, in which an FCA club won its right to return to campus after being harassed and kicked out of public schools in San Jose, CA, for its leadership requirements. The “en banc” Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals––a special panel of 11 judges—ruled in 2023 that San Jose unlawfully penalized FCA for its religious beliefs and used a double standard that failed to treat FCA like all other student groups. In spring 2024, FCA asked the court for the same equal access to public school campuses in the nation’s capital. On July 11, 2024, the court ruled that FCA can return to Jackson-Reed High School’s campus and that it can ask its leaders to embrace its core religious beliefs. The District of Columbia did not appeal this decision.  

Importance to religious liberty: 

  • Education: There is a nation-wide trend of curbing free speech—especially religious speech—on public-school campuses. But students do not forfeit their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religious exercise, and freedom of association when studying at a public school. 
  • Religious Communities—Religious groups must be able to select the members of their ministries according to their religious mission and sincere faith, free from government interference. 

Burke v. Mahaniah

Religious couple opens their hearts to children in need

Mike and Kitty Burke are a Catholic couple from Massachusetts who have long wanted to become parents. Mike is an Iraq war veteran, Kitty is a former paraprofessional for special needs children, and together they run a small business and perform music for Mass. Unfortunately, the Burkes learned early on in their marriage that they would not be able to have children of their own. Mike and Kitty began exploring becoming foster parents through the state’s foster care program with the hope of caring for and eventually adopting children in need of a stable, loving home like theirs.

Children in foster care throughout Massachusetts are waiting for their forever family like the Burkes. The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) currently does not have enough foster homes or facilities to meet the needs of the children in its care, leaving over 1,500 children without a family. The crisis has become so extreme that the state has resorted to housing children in hospitals for weeks on end—not because the children need medical attention, but because the Commonwealth has nowhere else to put them. Now more than ever, Massachusetts needs loving couples like the Burkes to foster children in need.

Massachusetts cuts foster kids off from loving, faithful homes

When Mike and Kitty applied to become foster parents in 2022, they underwent hours of training, which they completed successfully. Their instructor reported their positive contributions in the class to DCF, noting that the couple helped to enrich the training program for other parents. The Burkes also underwent extensive interviews and a home study. Throughout this process, Mike and Kitty emphasized their willingness to foster children from diverse backgrounds and with special needs. They expressed their openness to fostering sibling groups, as well, so that children in need could maintain those critical family ties. In all respects, the Burkes were an ideal foster family.

During their home interviews, however, the Burkes were troubled that much of the questions centered on their Catholic views on sexual orientation, marriage, and gender dysphoria. In response to these questions, the Burkes emphasized that they would love and accept any child, no matter the child’s future sexual orientation or struggles with gender identity. However, because Mike and Kitty said they would continue to hold to their religious beliefs about gender and human sexuality, Massachusetts denied them a license to foster any child because, as the reviewer put it, “their faith is not supportive and neither are they.”

The law protects religious families and the children they seek to serve

This sad conflict was entirely avoidable. Massachusetts wants to maximize foster families and rightly protect potential foster parents from religious discrimination. Instead, Massachusetts turned its policies into a ban on certain religious beliefs. This is as unconstitutional as it is unnecessary.

Massachusetts has put vulnerable children into hospital rooms and office spaces because it lacks enough loving foster families. Hundreds of children in the state’s foster care system need homes, and religious parents like Mike and Kitty Burke are ready to open their hearts and homes. Massachusetts cannot exclude religious couples like the Burkes from fostering because they are religious, nor can they punish qualified families for their deeply held religious beliefs. If this can happen to the Burkes, it can happen to loving, qualified foster families of diverse faiths across Massachusetts.

Federal law protects the ability of religious people and organizations to foster children in need without having to forfeit their beliefs. Because Massachusetts was unwilling to uphold law including in its own Foster Parent Bill of Rights—Becket is going to court to enforce them.

Importance to Religious Liberty:  

Individual freedom: The government discriminates against religious groups if it prevents them from providing services simply based on their religious beliefs.

Loe v. Jett

An education that accommodates faith

In 1985, Minnesota enacted the Post Secondary Enrollment Options Act (PSEO) to allow high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors to take college classes that would count for high school and college credit. The program covers the cost of tuition and required classroom materials like textbooks, allowing high school students to further their academic pursuits without taking on debt. This program has long served high schoolers in the state by promotingrigorous academic pursuits at both secular and religious colleges.  

Melinda and Mark Loe and Dawn Erickson are Christian parents in Minnesota who used PSEO funds in the past to send their older children to schools that uphold their religious values. Two top-notch schools in the state, the University of Northwestern – St. Paul and Crown College, provided their children excellent opportunities to learn in a college environment that also provided a Christian community. Both families had high-school aged children who also wanted to use PSEO funding to go to these schools, joining with fellow believers in receiving a quality, Christ-centered education.

Minnesota targets religion in higher education 

In 2023, Minnesota governor Tim Walz signed a bill into law that amends PSEO to exclude religious schools like Crown and Northwestern from participating because they require a statement of faith from all students who attend on-campus. The statements simply ask on-campus students—both undergraduates and PSEO students—if they will embrace the schools’ religious beliefs for the purpose of upholding a strong Christian community on campus. Minnesota’s sudden change to the law would immediately hurt students who want to attend these schools, which have served thousands of Minnesota high school students.

Students should not lose the opportunity to earn college credit tuition-free just because they want to attend schools that share their religious beliefs.

The law protects religious families and schools from Minnesota’s discriminatory ban 

Minnesota cannot deny religious parents the learning environments they want for their children because they are religious, nor can they exclude schools from participating in the program because they are religious. As the Supreme Court has consistently and recently affirmed, public benefits that are open to private secular organizations must be open to religious organizations as well. Barring religious universities like Northwestern and Crown from offering religious high school students the great opportunity of free college credit that’s available at secular schools is against the law. 

After Becket filed the lawsuit on behalf of religious parents and the two schools, Minnesota promised not to enforce the law while the case continued in court.

The Minnesota Department of Education filed counterclaims against Northwestern and Crown. The state claimed that schools would be subject to the same constitutional requirements as the government if they accepted PSEO students, which would bar them from living out their religious values.  

In August 2025, a federal district court permanently protected the religious universities’ ability to provide free college credit to high schoolers through the program without compromising their religious exercise.  

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Education: Religious schools should be able to participate in publicly available programs without discrimination, and religious school students should be able to participate in these programs on equal footing as students who attend non-religious schools.

 

Photo credit: Fotofilm Studios LLC.

Bella Health and Wellness v. Weiser

Healthcare rooted in faith

Founded by Catholic mother and daughter nurse practitioners Dede Chism and Abby Sinnett, the inspiration for Bella Health and Wellness came from a medical mission trip the pair took in the Andes Mountains of Peru. During that trip, Dede and Abby were convicted that everyone has a unique story and that every life deserves the utmost protection. After the trip, Dede and Abby discerned the call to open a life-affirming Catholic medical clinic for women in the Denver metropolitan area. Started as an OB-GYN practice, Bella Health and Wellness has since expanded its work in the Denver area to offer care to men and children as well. Today, Bella has over 28,000 registered patients.  

Like healthcare clinics across the nation, Bella’s OB-GYN practice often prescribes women progesterone, a safe, naturally occurring hormone that is essential to maintain a healthy pregnancy and frequently prescribed to women at risk of miscarriage. Consistent with its Catholic beliefs in the dignity of all human life, Bella also offers progesterone to women who seek help to continue their pregnancies after taking the first abortion pill. That treatment is commonly known as abortion pill reversal. 

Colorado law targets life-affirming healthcare clinics 

In April 2023, Colorado made it illegal for life-affirming healthcare clinics like Bella to offer progesterone to women who have willingly or unwillingly taken the abortion pill, or even to advertise for such a service. Even though progesterone has been safely used for years to maintain healthy pregnancies, the Colorado Legislature categorically denied its use for abortion pill reversal. State legislators labeled progesterone’s use in this context to be “deceptive” and “unprofessional conduct,” while its use for all other purposes—including natural miscarriage—remained legal. Without a court injunction, Bella would have faced up to $20,000 per violation and the loss of the medical licenses for its providers if it continued to offer abortion pill reversal.  

The Constitution protects Bella’s right to serve in accordance with its faith 

Bella Health and Wellness has a religious duty to provide life-affirming medical care to every patient, including women at risk of miscarriage due to the abortion pill. Colorado cannot single out and attack clinics that provide life-affirming care to pregnant women who seek out their help. The Supreme Court has consistently held that governments are barred from singling out religiously motivated practices from comparable secular practices simply because of their religious nature.  

On April 14, 2023, Becket filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado to stop the State from targeting religious healthcare clinics that offer women care in accordance with their faith. The district court quickly granted emergency relief to Bella. 

During a hearing on April 24, 2023, Colorado government officials committed that the State would not enforce the law, promising instead to act as if the law “never existed” pending rulemaking by the state’s Medical, Nursing, and Pharmacy licensing boards. In an April 28 order, the district court ruled that the State “will not enforce the new Colorado law against any licensee” until three state boards implemented regulations required by the law.   

The three licensing boards issued their regulations, doubling down on the legislature’s targeting of faith-based healthcare. On September 22, 2023, Bella again asked the Court for protection against the law. In an opinion issued on October 21, the district court blocked Colorado from enforcing the law, finding that Colorado likely violated Bella’s free exercise rights in three different ways. Under the court’s protection, Bella and its providers successfully helped numerous women continue their pregnancies, resulting in the birth of at least 16 babies since the case began. 

Court permanently bans Colorado from enforcing the abortion pill reversal ban against Bella 

More than a year of full discovery confirmed that there is no safety or efficacy justification for banning abortion pill reversal while allowing medical practitioners to administer progesterone for any other purpose. On January 31, 2025, Bella asked the district court to make its temporary protections permanent. On August 1, 2025, the court granted that request, allowing Bella’s practitioners to continue exercising “their constitutional right to freely practice their religion” by helping pregnant women who want to choose life for their babies.  

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Individual Freedom: Freedom of conscience is the human right to believe, express beliefs, and act according to the dictates of an individual’s conscience. Becket defends the right of all individuals to live according to their consciences without government coercion.

St. Joseph Parish v. Nessel

A Parish community dedicated to faith 

Since 1857, St. Joseph Catholic Church has served the local Catholic community of St Johns, Michigan, as the only Catholic parish in town. In 1924, St Joseph expanded and opened an elementary school—St. Joseph Catholic School—to provide children in the area with a Catholic education rooted in the teachings of the Church. Crucial to St. Joseph’s ability to pass on its religious mission to its students is the employment of teachers and staff who support and advance Catholic doctrine.  Like many Catholic parishes around the country, St. Joseph asks all staff—from kindergarten teachers to part time bookkeepers—to be practicing Catholics and to uphold the tenets of the Catholic faith. In addition to staff requirements, every family that sends their child to St. Joseph is also expected to support the faith and mission of the school and its Catholic values.   

Michigan law redefines sex 

In July 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court reinterpreted a state civil rights statute’s definition of sex to include  sexual orientation without any exemption for religious organizations like St. Joseph. In March 2023, the Michigan legislature wrote this into state law, expanding the civil rights law to expressly prohibit discrimination because of either sexual orientation or gender identity. Both the Michigan Civil Rights Commission and members of the Michigan legislature pointedly refused to include any religious accommodations, even though those exist in federal law and in the laws of most other states.  

This new law would make it illegal for St Joseph to operate in accordance with the 2,000-year-old teachings of the Catholic Church on marriage and sexuality. This threatens the school’s right to hire staff who will faithfully pass on the faith to the next generation and to run the school in a way that follows Catholic teaching. Not only that, but because St. Joseph’s opens its doors to the public, it faces the risk of being sued for discrimination because of its sincere religious beliefs about gender and marriage. It is at risk when visitors use its bathrooms, play on its sports fields, or when the local Knights of Columbus hall hosts receptions.   

The law protects St. Joseph from attacks on its religious mission 

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right of religious groups—including churches and their schools—to operate in accordance with their religious mission, free from government interference.  The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently articulated this principle, most recently in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, where the Court held that religious institutions must have the freedom to make internal management decisions (like deciding who will teach and lead the religious community) free from government interference. Michigan’s redefinition of discrimination threatens St. Joseph’s right to create and maintain a parish and school environment that reflects its Catholic faith.  

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Religious Communities: Religious communities have a right to serve those in need according to the dictates of their faith. Unfortunately, religious institutions are often targeted if not in alliance with societal standards.  

Rogers v. HHS

A helping hand rooted in faith

Across the nation, there are more than 400,000 children in foster care and a severe shortage of loving homes. In South Carolina alone, there are over 3,500 children in the foster care system and the state works hard to find loving homes for each child. To find more homes, the state partners with a diverse array of agencies that provide children with loving homes. They recruit from and serve specific communities that come together to address this crisis. As in many states, some of these providers are faith-based organizations.

One such agency is Miracle Hill, a religious non-profit that provides foster care support services to licensed foster parents, helping them serve children in the foster care system. Miracle Hill’s legacy of service is over 80 years old.

An essential ministry under fire

When new federal regulations threatened the ability of states to partner with religious foster agencies, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster worked with the federal Department of Health and Human Services to obtain a waiver that ensured that these ministries could continue to work with the state to place foster children in need.

The American Civil Liberties Union took to Twitter, asking people to help sue Governor McMaster for protecting religious freedom. A family who had never applied to the state to become foster parents then sued.

The law protects SC’s partnership with religious foster care ministries

The First Amendment protects South Carolina’s right to partner with faith-based ministries that serve children in need. In Fulton v. Philadelphia, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that religious ministries aren’t required to lay their beliefs aside to participate in the public square.

Maddonna v. HHS is a similar case brought by Americans United at the district court of South Carolina. On September 29, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina ruled that the state can protect faith-based foster care ministries that serve children in need in both cases. 

Importance to Religious Liberty:

  • Religious Freedom: The lawsuit claims that HHS, Governor McMaster, and other government officials are violating the Constitution’s Establishment and Equal Protection clauses. The lawsuit hoped to end the partnership with a religious agency and would create fewer choices for potential parents and fewer homes for children. Religious organizations must be free to act according to their faith, including when caring for children in need. The government cannot exclude religious groups by demanding they give up their religious beliefs to continue providing much needed social services
  • Public square: From its earliest days, America has been enriched by religious participation in the public square. Religious ministries, inspired by their beliefs, have often been the first ones to feed, clothe, and shelter their fellow Americans in need. We are all better off when Americans are empowered to live out their faith in a way that helps their fellow man.

Sisters of Life v. McDonald

A dedication to life 

Founded by Cardinal John O’Connor in 1991, the Sisters of Life surrender their lives to God when entering the order by professing vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They also vow to protect the sacredness of human life at every stage. Based in New York, the Sisters are a group of religious women who carry out this mission by caring for pregnant women and their unborn children. They provide pregnant women with housing, maternity clothes, baby formula, and other supplies for well after birth. They also connect pregnant women and their children to pro bono medical and legal services and a wide array of social services. The Sisters offer personal, holistic help rooted in a deep love for human life that sees all people as created in God’s image and likeness.  

The Sisters of Life profess: “We believe every person is valuable and sacred. We believe that every person’s life has deep meaning, purpose and worth. In fact, we give our lives for that truth.” The Sisters’ dedication to their neighbor is grounded in their unwavering Catholic faith which inspires them to build loving relationships with vulnerable women, attending to their emotional, spiritual, and temporal needs.  

Bullying laws target nuns 

After the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, there have been increasing threats from state governments to stop the life-affirming work of crisis pregnancy centers.  In mid-June 2022—after the leak of the draft Dobbs opinion—the state of New York passed one such law that allows the government to probe the internal documents and policies of pro-life pregnancy centers, even forcing them to turn over information about the individual women who seek their help. At the signing of the law, Governor Hochul made her views on abortion clear, calling pro-life supporters “Neanderthals.” The state government is clearly targeting the religious viewpoints of the Sisters of Life and violating the First Amendment protections granted to the Sisters. 

The law protects Sisters and the women they help from harassment:

The Sisters of Life are free to decide matters of their central religious mission and support public initiatives like pregnancy care without fear that they will be forced to disclose private information. Likewise, the women they serve should not have to fear government investigation just because they seek help during a crisis pregnancy. The Supreme Court made clear in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru that the Constitution protects religious institutions from secular influence on matters of internal government. Handing over such internal documents would impede the Sisters’ ability to conduct their important ministry to women who need it the most.  

A duty to protect women 

The Sisters of Life made the difficult decision, after much discernment, to protect the women they serve by suing the State of New York. Their hope was for a resolution that would allow them to focus on the women and children in their community that need them now more than ever. On November 8, 2023, the State of New York backed down and agreed to a court order that forbids them from demanding the Sisters’ information or punishing the Sisters for refusing to provide it.

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Religious Communities: Religious orders have a right to serve those in need according to the dictates of their faith. Unfortunately, religious institutions are often targeted if not in alliance with societal standards.  

Free Speech: Religious people have a right to hold onto and profess their teachings without government interference.  

 

Photo Credit: Sisters of Life

Oakwood Adventist Academy v. Alabama High School Athletic Association

A team of believers deeply rooted in faith

Oakwood Adventist Academy is a private Seventh-day Adventist school in Huntsville, Alabama. Founded as the Oakwood Industrial School in 1896, Oakwood is the oldest Black Seventh-day Adventist school in the U.S. Like many private religious schools, its students are passionate about their faith – and about their sports teams. In 2022, the hard work that the Oakwood Academy Mustangs had put into their basketball team paid off, and the team made it to the semi-finals, with a shot at the state title on the horizon. It was the best basketball season in the history of the school.  

But a problem emerged when the Mustangs learned of the schedule for the semi-finals: the Mustangs were slated to play at 4:30 on a Saturday, an hour before the end of the Sabbath. Seventh-day Adventists consider the Sabbath – from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday – holy. That means no working, and no playing competitive sports, and it is an obligation that Oakwood students and staff alike take very seriously.  

A simple solution 

Fortunately for the Mustangs, there seemed to be a simple solution to the problem. Another game was slated for 7:30 on the same day, well after sundown and the end of the Sabbath. Oakwood Academy reached out to the other teams, who all agreed to the switch. However, the Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA), which is the state body charged with overseeing interscholastic sports in Alabama, denied Oakwood Academy’s request.  

Oakwood Academy asked AHSAA to adopt sensible religious accommodations to their scheduling policy. The First Amendment requires workable accommodations that allow teams like the Mustangs to participate on an equal basis in competitive sports, and the NCAA already accommodates Sabbath-observing schools like Oakwood Academy in national tournaments. These accommodations help ensure that unpopular or minority religious groups (such as Orthodox Jews or Seventh-day Adventists) are not excluded from the playing field or pressured to abandon their beliefs for a shot at the big game.

No American should ever be excluded from participating in sports on account of his or her faith. A simple schedule-shuffling accommodation is the least government bureaucrats can do to ensure that Americans are able to fully live out their faith, both on and off the court.  

On September 27, 2022, the Alabama High School Athletic Association adopted a new rule that will adjust game schedules to accommodate religious requests, ending the case and providing lasting protection for religious schools and their athletes.  

Importance to Religious Liberty:

  • Public Square — America has always freely permitted all, whatever their religious persuasion, equal access to public spaces. Sports – especially when it is overseen by government bodies – is no exception. Making sure all Americans have an equal chance to bat a home-run, score a touchdown, or kick a goal helps keep America strong and united, but it also makes sure that the very best athletes have the chance to compete against each other at the top of their game. 

Gutierrez v. Saenz

On June 16, 2020, a Texas death-row inmate was hours away from his execution when the United States Supreme Court halted the procedure. Ruben Gutierrez had asked Texas to provide access to a Christian chaplain in his last moments before death but had been refused by the prison administration. Gutierrez filed an emergency order before the Court, arguing that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the First Amendment should guarantee the free exercise of religion, even for those in prison and especially for those about to meet their Maker.  

Spiritual Comfort– for some or for none 

Texas has a long tradition of allowing chaplains in the death chamber. It all changed when Texas refused the request of spiritual comfort to Buddhist prisoner Patrick Henry Murphy, a right that had been afforded to other prisoners through state-employed chaplains. On March 28, 2019, the United States Supreme Court granted a stay in Mr. Murphy’s execution, noting that Texas’ actions were a “governmental discrimination against religion” and violated the Constitution. 

Unfortunately, instead of allowing different kinds of spiritual advisors in the death chamber, Texas responded to its Supreme Court loss in the Murphy case by eliminating all use of chaplains in the last moments of death. This went against years of tradition, where spiritual guidance had been safely given to the condemned for decades. Now, no Texas prisoner could receive that pastoral care before death. 

Need of Clergy for the Condemned 

However, federal law supports the idea that all people of all faiths should be able to practice their faith freely, a right that should not be refused once someone enters the prison cell. Mr. Gutierrez only requested the services of state-employed chaplains, the chaplains that have ministered to Texas state prisoners for decades. Texas denied the request due to what it said were safety concerns, but in the previous year, Texas told the Supreme Court that their chaplains could be trusted in the most difficult circumstances in the death chamber. 

After staying the execution in June 2020, the United States Supreme Court sent the case back down to the Texas district court and asked the lower court to figure out “whether serious security problems would result if a prisoner facing execution is permitted to choose the spiritual adviser the prisoner wishes to have in his immediate presence during the execution.” The lower court concluded that Texas had no compelling interest in preventing access to the clergy and on January 25, 2021, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit’s decision that Texas could deny Mr. Gutierrez a chaplain. 

Importance to Religious Liberty:   

  • Individual Freedom: Religion is an innate human desire, and all individuals regardless of their legal status deserve protection of their constitutional right to practice and adhere to their faith. 
  • RLUIPA: Like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) was passed with bipartisan support. RLUIPA ensures religious liberty in two areas where it is most vulnerable: land use and prisons. 

 

United States of America v. State of Texas

The Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, ministers to over 1,000 recent migrants each day. The Center was created in 2014 by Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, a ministry of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville. The Center has served more than 100,000 migrants to date and is the first stop for many migrant families after they cross the border and are released by law enforcement. At the Center, families dropped off by Border Patrol receive COVID tests and transportation to quarantine locations, if needed. Those without COVID enter the Center to receive basic necessities: medical attention, food, water, temporary shelter from the elements. Catholic Charities then transports them to hospitals, shelters, or on their way to reunite with family.   

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, incoming migrants are tested for COVID-19 before entering the Center. Migrants who test positive are safely quarantined at nearby hotels. However, on July 28, 2021, Texas issued an Order forbidding non-governmental entities from transporting migrants anywhere in Texas. While supposedly intended to prevent COVID-19 transmission, the Order in practice would prevent the Humanitarian Respite Center from taking migrants from the Center to local bus stations, airports, hospitals, and more permanent shelters. And it would prevent the Center from safely transporting COVID positive migrants to quarantine locations. Instead, with the Center unable to take in any more migrants, Border Patrol would leave migrants—without ever testing them for COVID—at local McAllen bus stations, increasing the likelihood of COVID transmission in the community and leaving young women and children with no means of contacting transportation or procuring food and water.   

Concerned about the negative impact this order would have on the federal government’s operations, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on July 30, seeking to block enforcement of the order. On August 3, a federal judge in El Paso granted temporary relief, set to expire on August 13. On August 11, 2021, Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, pointing out that the order impeded the religious rights of Catholic Charities contrary to federal and state law.

As Becket’s friend-of-the-court brief explains, both state and federal law protect the free exercise of religion – including the exercise of religious ministries like the Humanitarian Respite Center. Not only did the order potentially increase the spread of COVID-19, but it also – in violation of state laws protecting religious exercise – threatened the Center if it carried out its religious mission of serving the vulnerable. 

After a court hearing on August 13, the district court issued an injunction that protects Catholic Charities Rio Grande Valley from Governor Abbott’s order while the case continues in court. The court recognized the vital role of religious ministries, finding “sufficient evidence” that federal officials must rely on the transportation efforts of “NGO-partners” like Catholic Charities “in order to operate the immigration system successfully.”

Di Liscia v. Austin

Beards: a naval tradition and a religious obligation 

For most of the nearly 250-year-old history of the U.S. Navy, sailors were known for their beards – indeed, the Secretary of the Navy during the Civil War, Gideon Welles, sported a full, bushy beard. In the 1970s, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, then Chief of Naval Operations, forbade discrimination or any violation of the “rights and privileges” of sailors who chose to wear beards – which helped sailors suffering from “razor bumps” (Pseudofolliculitis barbae), a painful infection aggravated by shaving.  

This policy also accommodated the needs of religious minorities such as Muslims, Sikhs, and Orthodox Jews, who often wear beards in accordance with the traditions and obligations of their faith. But in 1985, the Navy did an about-face and broadly banned beards, while granting limited exemptions for religious, morale, and medical purposes. In recent years, the Navy has begun to further narrow those exemptions, rejecting religious exemption requests and pressuring sailors to give up medical exemptions, instead of allowing them to keep their beards.  

An unnecessary conflict 

This has made America’s Navy a much less welcoming place for sailors like Edmund Di Liscia. Di Liscia, a devout Orthodox Jew, joined the U.S. Navy in 2018 and is currently at sea, serving on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Di Liscia’s Jewish faith requires him to wear a beard as a sign of spiritual maturity, and an expression of obedience and fidelity to God. So in September 2020, he formally requested a religious exemption from the Navy’s shaving policy, but the Navy refused to accommodate his religious convictions. Fortunately, Di Liscia has been able to maintain his beard thanks to a temporary no-shave “chit”—a religious accommodation granted by a commanding officer that allowed him to keep his beard. 

The chits aren’t just granted for religious reasons. For example, while at sea, Di Liscia’s commanding officer granted a ship-wide no-shave chit to boost morale. However, temporary chits aren’t sufficient to protect the religious liberty of sailors like Di Liscia. Case in point, on April 14, 2021, the Navy decided—for no apparent reason—that Di Liscia’s chit was no longer valid, and he was told that he must shave his beard within 24 hours or face punishment. 

But the Navy’s unfair policy is an outlier. The Army and Air Force have both taken steps to allow religious minorities to serve with their beards intact. Other nations, like the United Kingdom and Israel, also allow their sailors to maintain beards, proving that religious minorities don’t have to be faced with the choice of serving their country or their Creator.  

Under federal law, the military is prohibited from suppressing an individual’s religious exercise without a compelling government interest. On April 15, 2021, Becket asked the District Court for the District of Columbia to stop the Navy from forcing Di Liscia to shave, and sued to protect three other Muslim sailors, Leo Katsareas, Dominque Braggs, and Mohammed Shoyeb, as well. They will show once and for all that the Navy only stands to gain by letting them exercise their religious faith.   

Just a few hours after Becket’s filing, the Court set an emergency hearing and issued an order temporarily protecting Di Liscia from being forced to shave. Soon after, the Navy confirmed that it would not force Di Liscia to shave in the short term, and Becket will continue pursuing a lasting accommodation so that Di Liscia, and other sailors like him, can freely live out their religious beliefs while serving their country. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Individual Freedom: The government cannot burden the sincere religious beliefs of individuals by preventing them from exercising their faith. Because all individuals have a right to sincerely follow their faith, the government cannot discriminate against them by impeding their religious conduct or forbidding their obligatory religious practices. Instead, the government should find ways to respect their religious exercise.

Apache Stronghold v. United States

Video: Apache sacred land threatened by mining in Arizona

A sacred site since time immemorial  

Since before recorded history, Western Apaches have lived, worshipped on, and cared for Oak Flat and surrounding lands. Apaches believe that the Creator gives life to all things, including air, water, and the earth itself. Their religious and cultural identity is inextricably tied to the land, and Oak Flat has paramount significance for prayer and sacred ceremonies. Many of their most important religious practices must take place there, such as the coming-of-age Sunrise Ceremony for Apache women; sweat lodge ceremonies; gathering of sacred medicine plants, animals, and minerals; and the use of sacred waters. It is considered the direct corridor to Apache religion—recognized in the National Register of Historic Places and sometimes compared to Mount Sinai for Jews.

Broken promises  

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has a tragic history of destroying Apaches’ lives and land for the sake of mining interests. In the 1870s, the federal government forced the Apache people onto the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation and authorized miners to take Apache land. And although Oak Flat has been expressly protected from mining since the Eisenhower administration, mining companies still covet Oak Flat for a large copper deposit 7,000 feet below the surface.  

Mining companies have long lobbied Congress to give them control of the land. One sponsor of a land-transfer bill was even convicted of soliciting a bribe from a mining company in exchange for his support. For many years, Congress refused, protecting the site from exploitation the same way it would preserve a historic, centuries-old church, mosque or synagogue. But in 2014, a last-minute rider was attached to a must-pass defense bill, ordering the land to be transferred to the company, Resolution Copper. Resolution Copper plans to turn the site into a two-mile-wide, 1,100-foot-deep crater, ending Apaches’ religious practices forever. The majority owner of Resolution Copper, Rio Tinto, sparked international outrage when it deliberately destroyed 46,000-year-old Indigenous rock shelters at one of Australia’s most significant cultural sites. Rio Tinto’s largest shareholder is Chinalco, which is owned and controlled by the Chinese government.

Seeking Justice 

Apache Stronghold—a coalition of Apaches, other Native peoples, and non-Native allies dedicated to preserving Oak Flat—sued the government in federal court. They argued that the destruction of their sacred site violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and an 1852 treaty promising that the United States would protect their land and “secure the permanent prosperity and happiness” of the Apaches. After the trial court declined to halt the land transfer, Becket filed an emergency appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Just six hours before the government’s response was due, the government announced that it would withdraw the environmental impact statement that triggered the land transfer, delaying the transfer for several months.  

On June 24, 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to protect Oak Flat, saying that the land transfer to Resolution Copper did not substantially burden the Apaches’ religious exercise. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Marsha Berzon called the ruling “absurd,” “illogical,” “disingenuous,” and “incoheren[t].” 

In November 2022, the Ninth Circuit agreed to rehear the case “en banc”––meaning in front of a larger panel of eleven judges.  On March 1, 2024, the Ninth Circuit again refused to stop the federal government from transferring the sacred site to Resolution Copper. Five judges dissented from the ruling, writing that the majority “tragically err[ed]” in allowing the government to “obliterat[e] Oak Flat” and prevent the “Western Apaches from ever again” engaging in their religious exercise.

Apache Stronghold appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court on September 11, 2024. In May 2025, the Supreme Court refused to take Apache Stronghold’s case. Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented from the Court’s denial, writing that the Court’s “decision to shuffle this case off our docket without a full airing is a grievous mistake—one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations.”

On June 23, 2025, Apache Stronghold filed a motion for rehearing at the Supreme Court, asking the Justices to reconsider. The Justices declined to rehear the case in October 2025. Because the Ninth Circuit addressed only some of the issues in the case, the rest of the case is now continuing in federal district court in Arizona.

In addition to Becket, Apache Stronghold is represented by Erin Murphy of Clement & Murphy PLLC, Professor Stephanie Barclay of Georgetown Law School, and attorneys Michael V. Nixon and Clifford Levenson. 

Importance to Religious Liberty:

  • Individual Freedom: The government cannot take actions that prevent or burden the expression or pursuit of religious beliefs. Because each human has an individual right to follow the unique dictates of his conscience, religious freedom cannot be confined to the four walls of a church building. Individuals should be free to pursue their faith at all times without fear of government discrimination or penalty.
  • Religious liberty for Native Americans: Whether they are directly targeted or indirectly affected by government actions, minority religious groups are particularly vulnerable to government violations of their religious liberty. Actively defending religious liberty for Native Americans strengthens religious liberty for people of all faiths.
  • Religious Freedom Restoration Act: Passed by a bipartisan coalition in 1993, this legislation protects religious groups by requiring the government to show a compelling interest and use the least restrictive means possible when its actions would pose a substantial burden on religious exercise.

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Bowser

A beacon of hope in dark times 

The Catholics of the D.C. area have served others since 1794. Just as it had during past crises, the Archdiocese of Washington rose to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, it voluntarily suspended worship services, but its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, worked ceaselessly, providing over 1 million meals as the crisis increased need, with a Catholic Charities in Columbia Heights now serving 650 people a week, up from the 40-person pre-pandemic weekly average. 

When the Archdiocese reopened churches in the summer, it instituted a series of stringent preventative measures to ensure its worship services were not virus spreading events. The Archdiocese’s plan – which was devised from the gold-standard recommendations of doctors at top universities and hospitals – was extremely effective, and although thousands of Masses have been celebrated since Catholic churches in the diocese have reopened their doors, they have not resulted in a single known COVID outbreak.  

No room for worshipers in the church?  

During the week of Thanksgiving, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an executive order that lowered in-person attendance at church services to a hard cap of 50 people. When the new order went into effect on the day before Thanksgiving, it did not hamper the operations of restaurants, retail chains, public libraries, or many other establishments. However, it impacted the Archdiocese severely. Half of the Archdiocese’s churches in Washington, D.C., can accommodate 500 people, and the largest Catholic church in the United States, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, is located in the District. These churches have more than enough room to hold hundreds of worshippers safely while following the social-distancing and disinfection protocols that have proven to be effective. And if the Basilica were a gym instead of a church, the executive order would allow it to bring in 600 people – but because it was a church, it is subjected to the same fifty-person cap that much smaller buildings were.  

However, when the Archdiocese repeatedly reached out to the Mayor to request a more reasonable regulation, it was rebuffed. With Christmas just around the corner, the Archdiocese brought the case to a federal court, in hopes of finding a more equitable treatment for the Archdiocese’s 655,000 parishioners in time for Christmas. In response to the litigation, the Mayor agreed to raise the cap for houses of worship to 250 people, and a federal judge later struck the arbitrary caps down, finding that they did not have “adequate consideration for constitutional rights.”

The Archdiocese of Washington is represented by Becket and Jones Day LLP.  

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Individual freedom: individuals have the right to act in accordance to their religious convictions – and this includes the right to gather together and celebrate holy days and engage in communal worship and prayer without being singled out for unfair treatment or subjected to coercion by the government.  

Lebovits v. Cuomo

A long-standing Jewish tradition 

Opened in 2012, Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam is an Orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Far Rockaway, New York City, that stands in a long tradition of Jewish schools founded to teach young women about their faith. The first Bais Yaakov school was founded in 1917 in Poland, to provide an alternative to secular education that did not support and educate young Jewish women on the history and traditions of their faith. Today, BYAM celebrates Jewish holidays, holds communal prayers, and engages in group projects and exegetical debates—activities that are central to the traditions of Orthodox Judaism.  

Yitzchok and Chana Lebovits moved to their current home precisely because they wanted to give their girls a great Jewish education at BYAM. But without the opportunity to embrace their unique cultural, linguistic and religious heritage—teaching and learning that can only properly be done in-person—the Lebovits girls and other young Jewish girls are deprived of an irreplaceable opportunity to learn and live out their faith. Yitzchok and Chana are being hindered in passing on their Jewish beliefs and practices on to their daughters.  

In March, BYAM voluntarily transitioned to remote learning to protect their neighbors and in compliance with the law. In the months that followed the school spent thousands of dollars equipping the entire school with Wi-Fi, purchasing additional laptops and tablets for teachers to use while offering remote instruction, and to pay for transportation for teachers who would normally use buses to get to school. Nevertheless, remote learning proved to be a poor substitute for in-person instruction. As the state began to reopen over the summer, BYAM looked forward to opening safely, responsibly and cooperatively.  

And it did just that. In the first month of school, BYAM handed out hundreds of masks and implemented many safety and hygiene protocols to ensure the safety of students and community members, including social distancing and daily temperature checks. The happy result of those comprehensive efforts has been zero cases of COVID-19 in the school. BYAM has thus become a safe haven for girls to gather and learn about their religious heritage.   

Cuomo and de Blasio crack down on Jews 

Unfortunately, the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City has been singled out by the government as the scapegoats for COVID-19 spread since the beginning of the pandemic. In April of 2020, Mayor de Blasio dispersed a Jewish funeral and then threatened them with law enforcement. During the subsequent summer – while Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio praised nearby mass protests, Jewish families were ousted from Brooklyn parks by the New York Police Department acting at the behest of the Mayor.   

But, despite doing everything right, BYAM has been caught in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s crusade against Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. After months of scapegoating Jews for coronavirus infections in New York City, in late September/early October 2020 Cuomo and de Blasio announced a plan to target “microclusters” of COVID-infections in New York City by locking down Jewish neighborhoods and schools. On October 6 – just before three important Jewish holy days – Governor Cuomo issued an executive order that shut impending Jewish celebrations down, claiming that mildly elevated rates of positive coronavirus tests justified extraordinary emergency powers, while at the same time admitting that those elevated rates “would be a safe zone” in many other states.  

Remarkably, by Cuomo’s own admission, schools are not significant spreaders of COVID-19, and the new policy was not driven by science but was made from “fear.” 

Protecting the fundamental right of religious education

Remote learning has taken a serious toll on the educational opportunities for the Lebovits girls and other BYAM students. Teachers have reported alarming regression in reading skills, had to reteach prayers, and are requesting last year’s math textbooks. In many cases, students have tested a full year below grade level in both Hebrew and English reading.  

The government’s attempt to close BYAM is a direct threat to the future of the Jewish faith tradition that Bais Yaakov schools have been teaching for over a hundred years. By putting Jewish religious education on hold indefinitely, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio weren’t just halting educational growth, they were stifling the religious exercise of Jewish families, and depriving the Lebovits girls of part of their childhood. 

Becket and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty represented the Lebovits family and BYAM in the federal District Court for the Northern District of New York, where the school asked the court to protect BYAM from future bigotry and to hold Cuomo and de Blasio accountable for violating their First Amendment rights. Shortly after Becket filed the lawsuit, Cuomo reversed his policy and allowed Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam and other schools in its Far Rockaway neighborhood to open. The case was settled out of court.  

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Religious Communities: Religious groups have the right to form their own institutions and to pass their teachings down to the next generation. Schools like BYAM, which help preserve the Jewish faith and instill Jewish values in the next generation, are constitutionally protected from government restrictions that single them out for unfair treatment.  

Capitol Hill Baptist Church v. Bowser

Protecting the health and safety of our communities

Since March 2020, Americans have made great sacrifices to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most significant sacrifices has been the suspension of in-person worship. Across the country, churches like Capitol Hill Baptist Church voluntarily took necessary steps to protect the health and safety of their congregations and communities.

Since March, Americans have learned much about the virus and how to prevent its spread. In response, 42 states across the country have correctly loosened restrictions on in-person worship, allowing churches to responsibly resume their free exercise of faith, and imposing no capacity limit on outdoor services as long as worshipers wear masks and practice proper social distancing.

Religious worship held to a double standard

In March, Washington D.C., like so many other cities, imposed restrictions on public worship for the sake of public health. But, six months later, D.C. stands as an outlier amongst states and localities across the country because it continues to restrict in-person worship to no more than 100 people even if services are held outside and masking and proper social distancing are employed.

Meanwhile, the District has been a hotbed for protest, including gatherings of thousands (and even tens of thousands) of citizens to protest the death of George Floyd and advocate for racial justice. Mayor Muriel Bowser has not only encouraged, but participated in these protests, all the while keeping in place restrictions on in-person worship.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church’s religious convictions put weekly in-person gatherings of the entire congregation for worship front-and-center. For this faith community, virtual worship is not an option. Capitol Hill Baptist Church takes no issue with the demonstrators or their right to freely protest—in fact many congregation members have participated in peaceful, religious demonstrations—it simply asks that its First Amendment rights be similarly respected.

Even-handed application of the Constitution

In June 2020, Capitol Hill Baptist Church applied for a waiver from the City’s restrictive policy against large gatherings, with the intention of holding outdoor services with appropriate safety precautions. In September, the church reapplied for the waiver. In September 2020 the City denied the church’s application.

On September 22, 2020 Capitol Hill Baptist Church filed a lawsuit against Mayor Bowser asking that its constitutional right to freely exercise its faith be respected in same way as the protestors’ right to freedom of speech. On October 6, 2020 Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, arguing that the City must provide a compelling reason to maintain its 100-person limit on outdoor, masked, and socially distanced religious gatherings even though it’s a national outlier, and even though the restrictions are not being applied evenly. A federal district court ruled in the church’s favor on October 9, 2020, allowing the church to gather for worship in a safe, socially-distanced outdoor setting.

Importance to Religious Liberty:

  • Religious Communities—The First Amendment’s Free Exercise clause protects religious Americans from undue burdens on their religious exercise. When churches are given a special disability not felt by non-religious entities, the government is violating the Free Exercise Clause by burdening religious practice.

Maxon v. Fuller Theological Seminary

Training ministers of the gospel

As one of the world’s leading Christian seminaries, Fuller Theological Seminary offers a vibrant multidenominational, multiethnic, and international Christian community where Christian students prepare to fulfill their vocations in a variety of ministry settings. For over 70 years, Fuller Theological Seminary has equipped Christian ministers and faith leaders through rigorous academic programs rooted deeply in Christian teaching, to answer God’s call to lead their own communities in the way of Jesus.

When students apply to Fuller Theological Seminary, they agree to adhere to a wide swath of biblically-based Christian ethics by giving written consent to abide by the seminary’s community standards as a continuing condition of enrollment. This collective agreement shapes the worldwide ethos of Fuller and includes upholding the belief that God created marriage to be the permanent covenant between only one man and one woman, and that sexual union must be reserved for that relationship. The seminary’s community standards are clear that students are to abstain from sexual conduct outside of this sacred marriage covenant.

The right to define ministry training

Joanna Maxon and Nathan Brittsan applied to Fuller Theological Seminary and agreed to Fuller’s community standards. Both individuals later admitted knowingly violating the standards by entering into same-sex marriages.

As with all students at Fuller, Ms. Maxon and Mr. Brittsan provided written consent to abide by the seminary’s community standards when they applied to the seminary, agreeing that they would follow them as a condition of participating in Fuller’s theological training with the rest of the student community. Their same-sex marriages were a direct and knowing violation of the standards to which they had agreed. Thus, after confirming the standards violations, Fuller regretfully dismissed them from the theology program and refunded their tuition for all classes that were left incomplete at the time of dismissal.

As a religious organization, Fuller Theological Seminary has the First Amendment right, and the religious duty, to uphold specific standards of ethics and morality for the members of its Christian community. This is a right that has been widely accepted and protected by courts for decades. Nevertheless, in November 2019, Ms. Maxon sued Fuller Theological Seminary in federal district court. Mr. Brittsan, who applied to Fuller but never matriculated, joined the lawsuit in January 2020.

Defending a healthy separation of church and state

Churches, seminaries, and other religious groups must be able to decide how to train their own religious leaders according to their own sincere determinations of their religious mission and the teachings of their faith. The government cannot entangle itself in these religious decisions by second-guessing or undermining how religious schools and organizations have decided to train their ministers and leaders. Permitting the government to force itself into the process of setting standards for scholars and ministers of faith is a clear violation of religious autonomy—a threat to the healthy separation of church and state.

The government cannot pressure religious groups into abandoning their beliefs. If Sikhs decide to abandon the turban and kirpan, Orthodox Jews choose to stop keeping Kosher, or Muslims want to reject wearing the hijab, then those must be decisions made freely by members of the faith—not under compulsion from lawsuits and courts. So too with Christian beliefs on the sacrament of marriage. Fuller filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ case in February 2020, and a hearing took place on August 4, 2020. On October 7, 2020, the federal district court dismissed the claims against Fuller, protecting the rights of religious educational institutions to uphold community standards. On November 3, 2020, Maxon and Brittsan appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

On December 13, 2021, the Ninth Circuit unanimously protected the right of Fuller Theological Seminary to freely direct its own religious community, a significant win for the rights of religious education institutions of all faiths.

Importance to Religious Liberty:

• Religious Communities—Religious groups must be able to select the members of their ministries according to their religious mission and sincere faith, free from government interference.
• Freedom of groups to train their own leaders—The Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor unanimously protected a church’s right to choose and maintain standards for its own leaders. That principle applies to the training of religious leaders as well. Both church and state are best served when the state isn’t controlling the internal leadership decisions of a religious institution.

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

Whatever you do for the least of my brothers

St. Vincent Catholic Charities is driven by faith to minister to the community of Lansing, Michigan. As a Christian organization, St. Vincent believes in the biblical commandment that it must care for the orphan, widow, and refugee.

Accordingly, for more than 40 years, St. Vincent has been providing crucial services to all refugees who have resettled in Lansing. Volunteers and staff do everything they can to make refugees feel safe and welcome in their new, unfamiliar home—from picking refugees up at the airport and locating safe, affordable housing to providing cultural orientation, computer training, and job search services.

St. Vincent is the only government-designated agency that provides these services to refugees in Lansing, and is a federally recognized priority resettlement site for LGBTQ refugees—often serving those who fled their homeland due to persecution for their sexual orientation.

Caring for the stranger in our midst

No other agency in Lansing has the capacity, experience, and community access to provide the vital refugee resettlement services available through St. Vincent. Without St. Vincent, around one hundred refugees will arrive in Lansing each year without the tools necessary to thrive in the United States.

But in 2019, the Ingham County Board of Commissioners decided to exclude St. Vincent (and only St. Vincent) from a program that helps provide social services to refugees in Lansing, despite the fact that the Board has said repeatedly that St. Vincent provides excellent services. Further, the Board threatened to end its partnership with St. Vincent, thus putting crucial refugee health services at risk. The Board had done all this in explicit retaliation for St. Vincent’s ongoing lawsuit against the State of Michigan. In that case, St. Vincent challenged Michigan’s discriminatory policies regarding the provision of foster care and adoption services (Buck v. Gordon).

Discriminatory retaliation

The Ingham County Board of Commissioners’ actions violated the First Amendment. The U.S. Constitution prohibits both religious discrimination and retaliation by government officials against those who have the courage to defend their First Amendment rights in court. Ingham County Commissioners have even called St. Vincent “morally bankrupt” and made numerous false allegations about the agency at public meetings. The government cannot discriminate against an organization simply because it dislikes the agency’s sincere religious beliefs. The Board admitted that St. Vincent’s refugee services are excellent and that the only reason it wanted to break ties with St. Vincent is because it disagreed with the Catholic agency’s sincere religious beliefs at issue in a separate lawsuit. St. Vincent’s religious beliefs, and its refugee services, should not be threatened for the sake of scoring cheap political points.

On March 7, 2022, a Michigan district court ruled for St. Vincent, saying, “the Board has singled out St. Vincent, not for its compelling interest in advancing certain community programs, but to punish St. Vincent for its religious beliefs.”

Importance to Religious Liberty:

  • Public Square – The government cannot target or discriminate against organizations or individuals because of their sincere religious beliefs, even if those beliefs are expressed publicly or protected through litigation.
  • Religious Communities – Religious institutions have the right to serve those in need according to the dictates of their faith. Unfortunately, the rights of many religious institutions are under attack, sometimes simply because they stand out from the rest of society.
  • Free Speech – Religious people are protected by the First Amendment from being punished for petitioning the government to redress their grievances, including being punished for filing lawsuits to protect their religious ministry.

 

United States of America v. Scott Warren

The good Samaritans of the border

Every year thousands of migrants travel across the Sonoran Desert—one of the most extreme environments in North America—to the United States border in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The journey is treacherous, and thousands of migrants die on the way from exposure, dehydration, and hyperthermia. In Arizona alone, thousands of human remains have been found over the past two decades.

In the border counties of Arizona, humanitarian groups have formed to respond to the deaths and try to prevent them by leaving food, water, and supplies in areas that migrants are known to pass through, by conducting search and rescue missions, and by recovering the remains of migrants who have passed away on the journey—giving them a dignified burial.

Dr. Scott Warren is a resident of Ajo, Arizona. Driven by his religious belief that “all life is sacred, and places are sacred as well,” Dr. Warren is an active volunteer with the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths—one such group that works to ensure the safety of migrants as they pass through the desert. With No More Deaths, Dr. Warren regularly conducts “missions” on which he places food, water, and other supplies at specific “water drop” sites which are well documented and maintained by No More Deaths.

No good deed goes unpunished

On June 1, 2017, Dr. Warren and his companions loaded up their vehicles with food, water, and supplies and set out into the desert early in the morning. After departing from the public road in order to reach his drop site, he was spotted by an officer, arrested, and charged with “Abandonment of Property” for leaving the supplies for migrants.

Dr. Warren and his companions always log the location and amount of supplies they leave and return to collect containers that are empty or unused. They are not discarding, or abandoning, the supplies left at drop sites; rather, they are giving them to those in need in hopes that they will save lives that may otherwise be lost. Further, the government allows ATVs, camping, and hunting in the same area where it forbids this humanitarian work.

Free to act on faith

The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, embodies a simple principle: that government may not burden or punish religious exercise out of policy convenience or whim, but only in the rare case that it is truly necessary to serve an interest of overriding importance. Since it was passed in 1993, RFRA has been especially important to protecting the rights of religious minorities. (See RFRA Info Central for more information.)

In leaving supplies for migrants, Dr. Warren was acting on his sincerely held belief that every human life is sacred and no person should be left to die in the wilderness for lack of food, water, or medical supplies. The government, in prosecuting Dr. Warren, was burdening his religious practice and discouraging others from engaging in the same humanitarian work according to their own religious beliefs.

On November 21, 2019, a federal court acquitted Dr. Warren of the charge of abandonment of property based on his RFRA defense, ruling that the government did not need to burden Dr. Warren’s religious exercise in order to “protect[] the pristine state of the wildlife refuge” or “secur[e] the border.” He was found guilty of a vehicle permit violation, which may be appealed. Dr. Scott Warren is represented by Kuykendall & Associates of Tucson, Arizona.

Importance to Religious Liberty

  • Individual Freedom: Americans have the right to believe, express beliefs, and act in accordance with the dictates of their conscience. Faith cannot and should not be confined to what we do within the four walls of our homes and churches; we must be free to act on those beliefs in our interactions with the broader world.

Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston v. HHS

Caring for the poor, the widow, and the immigrant

Following Catholic teaching, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston cares for the poor, the widowed, and the immigrant, providing critical, life-saving services through its ministries to hundreds of thousands of people in need every year. The Archdiocese and its vital ministries are driven by their Roman Catholic faith to care for those in need. The people they serve are of all creeds and backgrounds, including many living in poverty. In 2018, its ministries gave over 25,000 meals to seniors, provided over $10 million in disaster-recovery aid, and filed nearly 4,000 immigration petitions on behalf of refugees and immigrants.

A regulation standing in the way of helping children in need

Despite the Archdiocese’s many efforts to serve the underserved in its community, there is still a glaring crisis in the State of Texas. Thousands of vulnerable children wait to be placed in loving homes, but there are too few families to take all of them in. The Archdiocese would like to do more to help address the great need for foster families in its community. But a 2016 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation is preventing the Archdiocese from helping Texas foster kids, harming children who are still waiting for a home and family. The regulation requires religious foster care agencies to place children with same-sex couples even if doing so would go against their religious beliefs. This also contradicts a Texas law allowing agencies to refer couples to other agencies if they are unable to partner with them for religious reasons.

Many prospective foster families choose to work with faith-based organizations because of their shared beliefs and values. But some state and local governments are using this 2016 HHS regulation as justification for targeting religious agencies. Amid a nationwide foster care crisis, this regulation limits the number of agencies that can care for foster children in need, forcing organizations—like the Archdiocese—with the skills, resources, and desire to help to remain on the sidelines. The Archdiocese is seeking to grow, not limit, the number of foster families available to the orphans of Southeast Texas. Ending the regulation will strike a balance ensuring that all couples (including same-sex couples) can adopt, and all agencies (including Catholic agencies) can help broker foster and adoption placements. This is in the best interest of Texas’ foster children.

Chung v. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association

Meet the Chungs: Star athletes, faithful to their Sabbath

Joelle and Joseph Chung are siblings, avid tennis players, and active members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in their hometown, Chehalis, Washington. As faithful Adventists, Joelle and Joseph observe the Sabbath, a biblically-ordained practice of devoting time to rest, prayer and collective worship, every week from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown. The Chung family take their faith very seriously. Joelle even missed her own high school graduation because it fell on a Saturday. Joelle and Joseph became tennis players because they knew that the sport was primarily played on the weekdays, so it would not interfere with their religious observance.

Joelle was a top athlete on her high school’s girls’ tennis team for four years before graduating in 2019. Joseph is a current high school student and is already a star player on the boys’ tennis team as a sophomore. The Chungs are talented and dedicated tennis players, but a discriminatory rule has kept them from playing the sport they love because of their beliefs.

Kept off the court for their faith

Every year the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the organization authorized under Washington law to regulate high-school sports in Washington, holds a state-wide postseason tennis tournament. To advance to the State Championships, players must compete in two qualifying tournaments. Throughout Joelle’s high school tennis career, the WIAA required participants to certify that they would be able to participate in each level of the tournament to qualify for the championships, with exceptions for injuries, illness, and “unforeseen events.”

In her junior year, Joelle won the first qualifying tournament leading up to the State Championships but had to forfeit her spot to an alternate because the next round conflicted with the Sabbath. In 2019, her senior season, Joelle was undefeated and expected to win in the qualifying tournaments and advance to the State Championships. Yet the State Championships were scheduled on a Friday and Saturday. According to WIAA rules, she was disqualified from playing the entire postseason.

Hoping to reach a compromise, the Chung family contacted the WIAA months in advance, asking for a religious accommodation. The Chungs asked the WIAA to move the State Championships to a weekday or simply allow Joelle to participate in the qualifying tournaments and use an alternate for the championships, just like athletes with injuries or illness can. Of course, it was entirely hypothetical that a replacement would be needed, depending on whether Joelle advanced to the championships. The WIAA flatly denied their requests, forcing Joelle to give up her chances in the tournament.

Defending the right to play while keeping the faith

No student-athlete should be barred from experiencing the excitement of competition and the opportunity to advance to the top of their field because of discriminatory standards. With Becket’s help, the Chung family sued the WIAA, asking that the rule be changed so that all students, including students of faith, can fully participate. The boys’ state tennis postseason begins in October so, Becket asked the WIAA to change its discriminatory rule before then so that Joseph and other students whose faith compels them to keep the Sabbath on Saturday can participate on equal terms with other students.

On August 27, 2019 the WIAA added religious observance to the list of exceptions allowing a player to withdraw from competition without being penalized. But this rule change is only a partial victory because the WIAA continues to insist that it cannot adjust the schedule of the tournament to accommodate religious observance, even if one of the remaining contenders has a Sabbath conflict.

The Chungs moved for summary judgment in September 2020, but the court decided to send the case to trial. Because WIAA had already changed the rule excluding them from postseason play, our clients agreed to settle as long as WIAA would agree to keep in place its amended rule allowing Saturday Sabbath observers to play in the postseason up until they run into an actual Sabbath conflict. A settlement agreement was reached and approved by the court on September 3, 2021. On September 21, 2021, the court granted the parties’ motion to dismiss, formally ending the case.

Importance to Religious Liberty:

  • Individual Freedom—In a pluralistic society, organizations have an obligation to make reasonable accommodations to ensure Americans of all faiths can participate fully in society. No American should unnecessarily be forced to choose between participating in public life and living out their sincere religious beliefs. Organizations especially cannot make secular exceptions to their rules and regulations and then claim that religious exceptions cannot be allowed.

Belen Gonzales v. Mathis Independent School District

Brothers bound by a sacred promise 

When Pedro and Belen Gonzales’ eldest son, Cesar, was an infant, he contracted a very serious illness. Longing for his recovery, Pedro and Belen made a religious promise that if their son’s health improved, they would keep a strand of hair on the back of his head uncut as an expression of faith and gratitude. After Cesar recovered and their second son, Diego, was born, the family continued the practice as a deeply important and personal part of their religious faith. As they grew older, both boys continued to keep a small strand of their hair uncut, committed to living out their family’s sacred practice.  

From kindergarten through sixth grade, the local school district allowed the boys to keep their long hair—despite a dress code requiring boys to have short hair—because the school recognized that the religious promise was an important part of their identity. The boys were active in many afterschool activities, such as football, the robotics team, and student government.  

Forced to sever a core part of their identity 

In August 2017, as they were entering the seventh grade at Mathis Middle School, the Gonzales brothers were suddenly told that they would no longer be allowed to keep a strand of their hair uncut. The Gonzales family appealed the decision but were eventually denied by the school board. The boys were banned from all University Interscholastic League (UIL) interschool competition in sports and clubs, which meant they couldn’t play on the football team or travel with the robotics team. Cesar’s grades even began to suffer when he was excluded from band performances—a core part of the academic band grade.  

The Texas Association of School Boards instructs school districts that they “must accommodate requests for exceptions [from grooming codes] based on a student or parent’s sincerely held religious belief.” But the boys’ school district has refused to follow this recommendation. The school’s coaching staff even told Cesar, “All it takes is a quick snip of the scissors for you to get your football equipment.”  

Defending students’ freedom to express their faith 

On May 30, 2018, the Gonzales family sued the Mathis Independent School District on behalf of their sons, arguing that the school’s stubborn adherence to their grooming code imposed a burden on the family’s religious practice. 

On July 15, 2019, Becket sent a letter to Mathis Independent School District, urging the District to reach a settlement with the Gonzales family and allow the Gonzales boys to learn and play alongside their classmates.  

When the District refused, the federal court on September 5, 2019, granted the family’s request for a religious accommodation allowing participation in extracurriculars while the case proceeds. Finally, on May 25, 2021, the Mathis Independent School District entered a settlement agreement resolving the case. The District paid $20,000 to cover the family’s attorneys’ fees and promised to respect the Gonzales brothers’ religious practices for the duration of their enrollment. The Gonzales children can now fully participate in the life of the school while keeping their religious promise.  

The Gonzales family was represented by Texas attorney Frank Gonzales and Jamie Aycock, Kenneth Young, and Kelsee Foote of the international law firm Kirkland & Ellis. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Education: No American should have to give up their faith when they go to school. The Constitution protects the free expression of sincerely held religious beliefs from arbitrary restrictions.  
  • Individual Freedom: Every individual has the right to live and act according to their conscience, both privately and publicly, free from government coercion. 

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship v. Wayne State University

Community and service for 75 years

The InterVarsity student group on Wayne State campus began in the 1940s as one of the first InterVarsity chapters in the United States, instituted as a place for students to come together and share their faith. Over the years, it has hosted campus discussions on issues like human trafficking, helped clean up blighted neighborhoods in Detroit, and volunteered at the campus food pantry. Most of all, InterVarsity has created a thriving community of students who come together for Bible study, worship, friendship and support during their college careers. This is particularly important at Wayne State, since it is a commuter campus and many students can struggle to find a place where they belong.

Kicked off campus for their religious beliefs

In 2017, InterVarsity applied to renew its student organization status, a renewal the students thought would be automatic. Instead, the Dean of Students’ office told them that their chapter constitution was unacceptable. According to Wayne State, InterVarsity did not meet the necessary requirements because its expectation that its leaders embrace its faith was “discriminatory.” But asking leaders to share its faith was a matter of basic integrity and was an absolute necessity to remaining a Christian group. And it had never been an issue in the prior 75 years on campus. Further, student membership is open to all, and all are invited to group events. Yet in October 2017, Wayne State abruptly derecognized the group and canceled all its existing meeting reservations.

Meanwhile, the university recognizes more than 400 student groups, and allows them to select their leaders. The Secular Student Alliance can require leaders to be secularists, Students for Life can require its members to be pro-life, and more than a dozen fraternities and sororities can limit membership to one sex. These requirements are normal and acceptable, yet the school blatantly discriminated against InterVarsity by barring it from having the same ability to select leaders who share and live by its mission.

InterVarsity stands up to religious discrimination

With Becket’s help, on March 6, 2018, the student group sued Wayne State University to protect their right to be treated like other groups and select leaders who share its faith and mission. By specifically targeting religious groups, Wayne State is violating its own policy against religious discrimination—in addition to the First Amendment.

After Becket took Wayne State, as well as Michigan Governor Richard Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette, to court, the school relented and reinstated InterVarsity on campus. Now, the university is asking a federal court to give it the power to kick the group off campus at a later time. In June 2018, Becket filed two briefs seeking a permanent fix to the school’s discriminatory policy, which allows more than 90 student groups to choose leaders who agree with them – but not InterVarsity. In July 2018, InterVarsity dropped its lawsuit against Michigan Governor Richard Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette after they acknowledged that Michigan universities must respect the rights of religious student groups to choose their own leaders.

The parties filed motions for summary judgment in October 2020. Becket filed its reply brief, asking the court to permanently forbid Wayne State from kicking IVCF off campus and award IVCF proper damages, on December 3, 2020. Oral argument in the case was heard in March of 2021, and on April 5, 2021, a federal court ruled in favor of InterVarsity, protecting its status as a campus club and holding Wayne State University officials responsible for violating InterVarsity’s First Amendment Rights.

Importance to religious liberty

  • Education: There is a nation-wide trend of curbing free speech—especially religious speech—on college campuses. But students do not forfeit their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religious exercise, and freedom of association when studying at a public university.
  • Public square: Religion is a natural part of human culture and should not be scrubbed from the public square. This includes public university campuses, which are reflections of the students who attend them, including students with religious beliefs.
  • Religious communities: Becket’s 2012 Supreme Court case Hosanna-Tabor guarantees the right of religious groups to select their own leaders without government interference or entanglement.