Court Dismisses Religious Challenges to Trump's Executive Order on Portraying American History

In Jeanpierre v. Trump, (D UT, Oct. 14, 2025), a Utah federal magistrate judge dismissed a suit challenging on RFRA, free exercise and Establishment Clause grounds President Trump's Executive Order 14253, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." Plaintiff is the founder of a religious organization called Black Flag whose tenets include prohibitions on prejudice and discrimination. The court said in part:

According to Mr. Jeanpierre, this executive order “effectively establishes a state sponsored religious doctrine of American historical exceptionalism” and, as a result, is “a direct attack on the foundational tenets of [his] sincerely held religious beliefs.” He alleges the order prevents Mr. Jeanpierre “from exercising his religious autonomy to perceive and interpret history according to his religious conscience.”  He alleges the order’s “prohibition against depicting American history as ‘inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed’” impedes his “religious mandate to identify and confront . . . historical realities” and interferes with his “religious practice of acknowledging and addressing systemic racism” by “imposing a sanitized historical narrative that contradicts [his] religious understanding of reality.”  The “restrictions on historical presentations,” according to Mr. Jeanpierre, force “compliance with a historical narrative that [he] religiously believes causes harm to marginalized communities” and “spiritual suffocation and respiratory distress to [his] religion by restricting the free breath of historical truth.”  Finally, Mr. Jeanpierre alleges the executive order’s imposed historical doctrine compels him “to violate his religious tenants regarding autonomy, truth-telling, and confrontation of systemic inequity,” forcing him “to choose between adherence to his religious principles and compliance with federal law.” 

The court concluded that plaintiff failed to state a cause of action under §1983 which applies only to state officials, or under the Bivens doctrine that does not apply to 1st Amendment claims. The court also rejected plaintiff's RFRA claim, saying in part:

... [T]he executive order ... does not demand any conduct from Mr. Jeanpierre or impose any consequence for his religious beliefs.  It orders federal agencies to remove race-centered ideology from the Smithsonian Institution and to restore public monuments, according to President Trump’s historical narrative that the country’s achievements, principles, and milestones are being undermined and cast in a negative light.  Mr. Jeanpierre does not assert he was made to alter his religious behavior in some way because of this order. 

The court also rejected plaintiff's 1st Amendment claims, saying in part that the Executive Order is neutral and generally applicable and does not target religion.

Plaintiff Lacks Standing to Claim Rutgers Engaged in Anti-Hindu Discrimination

In Bagal v. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, (D NJ, Oct. 14, 2025), a New Jersey federal district court dismissed for lack of standing a suit claiming the university, in violation of the 1st and 14th Amendments, Title VI and New Jersey law, discriminated against plaintiff because of his Hindu religious beliefs. At issue is a Task Force Report recommending that the University add "caste" as a protected category in its antidiscrimination policy. The University rejected the recommendation, saying that its current policy is broad enough to protect against caste discrimination. Plaintiff claimed that the chair of the Task Force had a history of discriminatory animus toward the Hindu religion. The court said in part:

Defendants argue that Plaintiff alleges two distinct injuries...: (1) Defendants discriminated against Plaintiff for his religious beliefs because the Report connects an oppressive caste system with Hinduism; and (2) Plaintiff has refrained from engaging in certain religious activities and from discussing his religious beliefs in class....  Defendants argue that Plaintiff was only a remote participant in an online certificate program, so he has not suffered any concrete injury as a result of the Report’s publication, and that Plaintiff’s allegations of harm to other Hindu students at Rutgers is improper.... 

Here, Plaintiff has not pled facts to demonstrate how the Report—which cannot be and will not be enforced—is burdening Plaintiff’s ability to exercise his religious rights.  The Report was a non-binding recommendation that carries with it no disciplinary weight.  And Rutgers expressly declined to include the term “caste” in its Policy, so the complained of governmental action apparently burdening Plaintiff’s religious activities does not exist.  Stated differently, Plaintiff’s self-censorship is based on “hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.”...

Plaintiff cannot manufacture standing by alleging a stigmatic injury, when that alleged stigmatic harm is not objectively reasonable based on the allegations...Simply being offended by the Report and Truschke’s alleged statements connecting Hinduism to the caste system are insufficient, without more, to confer Plaintiff with standing to bring his Establishment Clause claim....

Supreme Court Denies Review of School Policy on Hiding Students' Gender Dysphoria from Parents

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday denied certiorari in Lee v. Poudre School District R-1, (Docket No. 25-89, certiorari denied (10/14/2025) (Order List). In the case, parents of two 6th graders sued a Colorado school district for damages after their children were invited by teachers to a Gender and Sexuality Alliance meeting. After the meeting, one of the students decided that she was transgender and the other started to suffer from suicidal ideations. The parents claimed that the school's policy of discouraging disclosure to parents of a child's transgender status violates parents' substantive due process rights. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit because plaintiffs had not alleged the existence of a school policy that was the moving force behind their constitutional injury. Parents' petition for Supreme Court review framed the question presented as:

Whether a school district may discard the presumption that fit parents act in the best interests of their children and arrogate to itself the right to direct the care, custody, and control of their children

In denying certiorari, Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, filed a concurring Statement, saying in part:

I concur in the denial of certiorari because petitioners do not challenge the ground for the ruling below.  But I remain concerned that some federal courts are “tempt[ed]” to avoid confronting a “particularly contentious constitutional questio[n]”: whether a school district violates parents’ fundamental rights “when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process.”... Petitioners tell us that nearly 6,000 public schools have policies—as respondent allegedly does—that purposefully interfere with parents’ access to critical information about their children’s gender identity choices and school personnel’s involvement in and influence on those choices.... The troubling—and tragic—allegations in this case underscore the “great and growing national importance” of the question that these parent petitioners present....

CBS News reports on the Court's action

Death Row Inmate's RLUIPA Claim Rejected

In Shockley v. Adams, (ED MO, Oct. 11, 2025), a Missouri federal district court dismissed a death row inmate's RLUIPA lawsuit concluding that his religious exercise was not substantially burdened by a refusal to allow his daughters to be present in the execution chamber, administer communion, anoint him and pray over him there. Plaintiff has delayed his execution with decades of litigation. The court said in part:

Respondents claim that safety and security considerations, borne of their experience as corrections officials who have overseen several state-mandated executions, counsel strongly against allowing family members into the execution chamber....  Respondents have expressly agreed that Shockley’s daughters are welcome to be execution observers.  And, Respondents have offered various accommodations, including having a non-family minister of Shockley’s own choosing provide and perform the exact same religious sacraments and rituals that Shockley desires....

In finding that the accommodations Respondents have offered do not substantially burden Shockley’s free exercise of religion, the Court also emphasizes what’s not in the record: 

• Shockley does not assert that his daughters are his only spiritual advisors; 

 • Shockley does not assert that his daughters are the only ministers able or qualified to provide the religious sacraments and rituals he seeks;  

• Shockley does not articulate how the accommodations substantially burden, or burden at all, his exercise of religion. Instead, he leaves it to be assumed; 

• Shockley nowhere claims that he has a particularly unique spiritual bond with his daughters.  Again, he leaves it to be assumed.  

... Shockley has known of this issue for months and chose to file suit five days before his execution, so in this regard, the Court finds that Shockley’s delay and lack of development of the record are equitable considerations weighing against the extraordinary equitable relief of a stay of execution....

UPDATE: In Shockley v. Adams, (8th Cir., Oct. 13, 2025), the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Shockley's motion for a stay of execution. On Oct. 13, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe announced that he would not grant clemency to Shockley. In Shockley v. Adams, (Sup. Ct., Oct. 14, 2025), the U.S. Supreme Court denied Shockley's application for a stay of execution, denied certiorari, and permitted Respondent of file a supplemental appendix under seal. On Oct. 14, Shockley was executed. (CBS News).

Canceling Concert Because of Reaction to Jewish Musician's Pro-Israel Posting Is Not Religious Discrimination

In Pauker v. Heart Consciousness Church, Inc., (ND CA, Oct. 9, 2025), a California federal district court dismissed religious and racial discrimination claims brought by a Jewish musician against a concert venue that cancelled his Hanukkah concert because of negative community reaction to the musician's Facebook post in support of Israel. The court said in part:

All of Pauker’s claims require at least racial or religious discrimination to be actionable.  But the allegations in Pauker’s complaint fail to raise a reasonable inference of such discrimination.  To the contrary, the complaint offers an alternative basis for Harbin’s decision to cancel Pauker’s performance:  a severe, negative community reaction.  For that reason, among others, Pauker fails to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.....

The parties differ on whether Pauker’s Facebook post implicates his religion or race.  Pauker centers his allegations on his Zionist beliefs—insisting that Zionism is a proxy for Judaism or Jewish racial identity....  Heart rejects this argument, contending that Zionism is purely political....  The Court notes that the relationship between Zionism and Judaism is “hotly disputed.”...  But parsing this issue is ultimately unnecessary because Heart is correct that Pauker fails to allege Harbin targeted him because he is Jewish....  

... Pauker alleges that Harbin reiterated it was “canceling the event due to community complaints about” Pauker’s Zionism, particularly his Facebook post.... Harbin conveyed that the backlash to Pauker was widespread and came from “community members, including performers and presenters.”...Pauker does not allege that Harbin’s stated reasoning was pretextual or that Harbin commented critically on his beliefs or Jewish faith.

[Thanks to Eugene Volokh via Religionlaaw for the lead.] 

Recent Articles of Interest

From SSRN:

• Candice Kulbeth, Constitutional Black Holes: An Anti-Delegation Principle for Civil Adjudication, (September 15, 2025).
• Russell Bell, Fear as Foundation: A Structural Analysis of Christian Doctrine and the Path to Authentic Freedom, (September 26, 2025).
• Jeremy Christiansen, The Classical Legal Tradition as Our Tradition, (September 30, 2025).
• Russell Bell, The Price of Dogma: Religion's Impact on Freedom and Progress, (September 27, 2025).
• Russell Bell, Religious Reasoning in Nuclear Command Authority: Constitutional Crisis, Algorithmic Warfare, and Emergency Democratic Response During Real-Time Threshold War, (October 07, 2025).
• Giovanni Brescancini Picchiotti, Belief as the Architecture of Reality, (October 05, 2025).
• Andrea Martin, From Ambiguity to Accountability: The Case for a Legal Definition of Antisemitism in Academia, (October 08, 2025).
• Bruce N. Cameron, Let's Talk About Morality, (August 14, 2025).
• Stefanus Hendrianto, Comparative Constitutional Law and Abortion Constitutionalism: On the Legacy of Justice Scalia in Dobbs, (Creighton International and Comparative Law Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 2, 2025, 67 -128).
• Emily Suski, Title IX's Post-Skrmetti Peril & Promise, (August 27, 2025).
• Susan Frelich Appleton, Viability as Abortion-Rights Orthodoxy, (90 Mo. L. Rev. 713 (2025)).

From SSRN (Non-U.S. Law):

• Nitzan Caspi Shiloni & Ronit Irshai, "Why Didn't You Leave Him?": Epistemic Injustice in Israel's Rabbinical Courts, (Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, volume 45, issue 1, 2025).
• Seth Barrett Tillman, A U.K. Dialogue on Migration (Parody 2025), (October 06, 2025).
• Abba Elgujja & Umar Alkali, The Almajiri Child's Rights: Constitutional and International Obligations in Global Perspective, (October 01, 2025).
• Zubair Abbasi, Scaling Artificial Intelligence for Augmented Learning: Developing a Generative AI Evaluation Scale through a Case Study in Islamic Inheritance Law (August 01, 2025).
• Mohamad Janaby, Islamic International Humanitarian Law and the War Against ISIS in Iraq: Competing Interpretations and Legal Applications, (Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice Volume 21, Issue 2: 471-476, 2025 Special Section on Recent Legal Developments in Iraq).
• Ellis Kokko, The Politics of Transgender Suffering in the UK's Bell v Tavistock Court Case, (July 07, 2025).

From SmartCILP:

• 26 Georgetown Journal of Gender & Law (Annual Review, 2025).

NY Court Dismisses Suit by Parishes Challenging their Bishop's Decision to Close Them

In Rozak v Diocese of Buffalo, (NY Erie County Sup. Ct., Sept. 26, 2025), a number of Catholic parishes sued the Diocese of Buffalo in an attempt to prevent the Bishop of Buffalo from forcing the parishes to merge into other parishes. The parishes had already filed Canon Law appeals to the Vatican's Dicastery for the Clergy challenging the validity of the Bishop's merger decrees. The Dicastery issued an order suspending the merger decrees while the Canon Law appeals were proceeding. The parishes, however, also filed this suit in a New York civil court under the New York Religious Corporation Law asking for a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the Merger Decrees while the ecclesiastical appeals proceeded.

The New York trial court dismissed the suit on jurisdictional grounds, saying in part:

Central to the pending actions is the inescapable fact that while the plaintiffs make overtures and attempt to frame their complaints to include a companion reference that the "temporalities and property" of the subject parishes are contemporaneously at risk of misappropriation vis-à-vis the manner by which and the purpose for which the mergers were declared by Bishop Fisher, these are not per se typical or traditional common law property disputes under any provisions of applicable New York civil law. More compelling in these actions is the undisputed fact that the Suspension Letters have operatively controlled and stayed all aspects of the challenged Merger Decrees and more recently, the first Dicasterium Decree that has been issued makes a plain declaration of the matters raised in the complaints, to wit, formally "confirming the extinctive union, for which sufficient cause has been shown" and directing the treatment and handling of the "temporal goods of the suppressed Parish."

Though avidly and forthrightly argued by plaintiffs that the disposition rendered by the Dicastery in the Dicasterium Decree is supportive of their position for the Court to grant the relief sought in these actions, it is plain and obvious from the averments made in their supplemental papers that the plaintiffs acknowledge, accept and completely reconcile themselves to the decisional authority of the Canon Law and ecclesiastical governance of the Roman Catholic Church to be solely and ultimately responsible for the lawful disposition of all the issues raised in these actions.... 

Law and Religion Blogosphere Is Shrinking

The blogging platform Typepad closed down on September 30. As reported by Lexblog, "Typepad was arguably once the most popular publishing platforms with legal bloggers." Some Typepad blogs migrated to other platforms. Others closed down, including many that were part of the Law Professors Blog Network.  One which closed down, at least for now, is Mirror of Justice blog which for over 20 years had been a rich source for discussion of Catholic Legal Theory. The blog, co-founded by Notre Dame Law Professor Rick Garnett, was affiliated with the Program on Church, State and Society at Notre Dame Law School. Thank you Mirror of Justice for your many contributions to intelligent online discussion of law and religion. You will be missed.  It is sad to see the legal blogsphere shrinking.

5th Circuit Grants En Banc Review of Louisiana 10 Commandments Law

On Oct. 6, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted en banc review in Roake v. Brumley, (Full text of court's Order.) In the case, a 3-judge panel affirmed a district court's grant of a preliminary injunction against enforcement of a Louisiana statute that requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. (See prior posting.) The court's Order vacates the panel decision and calls for new briefs and oral arguments in the case. Baptist News Global reports on the court's action.

Religious Institutions Are Among Plaintiffs Challenging New H-1B Visa Fees

Three religious institutions and a pastor are among the eleven plaintiffs that filed suit last week against the President and four federal departments and agencies challenging the Presidential Proclamation that imposed a $100,000 fee on applications for H-1B visas.  These visas allow foreign workers in highly skilled specialty occupations to work in the United States for 3 or 6 years. The Presidential Proclamation says in part:

The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was created to bring temporary workers into the United States to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.

The complaint (full text) in Global Nurse Force v. Trump, (ND CA, filed 10/3/2025), alleges in part:

3. The H-1B program ... allows religious organizations to retain priests and pastors who have the language skills, cultural competency, and religious training needed to minister to underserved populations, including poor refugee and migrant communities and economically distressed Appalachian communities.... 

The suit alleges that the President acted beyond his statutory authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act in promulgating the new visa fee.

The Hill reports on the lawsuit.

Splintered 5th Circuit Says Suit Against City for Failing to Train Police on 1st Amendment Rights Can Move Ahead

 In Hershey v. City of Bossier City, (5th Cir., Oct. 7, 2025), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in a splintered decision reversed a Louisiana federal district court's dismissal of a suit against the city by plaintiff who was passing out booklets for the Christian Vegetarian Association outside a concert arena in which a Christian rock concert was taking place.  The arena is in a public park, is managed by a private company and was rented out for the concert. Both police and private security guards provided security. They informed plaintiff that he could not hand out his material because he was on private property. Plaintiff sued the officers and guards for violating his 1st Amendment rights and sued the city for failing to train the police and the security guards. The case generated three separate opinions which, when put together reversed the trial court's dismissal of the claim against the city, but affirmed on qualified immunity grounds, the dismissal of claims against the police and security guards.

Judge Ho wrote in part:

“The dissemination of ... religious views and doctrines is protected by the First Amendment.”...

This right plainly encompasses the distribution of religious pamphlets—the activity at issue in this case....

So anyone who is “rightfully on a street which the state has left open to the public carries with him there as elsewhere the constitutional right to express his views in an orderly fashion.”...

Hershey’s right to evangelize on a public sidewalk is not undermined by the fact that the city-owned facility abutting the sidewalk happens to be managed by a private corporation.  Nor should it matter that his rights were violated by private security guards working alongside police officers.  Municipalities cannot abrogate the constitutional rights of their citizens simply by delegating their coercive governmental powers to private agents.

He also concluded that the city's failure to train amounted to deliberate indifference.

Judge Dennis said in part:

The City’s failure to train officers that the park was a public forum led officers to believe that the park was private property and that citizens could be ejected without violating their First Amendment rights. Hershey also alleged that the officers who removed him from the park held this belief and told him he had to leave the park because it was private property. Hershey has pleaded facts sufficient to show that the City’s complete lack of training was the cause of his injury.

Judge Richman would have upheld the dismissal of the claim against the city, saying in part:

This is a single-incident case in which Hershey relies on his own confrontation with city officers and private security guards to establish municipal liability.  This case does not present the “rare” and “narrow and extreme circumstances” that our court and the Supreme Court has said permit “drawing the inference” of “deliberate indifference.”

The court also by a different 2-1 vote upheld dismissal of damage claims against the officers and security guards on qualified immunity grounds. Judge Dennis would have reversed the trial court's dismissal on qualified immunity grounds, saying in part:

Because the law clearly established Hershey’s right to leaflet in a traditional public forum without viewpoint discrimination, qualified immunity is inappropriate.

Judge Richman disagreed, saying in part:

... [G]iven that the Supreme Court has indicated that sidewalks on public property are not automatically public forums and that the district court considered several cases concerning the forum status of spaces surrounding arenas that do not speak in unison, the forum status of the space in question was not clearly established.... 

Judge Ho reluctantly agreed that precedent required concluding that the right involved was clearly established, but expressed his disagreement with that precedent, saying in part:

 “[i]t seems absurd to suggest that the most egregious constitutional violations imaginable are somehow immune from liability precisely because they’re so egregious.  It would make a mockery of our rights to grant qualified immunity just because no one in government has yet to be abusive enough to commit that particular violation—and then stubborn enough to litigate it, not only before a district court, but also in the court of appeals (or the Supreme Court).”