In Sapp v. Trenton Board of Education, (D NJ, March 6, 2026), a New Jersey federal district court dismissed a suit brought pro se against school officials who refused to allow plaintiff to pick up his fourth-grade son every Friday two-and-one-half hours early to take the son to Muslim religious services. Plaintiff had joint custody of his son. The son's mother, as well as school officials, objected to the father's request, even though the father had court-ordered parenting time with the son on Fridays. When plaintiff persisted, the Board of Education barred him from school premises. Plaintiff asserted nine causes of action against school officials. Dismissing his due process claim, the court said in part:
Courts have held that “[t]he right of parents to raise their children without undue state interference is well established.”... Moreover, the Third Circuit has held that “[i]t has long been recognized that parents have a constitutional right to control the education of their children.”... But such a right is “neither absolute nor unqualified.”...
Liberally construed, the SAC [second amended complaint] asserts that Defendants deprived Plaintiff of his right to be on school grounds without affording him due process. However, the Third Circuit has declined to find that such a right exists....
Dismissing Plaintiff's 1st Amendment claims, the court said in part:
Plaintiff next alleges that Defendants violated his First Amendment rights by “unduly preferring non-religion over religion and interfering with [his] right to peaceably assemble for religious purposes.”...
To support his First Amendment claim, Plaintiff alleges that after picking his son up from school early two Fridays in a row for prayer and submitting a letter to the school seeking a religious exemption, he was turned away by security the next Friday.... Plaintiff also alleges that [school principal] Ramcharan told Plaintiff that his son could pray at school because two-and-a-half hours once per week was too much time for Plaintiff’s son to miss.... Plaintiff was banned from school grounds shortly afterwards.... Even accepting these allegations as true, Plaintiff does not plausibly allege that Defendants violated his First Amendment rights. Plaintiff fails to allege how the inability to remove his son from school impacts Plaintiff’s right to assemble and to exercise his religious rights.
Moreover, there is no suggestion that Defendants acted to suppress Plaintiff’s religious views or ideas.... As a result, the Court finds that Plaintiff does not plausibly allege a First Amendment freedom of assembly violation....
The court then added a lengthy footnote which reads in part:
Plaintiff’s First Amendment claim also fails if construed under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.... “[T]he First Amendment is only implicated if the governmental burden on religion is ‘substantial,’ which essentially means that the state may not compel an individual to act contrary to his religious beliefs.” ... Here, Plaintiff has pled no facts upon which the Court could infer that Plaintiff’s religious rights were substantially burdened based on his inability to pick up his son from school on two occasions.
