Christian Employee Who Objects To Secular Counseling Loses Religious Accommodation Claim

In Valenzisi v. Stamford Board of Education, (D CT, June 5, 2013), a Connecticut federal district court dismissed a claim by high school math teacher challenging his termination on, among other grounds, Title VII and 1st Amendment claims of failure to accommodate his religious beliefs. Teacher Frank Valenzisi was required to obtain a "fit for duty" medical evaluation before he could resume teaching after claims of aggressive behavior, difficulty recognizing people and bizarre behavior in a meeting with the deputy superintendent.  Valenzisi objected to the requirement, and sued claiming that as a born-again bible-believing Christian he objected to secular counseling. The court held that there is a question of whether the fitness-for-duty evaluation involved secular counseling, but even if it did Valenzisi did not show that he had requested an accommodation from his employer.

High School Valedictorian Insists on Delivering Prayer

Christian Post reports on the June 3 graduation at Liberty High School in Pickens County, South Carolina.  Valedictorian Roy Costner IV tore up his pre-approved speech and instead, to the applause of many in attendance, recited the Lord's Prayer in full. YouTube has his speech.

FBI To Expand Religious Groups Covered By Hate Crime Reports

According to the Huffington Post, the FBI Advisory Policy Board yesterday approved a pending proposal to amend the standard hare crime incident reporting form so that police departments around the country track hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus and Arabs. (See prior posting.) Currently the form tracks hate crimes motivated by religious animus against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and atheists/agnostics. Subsequently yesterday an FBI spokesman announced that the FBI will go even further and will track hate crimes against "all self-identified religions in the United States as listed in the Pew Research Center’s Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2008) and the Statistical Abstract (2012) approved by the U.S. Census Bureau." That list includes: Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Orthodox, Other Christian, Jewish, Islamic (Muslim), Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Other Religions, Multiple Religions-Group, and Atheism/Agnosticism. All of these changes must still be approved by FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Quebec Soccer Federation Bans Sikh Turbans; Federal Officials Criticize Move

In Canada, the Quebec Soccer Federation has created controversy by deciding last week end to uphold its ban on Sikh boys wearing turbans on the soccer fields.  The Montreal Gazette reported Tuesday:

Quebec referees began cracking down in the last year on turbans, patkas and keskis, the religious headgear worn by Sikh men and boys.

The weekend decision to uphold the ban occurred despite a directive from the Canadian Soccer Association in April, calling for provincial associations to allow them by extending an existing rule that allows Islamic hijabs for girls.

Quebec is the only province that has balked at the directive.

The Soccer Federation sent a memo (full text in French) to referees on Tuesday telling them that they are required to enforce the ban.  The Province reported yesterday that Canadian federal officials are strongly criticizing the turban ban.

UPDATE: RNS reports:

The Quebec Soccer Federation lifted the ban Saturday (June 15), a day after the Canadian Soccer Association sent out word that FIFA, the international governing body, approved the headgear. But allegations of religious intolerance and racism still linger.

UK Parliamentary Committee Report Urges Changes In Charities Act Definition of Religious Charity

In Britain yesterday, the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee published a report titled The role of the Charity Commission and “public benefit”: Post-legislative scrutiny of the Charities Act 2006.  Britain's 2006 Charity Act requires that to qualify as a charity, an organization must not only be created to advance one of a set of specified purposes, such as "advancement of religion," but must also be "for the public benefit."  The Report says in part:

The Charity Commission... argued that there was a “lack of certainty as to the law relating to the public benefit requirement for the advancement of religion” since the passing of the Charities Act 2006. This lack of certainty, and the Commission’s interpretation of the Act, have led to the questioning of the charitable status of independent schools and the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (or Exclusive Brethren) and concerns over the wider impact on faith charities.... 

We recommend that the removal of the presumption of public benefit in the 2006 Charities Act be repealed, along with the Charity Commission’s statutory public benefit objective. This would ensure that no transient Government could introduce what amounts to substantive changes in charity law without Parliament’s explicit consent. If the Government wishes there to be new conditions for what constitutes a charity and qualifies for tax relief, it should bring forward legislation, not leave it to the discretion of the Charity Commission and the courts.

Third Sector has additional information.

School Need Not Accommodate Teacher's Tuesday Sabbath

In Slocum v. Devezin, (ED LA, June 3, 2013), a Louisiana federal district court dismissed an elementary school teacher's Title VII religious accommodation lawsuit.  Special education teacher Joy Slocum wanted to take time off to observe her Sabbath from 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday until 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday each week. The school refused.  According to the court:

Accommodating Plaintiff's request to take off every Tuesday would require Defendants to hire a substitute teacher every week, or a part-time employee to cover every Tuesday, in addition to paying Plaintiff's salary, or perhaps would require her students to sit with another teacher's class – overloading the student-teacher ratio.... [O]bliging Plaintiff's request and accommodating her religious practices in this regard would require Defendants  to bear more than a de minimus cost, and as such would be an "undue hardship."

Louisiana Passes Bill Encouraging Student Use of School Space For Prayer

Last Saturday the Louisiana legislature gave final passage to HB 724 that encourages schools to allow students to use school space for prayer. The bill provides:

A. Upon the request of any public school student...  school authorities may permit students to gather for prayer in a classroom, auditorium, or other space that is not in use, at anytime before the school day begins when the school is open and students are allowed on campus, at any time after the school day ends provided that at least one student club or organization is meeting at that time, or at any noninstructional time during the school day. A school employee may be assigned to supervise the gathering if ... requested by the student ... and the school employee volunteers....

B. Any school employee may attend and participate in the gathering if it occurs before the employee's workday begins or after [it] ... ends.

C. Any parent may attend the gathering....

D. The students may invite persons from the community to attend and participate in the gathering if other school organizations ... are allowed to make similar invitations.

Wall of Separation blog sets out the concerns that American United have with the bill.

Missouri Governor Vetoes Anti-Foreign Law Bill

As reported by AP, yesterday Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed (full text of veto message) S.B. No 267, the Civil Liberties Defense Act, which provided that any ruling by a court or tribunal will be void and unenforceable if it is based on any foreign law, legal code or system that is repugnant or inconsistent with the Missouri or U.S. constitutions. Bills such as this one are the outgrowth of earlier versions that were more explicitly directed at barring the application of Sharia law.  In vetoing the bill, the governor in part emphasized the problems that it would create with foreign adoptions by Missouri parents. Explaining his veto during a visit to a children's services agency, Nixon said:

This legislation seeks to solve a problem that does not exist, while creating the very real problem of jeopardizing Missouri's families' ability to adopt children from foreign countries.

Kenya Court Gives Interim Win To Adventist Students On Sabbath Observance

In Kenya last July, the Seventh Day Adventist Church's Kenya Union Mission filed suit against the Ministry of Education and 26 schools seeking to have Adventist students excused, for religious reasons, from Friday evening and Saturday classes and exams. Now, as reported by the Adventist News Network (June 3) and Standard Digital News (May 27), a Kenya High Court judge has issued an interim order providing:

All principals, administrators and BoGs of all public high schools be and are hereby restrained from in any manner whatsoever, preventing or impeding SDA students attending the schools in question from conducting worship during the hours between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday

Fired Catholic School Teacher Wins Pregnancy Discrimination Suit; Jury Awards $171,000

AP reports that yesterday in Cincinnati, Ohio a federal district court jury ruled in favor of Christa Dias, a former technology coordinator at two Catholic high schools who sued under Title VII claiming pregnancy discrimination after she was fired when she became pregnant through artificial insemination. The jury was faced with the question of whether her termination was based on the Archdiocese's permissible ban on premarital sex, or instead whether she was impermissibly fired because she was pregnant. (See prior posting.) The jury awarded $51,000 in back-pay, $20,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages against the Archdiocese. The jury did not find that the two schools were liable.

Czech High Court Rejects Challenge To Compensating Religious Groups For Nationalized Property

Last November, the Czech Parliament approved a plan to provide restitution to churches whose property was nationalized after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. (See prior posting.) Now AP reports that he Czech Republic's Constitutional Court (the country's highest court) yesterday rejected a constitutional challenge to the plan that was brought by the government's left-wing opposition.  Under the controversial plan, 16 religious groups will be paid 59 billion Kč ($3 billion) in compensation over the next 30 years and will also receive 56% of their former property now held by the state - worth 75 billion Kč  ($3.8 billion). As part of the arrangement the government will gradually stop covering church expenses over the next 17 years.

Suit Challenges City's Planned Veterans' Memorial Depicting Religious Symbols

The American Humanist Association announced last week that it has filed a federal court lawsuit challenging Lake Elsinore, California's creation and funding of a memorial to veterans at the city-owned baseball stadium. The approved design for the memorial-- which has not yet been fully installed-- depicts a soldier kneeling before a Christian cross. In the background are several more crosses and a Star of David. The complaint (full text) in American Humanist Association v. City of Lake Elsinore, (CD CA, filed 5/31/2013), alleges violations of the federal  Establishment Clause as well as Article 1, Section 4 and Article 16, Section 5 of the California Constitution.

Israel Will Pay Salaries For Non-Orthodox Communal Rabbis

According to JTA, in Israel last Thursday the Ministry of Religious Services indicated that it is revising its policies so that cities can receive funding for communal rabbis affiliated with the Reform or Masorti (Conservative) movements, not just for Orthodox rabbis. Last year the Israeli government took a similar step for rabbis on regional councils and in farming communities, but it did not apply to larger cities.  (See prior posting.) The most recent decision comes in response to a suit filed in the Israeli Supreme Court by the Reform and Masorti movements arguing that it is discriminatory for the state to employ only Orthodox rabbis in state-funded positions.

Recent Articles of Interest

From SSRN:

• Louis-Philippe Raynault-Ollu & Giacomo Zucchi, Concepts de religion dans le droit: Une étude éclectique des approches juridiques à la définition et au droit à la liberté de religion (The Concepts of Religion in Law: An Eclectic Study of the Juridical Approaches to Define Religion and Religious Freedom), Revue Juridique Thémis (2012-2013) 46 R.J.T.649-677.)
• Sarah E. Hamill, Judges and Religious-Based Reasoning: A Response to Ginn and Blaikie, (March 31, 2012).
• Michael McMillen, Sequelae of the Dow Jones Fatwa and Evolution in Islamic Finance: The Real Estate Investment Example, (New Horizon - Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance, Forthcoming).
• Mohammad Fadel, Theology, Torture and the United States: Do Abrahamic Religions Have Anything Meaningful to Say?, (The Muslim World. Volume 103, Issue 2, pages 223–228, April 2013).
• Michael McMillen, Islamic Capital Markets: A Selective Introduction, (Who's Who - International Legal, Forthcoming).
• Helen M. Alvare, No Compelling Interest: The 'Birth Control' Mandate and Religious Freedom, (Villanova Law Review, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 379-436, 2013).
• Daniel Golebiewski, Open Wide the Doors to Christ: Polish Catholicism Under Communist Rule, (December 22, 2011).
• Andrew M. Koppelman, Judging the Case Against Same-Sex Marriage, (University of Illinois Law Review, Forthcoming).
• Lama Abu-Odeh, Egypt's New Constitution: The Islamist Difference, (Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival: the Challenges, Oxford University Press, Forthcoming).

From Academia.edu:

• Niels Valdemar Vinding, Muslim Positions in the Religio-Organisational Fields of Denmark, Germany and England, (University of Copenhagen Thesis, March 1, 2013).

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

In Sims v. Wegman, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76243 (ED CA, May 29, 2013), a California federal magistrate judge dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies a Nation of Islam inmate's complaint that he was not permitted to have the prison's Jewish kosher diet.

In Carmichael v. Geo Group, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76281 (ED CA, May 29, 2013), a California federal magistrate judge dismissed with leave to amend an inmate's complaint that he could not obtain Halal meat and was denied a transfer to a facility that could accommodate his religious needs.

In Barton v. Snaza, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77049 (WD WA, May 31, 2013), a Washington federal magistrate judge ruled that an inmate who alleged that two of his Asatru/Odinist books were confiscated and that he was not therefore able to perform "a sacred worship/ritual/ceremonial rite" had not adequately alleged a free exercise violation. However plaintiff was given an opportunity to file an amended complaint.

In Friedman v. Salt Lake County, (UT App., May 31, 2013), a Utah state appellate court dismissed a Jewish inmate's claim that his free exercise, due process and freedom from involuntary servitude rights were violated while he was a pre-trial detainee.  A jail officer instructed him to clean writing from his cell wall on a Saturday, plaintiff's Sabbath.

Appeals Court Says Negligence Claim Against Assemblies of God District Council In Abuse Case Must Go To Jury

In John Doe 169 v. Brandon, (MN Ct. App., May 28, 2013), a Minnesota state appeals court reversed a trial court's dismissal of a negligence suit filed against the Minnesota District Council of the Assemblies of God Church.  Plaintiff was sexually abused by an ordained minister who was a volunteer in an Assemblies of God youth ministry program. The court held:

Because no showing of a special relationship is required and there is sufficient evidence to permit a jury to conclude that respondent had knowledge of the minister’s history of inappropriate relationships with youth while employed as a youth minister, the record is sufficient to require a jury to consider the issue of foreseeability....

The issue ... is simply whether providing “initial approval” of Brandon’s annual renewal form, when respondent knew about Brandon’s history of inappropriate relationships with male youths, created a situation in which Brandon’s sexual abuse of appellant was foreseeable. This claim does not require consideration of church doctrine, governance, or bylaws. Because appellant’s claim can be considered under neutral principles of negligence law, respondent’s constitutional claim fails.

Southern Baptists To Vote On Recommendation To Cut Ties With Boy Scouts Over Gay Membership Issue

CNN reported Friday that the Southern Baptists at their convention in Houston on June 11-12 will vote on a non-binding resolution urging the denomination's 45,000 congregations to cut their ties with the Boy Scouts after the Scout's recent decision to allow gay youths to be Boy Scout members. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said:

There’s a 100% chance that there will be a resolution about disaffiliation at the convention and a 100% chance that 99% of people will vote for it. Southern Baptists are going to be leaving the Boy Scouts en masse.

Baptist churches sponsor nearly 4000 scout units. Various religious conservatives are looking at forming an alternative group that would continue to deny membership to gays.

President Welcomes Nuns-on-the-Bus Leader Seeking Immigration Reform To White House

On Thursday, according to the White House Blog, President Obama met at the White House with Sister Simone Campbell, the Executive Director of NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice organization.  Sister Simone  was in Washington on Day 3 of NETWORK's "Nuns of the Bus" coast-to-coast tour calling for "commonsense immigration reform."

EEOC Sues Trucking Company That Refused To Reassign Muslim Drivers Who Objeced To Alcohol Delivery

Land Line reports on the lawsuit filed May 29 by the EEOC against Illinois-based Star Transport, Inc. (EEOC press release). The suit charges that the trucking company failed to provide a reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs to two Muslim drivers whose employment was terminated when they objected to driving trucks delivering alcohol. The complaint alleges that the company could have avoided assigning these employees to alcohol delivery without undue hardship on the employer. The suit seeks back pay and damages for the drivers, as well as an order barring future discrimination and other relief.

UPDATE: Here is the full text of the complaint in EEOC v. Star Transport, Inc., (CD IL, filed 5/29/2013). [Thanks to Volokh Conspiracy for the link to the complaint.]

3rd Circuit Hears Oral Arguments In Business' Contraceptive Mandate Challenge

As reported by Fox 43 News, on Thursday the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius. An audio recording of the full oral arguments are now available. (.wma file). In the case, a Pennsylvania federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate in a suit brought by a small wood specialties manufacturing company and its five Mennonite Christian owners. (See prior posting.) The 3rd Circuit refused to grant a stay pending appeal. (See prior posting.)