DOJ Hosts First Meeting of Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias

 A Department of Justice press release reports that yesterday the DOJ hosted the inaugural meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.  The Task Force was created by an Executive Order of President Trump. Yesterday's press release described the Task Force meeting, saying in part:

The witnesses included:

Michael Farris: First Amendment Litigator and Founding President of Patrick Henry College. Farris spoke on behalf of Senior Pastor Gary Hamrick to discuss how Cornerstone Church was under investigation and charged by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for so-called Johnson Amendment violations....

Dr. Scott Hicks: Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Liberty University. Hicks described how Liberty University and Grand Canyon University were singled out by the Biden Administration for fines due to the schools’ Christian worldview.

Phil Mendes: Navy Seal. Mendes was relieved of duty during Biden Administration for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine due to religious exemption requests that were denied by the Department of Defense.

 “As shown by our victims’ stories today, Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”

Additionally, members of the Task Force highlighted specific cases within their own agencies where the Biden Administration unfairly and harshly punished Christian Americans for their religious beliefs.

UPDATE: The DOJ has posted video of opening remarks at the meeting by Attorney General Bam Bondi and  Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Justice Department in Policy Change Files Amicus Brief Supporting Religious Charter School

 As previously reported, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board v. Drummond and the related case of St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School v. Drummond. In the cases, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the state Charter School Board's authorization of a Catholic-sponsored publicly-funded charter school violates Oklahoma statutes, the Oklahoma Constitution and the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Last week (March 12), the U.S. Acting Solicitor General filed an amicus brief (full text) urging reversal of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The brief says in part:

... [T]he Free Exercise Clause applies and prohibits Oklahoma from excluding St. Isidore based on its religious observance. 

The United States previously advanced a different view of a charter school’s relationship with a State in Charter Day School, Inc. v. Peltier, 143 S. Ct. 2657 (2023), after this Court called for the views of the Solicitor General regarding whether a charter school’s adoption and enforcement of a student dress code was state action that could potentially violate the Constitution.  The United States contended (Br. 9-14) that the charter school was engaged in state action because it performed an educational function that was traditionally exclusively reserved to the State.  

After the recent change in Administration, the United States has concluded that charter schools do not perform functions exclusively reserved to the State.  More broadly, the state-action inquiry on which the United States focused in Peltier has obvious application to cases asking whether a school violates the Constitution in taking a specific action.  Where, as here, the question is whether a school lacks constitutional protections due to its governmental character, the key consideration is whether the school is itself a governmental entity, created and controlled by the State.  A charter school like St. Isidore does not meet those criteria.

DOJ Dismisses Suit Claiming Idaho's Abortion Restrictions Conflict With EMTALA

On Wednesday, both parties filed a Stipulation of Dismissal (full text) in United States v. State of Idaho, (D ID, filed 3/5/2025). According to the Stipulation, filing of this with the federal district court in which the suit was brought automatically dissolves the preliminary injunction which the court issued in August 2022.  In the case, the district court had enjoined the state of Idaho from enforcing its nearly total abortion ban to the extent it conflicts with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.  The case then worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court which initially granted review and then instead returned the case to the 9th Circuit, finding that certiorari had been improvidently granted. (See prior posting.)  Most recently, the parties argued the case before the 9th Circuit. Idaho's Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced this week's dismissal of the case, saying in part that: "It has been our position from the beginning that there is no conflict between EMTALA and Idaho’s Defense of Life Act." Liberty Counsel issued a press release discussing these developments and pointing out:

Idaho’s abortion law continues to face a separate legal challenge. In January 2025, St. Luke’s Hospital System in Idaho brought a nearly identical lawsuit as to Biden’s claiming the state’s abortion ban prevents women from getting abortions as part of emergency medical care. In St. Luke’s Health System v. Labrador, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, who had previously levied the injunction in Biden’s lawsuit, issued a temporary restraining order against Idaho’s attorney general’s office blocking it from enforcing the “Defense of Life Act” pending the results of a later proceedings.

DOJ Starts Title VII "Pattern or Practice" Investigation of Antisemitism at University of California

The Department of Justice has launched an employment discrimination investigation of the University of California. A DOJ press release this week says in part:

The Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced that the Justice Department has opened a civil pattern or practice investigation into the University of California (UC) under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The investigation will assess whether UC has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race, religion and national origin against its professors, staff and other employees by allowing an Antisemitic hostile work environment to exist on its campuses....

Under Title VII, the Justice Department has the authority to initiate investigations against state and local government employers where it has reason to believe that a “pattern or practice” of employment discrimination exists....

CBS News reports on the investigation.

President Trump Creates Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias

Yesterday, President Trump issued an Executive Order titled Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias (full text). The Order establishes within the Justice Department a temporary Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Chrisian Bias chaired by the Attorney General and made up of 16 other Cabinet level and high-ranking Administration officials. The Executive Order sets out at length the reasons for creating the Task Force, saying in part:

... [T]he United States Constitution enshrines the fundamental right to religious liberty in the First Amendment....

Yet the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.  The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities....

At the same time, Catholic churches, charities, and pro-life centers sought justice for violence, theft, and arson perpetrated against them, which the Biden Department of Justice largely ignored. ...

... [A] Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum asserted that “radical-traditionalist” Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as “threat mitigation.”  This later-retracted FBI memorandum cited as support evidence propaganda from highly partisan sources.

  The Biden Department of Education sought to repeal religious-liberty protections for faith-based organizations on college campuses.  The Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sought to force Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith.  And the Biden Department of Health and Human Services sought to drive Christians who do not conform to certain beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity out of the foster-care system....

 My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government....

Also yesterday, President Trump spoke for 24-minutes (full text of Remarks) at the National Prayer Breakfast held in the U.S. Capitol

Justice Department Announces Multi-Agency Task Force to Combat Antisemitism

In a press release yesterday, the Department of Justice announced the formation of a multi-agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. According to the Release:

The Task Force’s first priority will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.

In addition to the Department of Justice, the Task Force will include representatives from the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies as it develops. The Task Force will be coordinated through the Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Pardons and Policy Changes Limit Use of FACE Act Against Abortion Protesters

On Thursday, President Trump granted full and unconditional pardons to 23 defendants who were convicted of violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. (Full text of Pardon document.) The pardons which were issued a day before the annual January 24 March for Life in Washington D.C. cover defendants in five separate cases: United States v. Handy (blockade of a Washington, D.C. abortion clinic); United States v. Gallagher (barricading of a clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee); United States v. Zastrow, (blockading of abortion clinics in Sterling Heights and Saginaw, Michigan); United States v. Williams (Blocking entrance to Manhattan Planned Parenthood Clinic); United States v. Moscinski (blocking access to Hempstead, N.Y. Planned Parenthood Clinic). AP reports on the pardons.

The Trump Administration also took steps to limit future prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.  AP reports that a memo sent by the Attorney General's Chief of Staff, Chad Mizelle, to the head of the Civil Rights Division orders dismissal of three pending cases growing out of 2021 clinic blockades in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The memo also says that future prosecutions or civil actions under FACE Act will only be permitted in extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors. Mizelle called prosecutions against anti-abortion protesters a weaponization of law enforcement because few prosecutions were brought against attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and other pro-life organizations.

DOJ Civil Rights Division Freezes New Initiatives

The Washington Post yesterday reported that the Justice Department's new Chief of Staff has sent a memo to Kathleen Wolf, the new supervisor of the Civil Rights Division, freezing temporarily any new actions by attorneys in the Division.  The length of the freeze is unclear. The memo says that Civil Rights Division attorneys should not file any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest during the freeze. It explains that the freeze was imposed in order to be “consistent with the Department’s goal of ensuring that the Federal Government speaks with one voice in its view of the law and to ensure that the President’s appointees or designees have the opportunity to decide whether to initiate any new cases.”  Movement in pending cases already filed will be determined by the judge assigned to each case. Among the cases handled by the Civil Rights Division are those alleging religious discrimination in violation of federal civil rights laws.

Suit Challenges Federal Agency Rule Changes Protecting Against Gender Identity Discrimination

Suit was filed last week in a Louisiana federal district court challenging rule changes interpreting five federal statutes. Defendants are HHS, Department of Agriculture, EEOC and the Department of Justice. The rule changes define sex discrimination and sexual harassment as including discrimination or harassment on the basis of gender identity and define gender dysphoria as a disability. The complaint (full text) in Rapides Parish School Board v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (WD LA, filed 1/17/2025), contends that the rule provisions are not authorized by the various statutes being implemented, are arbitrary and capricious and violate the Spending Clause of the Constitution. It also alleges that various of the rule provisions compel speech in violation of the First Amendment and are unconstitutionally vague. ADF issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

Justice Department Sues Georgia City for Violating RLUIPA

On Monday, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit in a Georgia federal district court against the city of Brunswick, Georgia, alleging that the city violated RLUIPA by attempting to shut down The Well, a hospitality and religious resource center for homeless individuals. The complaint (full text) in United States v. City of Brunswick, Georgia, (SD GA, filed 12/16/2024), alleges in part:

2. Through its campaign to shut down The Well, including a mandatory closure order and a nuisance lawsuit, Brunswick imposed a substantial burden on the religious exercise of FaithWorks, and of The Well’s staff and leadership, without a compelling interest and without using the least restrictive means of achieving that interest, in violation of RLUIPA....

52. Operating The Well is an expression of faith that is substantially burdened by the City’s efforts to permanently close The Well. FaithWorks, which runs The Well, is an extension of the Methodist Church, and providing basic services to the poor and unhoused individuals are cornerstones of FaithWorks’ religious practice. FaithWorks and The Well are led by Reverend Culpepper and his staff of Christian ministers. And at The Well, staff members offer the opportunity for prayer and religious study to those who are interested....

57. Even if a compelling interest was implicated, the City cannot show that shutting down The Well or forcing FaithWorks to adopt new religious leadership is the least restrictive means of achieving the City’s purported interest. The City cannot show that shutting down The Well is necessary to protect safety, particularly when The Well has already adopted procedures that have addressed the City’s purported safety concerns, and has successfully operated under those procedures for over a year.

The Department of Justice issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

Defendant Sentenced To 11 Years for Arson Attacks on Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Halls

Last Friday, a Washington federal district court sentenced 52-year-old Mikey Diamond Starrett to 11 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for setting fire to three separate Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Halls and shooting into another Kingdom Hall. According to a Department of Justice press release, Starett pled guilty to four counts of violating the Church Arson Prevention Act and one count of using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington said:

Starrett’s attacks irrevocably destroyed the sense of safety and peace that a house of worship is supposed to provide, and caused severe, permanent harm to the Jehovah’s Witness community in Washington. These were not crimes against buildings, but a series of attacks against a community and a faith.

18 Year Prison Sentence Imposed for Firebombing Church

The Department of Justice announced that on Monday an Ohio federal district court sentenced Aimenn D, Penny to 18 years in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release after Penny pleaded guilty to violation of the Church Arson Prevention Act and using fire and explosives to commit a felony. DOJ described the violations:

According to court documents, on March 25, 2023, Penny made Molotov cocktails and drove to the Community Church of Chesterland (CCC), in Chesterland, Ohio. Angered by the church’s plan to host two drag events the following weekend, Penny threw two Molotov cocktails at the church, hoping to burn it to the ground. Through Penny’s guilty plea, he admitted to using force through fire and explosives, intending to obstruct CCC congregants in their enjoyment and expression of their religious beliefs.

White House Summarizes Recent Initiatives to Combat Antisemitism and Islamophobia at Schools and Colleges

The White House yesterday issued a Fact Sheet: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Takes Action to Address Alarming Rise of Reported Antisemitic and Islamophobic Events at Schools and on College Campuses.  It announces recent initiatives and updated resources from the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Homeland Security to counter the increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents at schools and colleges since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.

DOJ Announces Outreach Programs on RLUIPA

In a press release last Friday, the Justice Department announced that to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, it will hold a series of outreach events to highlight the Department's enforcement efforts, saying in part:

The department’s first RLUIPA outreach event will take place at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, New Jersey, on Oct. 30. The event will include remarks from officials with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, religious leaders in New Jersey whose organizations have benefited from RLUIPA’s protections and attorneys who have experience litigating RLUIPA cases. The department will host additional events across the country in the coming months, including in California and Michigan.

The Department has also posted updated material about RLUIPA, including information on identifying and reporting violations.

5th Circuit Allows Part of Stay on Abortion Pills To Remain; U.S. Will Appeal to Supreme Court

 In Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food & Drug Administration,(5th Cir., April 12, 2023), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a partial stay of a Texas federal district court's decision invalidating the FDA's approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The appeals court held that the statute of limitations barred a challenge to the FDA's initial approval of the drug in 2000. However, the court refused to stay the district court's disapproval of changes the FDA made in 2016.  Those changes significantly reduced prior restrictions on the administration and use of the drug. The court said in part:

Here, applicants have failed to carry their burden at this preliminary stage to show that FDA’s actions were not arbitrary and capricious. We have two principal concerns in that regard. First, FDA failed to “examine the relevant data” when it made the 2016 ... changes.... That’s because FDA eliminated ... safeguards based on studies that included those very safeguards....

Second, the 2016 ... Changes eliminated the requirement that non-fatal adverse events must be reported to FDA. After eliminating that adverse-event reporting requirement, FDA turned around in 2021 and declared the absence of non-fatal adverse-event reports means mifepristone is “safe.”... This ostrich’s-head-in-the-sand approach is deeply troubling.... It’s unreasonable for an agency to eliminate a reporting requirement for a thing and then use the resulting absence of data to support its decision.

Reuters reports on the decision. 

Earlier today, the Justice Department announced that it would seek emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.

DOJ Enters Consent Decree with Lansing, MI In Suit Over Firing of 7th Day Adventist Employee

The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that it has entered into a consent decree with the city of Lansing, Michigan to settle a Title VII religious accommodation and retaliation lawsuit that alleged the city fired a Seventh Day Adventist police officer rather than accommodating her Sabbath observance. Under the terms of the consent decree, which must still be approved by the court, Lansing will develop religious accommodation and retaliation policies, and trainings on them. It will also pay the former employee $50,000 in back pay and compensatory damages. UPI reports on the settlement.

20 State AG's Warn Pharmacies Against Mailing Abortion Pills

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced on Tuesday that 20 state attorneys general have sent letters to Walgreen's and CVS pharmacies warning that their plan to distribute the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol using the mails violates both state and federal law. (Full text of letters to Walgreen's and CVS). The letters contend that distribution of the pills by mail violates 18 USC §1461 and reject an Opinion of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (full text) to the contrary.

Justice Department Initiates Investigation Of Sex Abuse By Southern Baptist Clergy And Executives

Baptist Press reported yesterday that the Justice Department has informed the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention that it has initiated an investigation that will involve multiple SBC entities. This comes after an independent investigation (full text of report) of sexual abuse allegations against clergy and Executive Committee members commissioned by SBC. A Release by the SBC Executive Committee (quoted in full in the Baptist Press report) says in part:

Individually and collectively each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate with the investigation. While we continue to grieve and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future. 

New Orleans Archdiocese Settles False Claims Act Lawsuit

The Department of Justice announced this week that in a settlement of a False Claims Act lawsuit that was originally brought by a whistleblower, the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans has agreed to pay the federal government more than $1 million in damages. (Full text of Settlement Agreement).  The whistleblower will receive nearly $200,000. The lawsuit alleges that the Archdiocese knowingly submitted false claims to FEMA for repair or replacement of facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. This included damage to a nonexistent central air conditioning unit and misstatement of the sized of a facility. The settlement was approved last month by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court handling the Archdiocese's bankruptcy reorganization. National Catholic Register reports on the settlement.

Virginia County Allows Muslim Cemetery, Settling DOJ and Private Litigation

The  Justice Department yesterday announced that it had filed a Notice of Dismissal in United States v. Stafford County Virginia, (ED VA, Oct. 14, 2021). The Department said that it is dismissing its RLUIPA lawsuit because the county has repealed the ordinances that prevented the All Muslim Association of America (AMAA) from developing a religious cemetery for Muslims. the county has also approved a site plan for the new cemetery and has settled a private lawsuit by agreeing to pay AMAA $500,000 in damages.