A 16-year old high school student in San Diego recently initiated legal action in federal court against the San Diego Unified School District. The student asserts that a vaccine mandate requiring qualified students to be fully inoculated against COVID-19 by the end of December 2021 constitutes religious discrimination.  San Diego’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate The San Read More

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently declined to hear the decision of a three-judge panel that decided a school district in Washington state was permitted to ban a football coach from taking a knee in personal prayer following a football game. This article examines this case and the implications that Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union recently launched a federal lawsuit against the City of Horn Lake, Mississippi, after it rejected a proposed mosque. The lawsuit claims that the city and board of aldermen of Horn lake discriminated against two Muslim individuals by denying approval of a site plan for a mosque that the men had Read More

A federal appellate court recently issued a decision in favor of Western Michigan University athletes. This decision means the athletes will be able to play sports without obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine. The University had issued a vaccine mandate for student athletes, but did not mandate them for all students. How the Lawsuit Arose The original Read More

A brother and sister in California were recently banned from high school after they refused to wear masks on the first day of school. The father of the siblings reported that the children were told to leave Charter Schools Temecula Student Center and not come back regardless of whether or not they were wearing masks. Read More

The United States Supreme Court recently held that the City of Philadelphia went too far in applying its anti-discrimination law to a Catholic charity after it declined to permit same-sex parents to adopt foster children. The justices in this case noted that the Constitution permits a religious freedom exception to anti-discrimination laws. Importantly, the case Read More

According to a bill signed in late 2020 by Governor DeWine of Ohio, fetal remains from surgical abortions must be either buried or cremated. The non-theistic religious group, the Satanic Temple, however, is threatening legal action because the group argues that the state cannot dictate burial practices to religious organizations. This burial law brings up Read More

The United States Supreme Court recently overruled COVID-19 restrictions established by New York legislators that were designed to combat the coronavirus, finding the restrictions to be unconstitutional. The 5-to-4 vote was the first to address COVID-19 restrictions after the loss of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this fall and the installment of the new Read More

A federal judge recently ruled that North Carolina religious leaders should be able to open their doors to their congregations, overruling religious service restrictions instituted by the state’s Governor to contain further spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper has since stated that he does not plan to appeal the Read More

Two recent cases (Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel) heard by the United States Supreme Court have dealt with the role of religious rights in this country. Both of these cases question if two Catholic school instructors qualify as “ministers,” and whether employment discrimination laws are therefore applicable. Read More