Two Wins for Religious Freedom in the Public Schools
June 29, 2012 - This week CLS participated in two court victories protecting religious liberty in public schools in New York City and Spartanburg, South Carolina.
A New York federal district court today issued a permanent injunction requiring New York City’s Board of Education to stop discriminating against churches that wish to rent school facilities for weekend use on the same basis as other community groups. For over 15 years, the Board has tried to deny churches their First Amendment right of equal access to government facilities otherwise available to other community groups.
CLS’s amici brief in support of Bronx Household of Faith was joined by several co-amici, including the American Bible Society; National Association of Evangelicals; Council of Churches of the City of New York; Brooklyn Council of Churches; Queens Federation of Churches; American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan New York; National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists; and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Rick Claybrook and Bruce Zabarauskas of Crowell & Moring prepared the brief. An expedited appeal to the Second Circuit is expected this summer, in which CLS will again file a brief.
In the second victory, the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of a public school district accepting elective credits for high school students’ participation in a released time program in Spartanburg, South Carolina. If the Establishment Clause challenge had been successful, public schools’ acceptance of credits for students transferring from religious private schools might have been challenged next.
Jim Lehman and Jay Thompson of Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough LLP in Columbia, South Carolina, filed an excellent amici brief on behalf of CLS and its co-amici the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education, National Association of Evangelicals, and Advocates for Faith and Freedom.