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Religious
Freedom in Focus is a periodic email update about the
Civil Rights Division's religious liberty and religious discrimination
cases. Assistant Attorney General R. Alexander Acosta has placed a
priority on these cases. Through vigorous enforcement of:
- Federal statutes
prohibiting religion-based discrimination in education, employment,
housing, public facilities, and public accommodations;
- Federal laws against
arson and vandalism of houses of worship and bias crimes against people
because of their faith; and
- The Religious Land Use
and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA);
and through participation
as intervenor and friend-of-the-court in cases involving the denial of
equal treatment based on religion, the Civil Rights Division is working
to protect the right of people of all faiths to participate fully in
public life.
More information about this initiative, and back
issues of this newsletter, may be found on the religious
discrimination home page of the Civil
Rights Division website. You may also contact the
Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination, Eric W. Treene, at (202)
353-8622.
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IN THIS ISSUE:
DOJ
Asks Court to Permanently Bar New York Public Schools From Religious
Discrimination
The Civil Rights Division on May 17 filed a second brief
urging a federal court to bar the New York City Public Schools
from discriminating against religious speech. The case, Bronx
Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York,
involves the ongoing efforts of a Christian congregation to rent school
facilities on Sundays on an equal basis with other civic and
community groups.
"Religious groups wishing to rent unused facilities after school hours have the
right be treated equally with other community groups," remarked
Assistant Attorney General R. Alexander Acosta. "Two Supreme
Court decisions and the court of appeals two years ago in this very
case have made clear that groups cannot be discriminated against simply
because of their religious viewpoints. It is time for the School
Board to comply with the courts' mandates."
The city makes school facilities available after hours to groups for
"social, civic and recreational meetings and entertainments, and other
uses pertaining to the welfare of the community." Under this
policy, nearly 10,000 groups per year receive permits for activities at
school facilities. Rental for religious services, however, is
forbidden by school board regulations. In 1995, Bronx Household
sought to rent facilities on Sundays for weekly worship meetings.
The city denied the application. Bronx Household sued in federal
court, citing Lamb's Chapel v.
Center Moriches Union Free School District, a 1993 case in which
the United States Supreme Court held that a New York school board could
not bar a Christian group from showing a film at school after-hours
about child rearing from a Christian perspective. The federal
trial and appeals court both held that worship was distinct from the
film at issue in Lamb's Chapel,
and therefore the city was within its rights to deny the application.
In 2001, however, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Good News Club v. Milford Central School,
which struck down a policy of an upstate New York town. That policy, which
was almost identical to New York City's in this case, was being used to
bar a weekly after-school program for children consisting of singing hymns,
prayer, Bible lessons and games. The Supreme Court held that the activities
of the Good News Club were the equivalent of the "social, civic and recreational
meetings and entertainment events, and other uses pertaining to the welfare
of the community" that the town of Milford permitted and could not be
excluded because they had a religious viewpoint. The Supreme Court found
this case indistinguishable from the earlier Lamb's Chapel decision.
Shortly after the Good News Club
decision came down, Bronx Household refiled its complaint in federal
court against New York City, seeking relief in light of the Supreme
Court's decision. The trial court in June 2002 granted Bronx
Household a preliminary injunction, finding that it was likely to
succeed in its claim. The city appealed, and the United States
filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the
Court of Appeals. The Court of
Appeals then upheld the trial court. Since then, as the suit has
proceeded, Bronx Household and 22 other congregations have used school
facilities for Sunday services.
Despite the holding of the Second Circuit that the reasoning of Good
News Club and Lamb's Chapel should apply to this situation,
New York continues to fight to deny equal access to the church. The city
has asked the trial court to allow it to bar Bronx Household and other
congregations permanently from renting school facilities at any time.
The city argues that the court of appeals in its prior ruling did not
consider all of the facts. For example, the city complains that allowing
equal access for churches in fact would discriminate against other religions,
because schools are more likely to have unused space on Sunday than on
Fridays and Saturdays when Muslim and Jewish congregations might like
to hold services. Similarly, the city argues that while there are approximately
10,000 permits given to outside groups in the school system each year,
in at least one New York city school the only group that has sought access
on weekends is a church. Granting that church access, the city reasons,
might lead people to think that churches are favored.
The United States brief argues that the city's arguments are without
merit. Allowing equal access cannot be construed somehow to be
unequal simply because some groups choose not to use school
facilities. Given the fact that the access policy opens school
facilities to an extremely wide variety of groups, and that thousands
of groups do in fact use school facilities, making this policy truly
equal by allowing religious groups to choose to participate cannot be
construed to discriminate in favor of religion. As the brief
states, quoting the Supreme Court's 1995 Rosenberger decision, "Permitting
Bronx Household to rent school facilities on equal terms with others
would not violate the Establishment Clause. To the contrary, 'a
denial of the right of free speech ... would risk fostering a
pervasive bias or hostility to religion, which would undermine the very
neutrality that the Establishment Clause requires.'"
Sentencing in Cemetery Desecration Case
On May 2, Sean Andrew Sigley was sentenced to 12 months in prison for
conspiring with another man to spray swastikas and anti-Jewish messages
on pillars and buildings at the Congregation Shaarie Torah Cemetery in
Portland, Oregon. Sigley, a self-described white supremacist, and
co-defendant Steven Hale Smith, admitted that they desecrated the cemetery
in May 2003 to intimidate areas Jewish residents. Smith is to be sentenced
on June 13.
"There is no place in America for such despicable crimes," said R.
Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights
Division. "The Justice Department is committed to protecting our
diverse religious heritage against acts of criminal bigotry."
The case was jointly prosecuted by attorneys from the Civil Rights Division
and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon, and
was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Prosecuting the
perpetrators of bias-motivated crimes remains a top priority of the Justice
Department. Since 2001, the Civil Rights Division has charged 154 defendants
in 104 cases of bias-motivated crime. In 2004, the Justice Department
brought a record number of criminal civil rights prosecutions.
Civil Rights Division Suit Claims Florida City Discriminated Against
Synagogue
The Justice Department filed a suit under
the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA")
on April 24 alleging that the
City of Hollywood, Florida discriminated against an Orthodox Jewish
group. The suit, filed in federal district court in Ft.
Lauderdale, alleges that the City discriminated against Chabad
Lubavitch by refusing to grant permits for its Hollywood Community
Synagogue to hold religious services.
"The Department of Justice respects the freedom of cities and
municipalities to set appropriate zoning restrictions, but this freedom
must be exercised within the limits of federal law," said R. Alexander
Acosta, Assistant Attorney General Acosta. "We must remember that
our nation was founded on principles of freedom, which is why Congress
unanimously passed RLUIPA and why the Justice Department is resolved to
enforce it vigorously."
The Justice Department's
complaint alleges that
in violation of federal law, the City of Hollywood denied Chabad's
application to operate a synagogue in a residential neighborhood.
After initially granting Chabad permits to make significant changes to
the property, the city ordered the construction stopped and told Chabad
they would have to obtain a special exception to operate a
synagogue. After initially granting two exemptions with specific
time limits, the City denied a third request for an exemption.
According to the complaint, the City routinely grants variances to
houses of worship to operate in residential neighborhoods, but denied
such a variance to Chabad. The complaint further alleges that the
City currently permits various houses of worship and nonreligious
assemblies to operate in residential neighborhoods in violation of the
City's zoning regulations, but has prohibited the Chabad Lubavitch
group from likewise operating in the neighborhood. The
differential treatment of Chabad, the complaint alleges, was due to its
religion.
RLUIPA, enacted in 2000, prohibits religious discrimination in
land-use and zoning decisions. This is the second ever filed by
the Department under the statute. Since 2001, the Civil Rights
Division has opened 22 investigations and numerous preliminary
inquiries into allegations of religious discrimination. These have
included investigations of unequal treatment of Christian, Jewish,
Muslim, Hindu and other congregations. Most of these have been
resolved amicably through voluntary modification of potentially
discriminatory zoning regulations. More information about
RLUIPA can be found on the Civil Rights Division's Housing and Civil
Enforcement homepage.
United States Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt
