November victories in two major lawsuits capped off a stellar year for Americans United’s litigation efforts.
First, a federal district court blocked the Louisiana law that would require all public schools to permanently display a government-approved, Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
In the lawsuit brought by AU, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Louisiana and Freedom From Religion Foundation, the court ruled on Nov. 12 that Louisiana’s H.B. 71 violates the First Amendment and longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent set more than 40 years ago in Stone v. Graham, in which the Supreme Court overturned a similar law in Kentucky.
“[T]he issue is whether, as a matter of law, there is any constitutional way to display the Ten Commandments in accordance with the minimum requirements of the Act. In short, the Court finds that there is not,” wrote Judge John W. deGravelles. “First, Stone remains good law and is directly on point, and this Court is bound to follow it. Second, even putting Stone aside…, Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that H.B. 71 fails to comply with the Establishment Clause analysis laid out in Kennedy and Fifth Circuit precedent.”
deGravelles added, “Considering the totality of the circumstances, the Court finds that the Act and its requirements are coercive and inconsistent with the history of [the] First Amendment and public education.”
The Rev. Darcy Roake, a parent, Unitarian Universalist minister and plaintiff in the case along with her husband, Adrian Van Young, voiced relief at the court’s order: “H.B. 71 is a direct infringement of our religious-freedom rights, and we’re pleased and relieved that the court ruled in our favor. As an interfaith family, we expect our children to receive their secular education in public school and their religious education at home and within our faith communities, not from government officials.”
Roake and Van Young are part of the multifaith group of nine Louisiana families with children in public schools who are plaintiffs in the case. In addition to Unitarian Universalism, faith backgrounds represented by the 30 plaintiffs include Presbyterian (USA), Judaism, and several who are nonreligious or atheist.
“This ruling will ensure that Louisiana families — not politicians or public school officials — get to decide if, when and how their children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. “It should send a strong message to Christian Nationalists across the country that they cannot impose their beliefs on our nation’s public school children. Not on our watch.”
deGravelles’ ruling stated the law “is facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional in all applications” and prohibited the state from “(1) enforcing H.B. 71; (2) adopting rules or regulations for the enforcement of H.B. 71; and (3) requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public-school classroom in Louisiana in accordance with H.B. 71.” The court further ordered the state to provide “notice of this order and H.B. 71’s unconstitutionality to all Louisiana public elementary, secondary, and charter schools, and all public post-secondary education institutions.”
The defendants immediately appealed the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Nov. 20, the appeals court refused to immediately stay, or block, deGravelles’ order and left it fully in place while the appeal proceeds.
“We’re pleased that the Court of Appeals left the district court’s injunction fully intact,” the legal coalition behind the lawsuit said in a brief statement. “As the district court ruled, this law is unconstitutional on its face.”
Victory over Missouri abortion ban
Later, on Nov. 20, AU and the National Women’s Law Center declared victory and filed to dismiss the case challenging Missouri’s total abortion ban as a violation of church-state separation. An appeal in the case had been pending before the Missouri Supreme Court, but the abortion ban was invalidated on Election Day when voters passed Amendment 3 to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
The case originally had been filed in January 2023 on behalf of 13 Missouri clergy whose various faiths call them to support abortion access. The case pointed to lawmakers repeatedly citing their personal religious beliefs about abortion, and even writing those beliefs into the law itself, when they passed a “trigger ban” that prohibited all abortions and went into effect following the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
“Americans United is proud to have represented these faith leaders and to be part of the broader effort to restore abortion access in Missouri,” said AU’s Laser. “Even as we celebrate this victory for the people of Missouri, abortion rights and church-state separation, we know the fight for equity and bodily autonomy is not over. We are committed to ensuring that everyone has the freedom to make their own decisions about their own bodies based on their own beliefs.”
“Challenging Missouri’s abortion ban was an expression of my faith, which calls us to defend the dignity and autonomy of all people,” said lead plaintiff the Rev. Traci Blackmon, an ordained United Church of Christ minister who has joined AU’s Board of Trustees. “We aren’t truly free unless we can control our own bodies, lives, and futures.”
Court blocks religious public school in Oklahoma
The wins in Louisiana and Missouri followed a year of victories in legal battles AU fought across the country.
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court barred St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School from operating as the nation’s first religious public charter school. The decision came in a case brought by the state’s Republican attorney general. AU and allies also challenged the state’s creation and funding of the school in a separate lawsuit brought on behalf of Oklahoma faith leaders, public school parents and public education advocates. AU and allies additionally filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case brought by the attorney general.
Following the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision, a court-approved agreement was reached to put a hold on AU’s case until at least Feb. 1, 2025, while developments in the other case are pending. St. Isidore agreed not to accept charter-school funding from the state or open to students as a charter school during the 2024-25 school year as part of that agreement.
In October, St. Isidore and the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board filed petitions asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue. The high court is not expected to decide whether to hear the case until sometime in early 2025.
Other legal victories in Colorado, Illinois and Tennessee
- In June, AU and the ACLU secured a victory for Mark Janny, an atheist from Colorado whose parole officer sent him back to jail for refusing to take part in Christian worship services and other religious activities. The settlement agreement in Janny’s case awarded him $100,000 in monetary damages.
- Early in the year, a settlement also was reached in the case of an AU client who was fired for trying to combat extensive racism at his place of employment, which was a private religious entity.
- In March, AU applauded a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that allowed former Moody Bible Institute communications instructor Janay Garrick to proceed with her federal Title VII lawsuit alleging sex discrimination against the Chicago-based college.
- In May, AU celebrated the Tennessee Supreme Court allowing to proceed the case of Liz and Gabe Rutan-Ram, a Knox County couple challenging Tennessee’s funding of a foster care agency that denied them services because they are Jewish. The state supreme court refused to grant the state’s request to review an intermediate appellate court’s ruling that allowed the Rutan-Rams’ case to move forward.
“Our legal team is working day in and day out to secure legal victories and shore up church-state separation with our allies now — and we will keep up that fight every single day in the future,” AU’s Laser said in an email to supporters, following the win in the Louisiana Ten Commandments case.
“AU is unique because we have top church-state separation experts in litigation, public policy, communications, and outreach,” Laser added. “With your support and the support of tens of thousands of people just like you, Americans United will doggedly and strategically continue to uphold church-state separation and defend public education. Most importantly, we’ll continue to win.”