ACRU Supports Free Exercise Rights in Supreme Court
In Groff v. DeJoy, the United States Supreme Court corrected a misreading of Title VII’s religious protections that had limited the rights of religious workers for years. In 1977, the Court considered the provisions of Title VII that require employers to accommodate the religious practices of their employees unless doing so would impose an “undue hardship on the employer’s business.” It said that undue hardship meant any effort or cost that was “more than ... de minimis.”
Eleventh Circuit Upholds Nearly All of Florida’s 2021 Election Integrity Laws
In an April 27, 2023, decision, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed almost all of a district court ruling that declared Florida election laws regulating ballot drop boxes, the solicitation of voters at the polls, and the delivery of voter registration forms by third-party voter-registration organizations to be unconstitutional and unlawful. The court rejected the district court’s conclusion that the provisions were motivated by intentional discrimination on the basis of race. It explained, “From the start, the district court erred.” In particular, it criticized the district court for conflating race and political considerations. The court pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, where the Supreme Court said, “[P]artisan motives are not the same as racial motives.”
ACRU Supports Religious Objections to Military Vaccine Mandate
The American Constitutional Rights Union, joined by the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in support of Navy Seal 1 and other religious objectors to the military’s demand that they receive the COVID-19 vaccines.
ACRU Supports Race-Neutral Florida Voting Laws
The American Constitutional Rights Union, joined by the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in support of Florida as it defended race-neutral laws regulating drop boxes for vote-by-mail ballots, the return of voter registration forms, and activity at or near a polling place.
U.S. Supreme Court Protects Free Exercise and Free Speech: Rights of Football Coach Who Sought to Pray Privately
In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the School District violated Coach Joseph Kennedy’s constitutional rights when it disciplined him for praying silently at midfield following football games. It concluded that both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protected Kennedy’s conduct. The Court further rejected the School District’s assertion that it feared an Establishment Clause violation if it allowed Kennedy to continue with his private prayers.
Press Release: ACRU Fights Relentless Attack on Personal Freedom of Religious Expression
The American Constitutional Rights Union filed an amicus brief in support of Coach Joe Kennedy, who lost his teaching job because he knelt and said a quiet prayer by himself after a football game ended. The Ninth Circuit noted that, because Coach Kennedy taught and coached football at a public high school, his prayer was government speech that has no First Amendment protection and that, even if his prayer was private, the City would violate the Establishment Clause if it allowed the prayer to continue.
