Religious Institutions Update: December 2019

Key Cases

School States Claim Against State Superintendent for Unconstitutional Discrimination

In Bethel Ministries, Inc. v. Salmon, No. SAG-19-01853, 2019 WL 6034988 (D. Md. Nov. 14, 2019), the court denied Maryland State Superintendent Dr. Karen B. Salmon's motion to dismiss the plaintiff's complaint for violation of the free exercise, due process and establishment clauses by virtue of excluding it from the Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students (BOOST) program, which provides scholarships for lower-income students to attend certain nonpublic schools in Maryland. Participating schools must not discriminate in student admissions on the basis of race, color, national origin or sexual orientation, provided the nondiscrimination requirement states that schools are not required "to adopt any rule, regulation or policy that conflicts with its religious or moral teachings." Bethel Ministries is a Pentecostal Christian Church that operates Bethel Christian Academy, a preschool through grade eight school. Bethel describes itself as "unabashedly Christian" and states that it supports the biblical view of marriage defined as a covenant between one man and one woman, but Bethel does not consider sexual orientation in the admissions process. Following an unusual closed session, the advisory board voted to exclude Bethel from the BOOST program anyway, while it voted to approve two other Christian schools that shared Bethel's beliefs and policies on marriage and sexual conduct. The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) sent a letter demanding repayment of $102,600 for the years that Bethel had participated in the program, whereupon Bethel sued Superintendent Salmon under 42 U.S.C. §1983. The court determined that the plaintiff plausibly pleaded that the advisory board, in determining that Bethel violated the nondiscrimination provision, unjustly conflated the school's religious beliefs with discriminatory behavior. According to the court, when the government imposes a financial burden on entities because of the content of their speech, such an action may infringe the First Amendment.

Parent Fails to State Claim Against Regulation of California Boarding School

In Teen Rescue v. Becerra, No. 2:19-cv-00457, 2019 WL 4511622 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 18, 2019), the court ruled that a class representative of the parents and guardians of the students attending River View Christian Academy lacks standing to challenge application of the California Community Care Facilities Act (CCFA) to the school. Earlier, the court dismissed Teen Rescue, a California religious corporation that operates the Christian boarding school under the Younger abstention doctrine. The school was exempt from licensure as a community care facility until 2016, when the legislature changed the definition of private alternative boarding school to mean "a group home licensed by the [D]epartment [of...