In a 6-3 decision with the justices split along familiar ideological lines, the United States Supreme Court held on Friday, June 27, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. ___ (2025) (Case No. 24-297)...more
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday, June 27, that a Maryland school district’s decision to mandate instruction using LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks, without offering notice or opt-outs to parents, violated the First...more
A single exception can now unravel your entire workplace safety policy. The Third Circuit's decision on May 30, 2025, in Smith v. Atlantic City, underscores how even minor exceptions to grooming or masking rules can expose...more
If you have a grooming policy based on safety factors (like no beards for firefighters), does that trump an employee’s request for a religious accommodation? Maybe not. A recent Third Circuit decision, Smith v. City of...more
Vaccine Exemption Policy Requiring Citation to Official Doctrine Violates First Amendment Madison Houghton and Nathan A. Adams IV In Does 1-11 v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Colorado, 100 F. 4th 1251 (10th Cir. 2024), former...more
The teacher had a religious objection. The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday found in favor of a West Point public school teacher whose employment was terminated because he would not address a transgender student by the...more
In Ratliff v. Wycliffe Assoc., Inc., No. 6:22-cv-1185-PGB-RMN, 2023 WL 3688082 (M.D. Fla. May 26, 2023), the plaintiff, a software developer, sued the defendant, a Bible translation ministry, for sex discrimination under...more
If you take on a federal contract, does that make you a state actor? No, according to a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel in Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company. During World War II, the Army included Smucker’s apple butter in its...more
As the school year begins, a heightened focus has been placed on schools both nationally and at the local level. Schools are becoming the battlefield where some of the most high-profile cultural clashes occur, which means...more
The widely reported Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, No. 21-418 (S. Ct. June 27, 2022) warrants all the attention it has been getting. The Court’s penalty flag against the local Washington school...more
On April 12, 2016, a district court in Nebraska rejected the religious accommodation claims advanced by a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.1 In denying the religious accommodation claims, the court was...more
In what continues to be a controversial and developing area of employment law, a federal appellate court recently validated the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “opt out” provision, finding that requiring nonprofit employers to...more