lawsuit
Courtesy of Seattle Pacific University.
A group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni from Seattle Pacific University filed a lawsuit against the university’s board of trustees after over a year of protesting policies that do not allow full-time staff and faculty in same-sex relationships to be hired.
Abortion rights activists protest outside the venue of a summit by the conservative group 'Moms For Liberty' in Tampa, Florida, July 16, 2022. REUTERS/Octavio Jones
Clergy members of five religions sued the state of Florida on Monday over a new law criminalizing most abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy, saying the ban violates their religious freedom rights.
Blake Fox, 19, of Washington, listens to a live broadcast of the Supreme Court arguments in Carson v. Makin, a challenge to a Maine tuition assistance program that bars taxpayer money from being used to pay for religious instruction, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8, 2021. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Conservative Supreme Court justices on Wednesday appeared ready to further expand public funding of religiously based entities, indicating sympathy toward a challenge by two Christian families to a Maine tuition assistance program that excludes private schools that promote religious beliefs.
People gather during a stop on the Freedom Ride For Voting Rights at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. June 21, 2021. REUTERS/Dustin Chambers
Rev. Carl McCrae, bishop and founding pastor of Exousia Lighthouse International Christian Ministries in Lithonia, Georgia, remembers that his grandfather was one of the first people to vote in Georgia’s Montgomery County. Government officials attempted to prevent his grandfather from voting — until a white man vouched for him. Now, McCrae sees his ministry as continuing his grandfather’s fight for Black and brown Americans’ voting rights.
“I don't see a discontinuation between what I do in the pulpit on Sundays and what I do every day of the week,” McCrae told Sojourners. “That is to advocate for people of color and marginalized people as the systems that are rigged against them seek to destroy them.”
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announces the filing of a multistate lawsuit to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients at a press conference at John Jay College in New York City, U.S., September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Joe Penney
Opponents fear the decision could result in a severe undercount that can lead to increased marginalization of immigrants by potentially reducing their representation in Congress and federal funding for local jurisdictions, which is determined by population.
FILE PHOTO: Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks before the National Sheriffs Association Winter Conference in Washington, Feb. 12, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo
The U.S. Justice Department will file a lawsuit against the state of California alleging it is interfering with the enforcement of federal immigration laws, escalating a long-simmering battle over "sanctuary" policies that try to protect undocumented immigrants against deportation, senior department officials said Tuesday.
Mourners hold signs during a solidarity vigil in memory of victims of Las Vegas' Route 91 Harvest music festival mass killing, in Newtown, Connecticut U.S., the site of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin/File Photo
The families claim Remington and the other defendants "extolled the militaristic and assaultive qualities" of the AR-15, advertising the rifle as "mission-adaptable" and "the ultimate combat weapons system" in a deliberate pitch to a demographic of young men fascinated by the military.
The skyline of Seattle, Wash., is seen in a picture taken March 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Redmond/File Photo
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray told reporters the Constitution forbade the federal government from pressuring cities, “yet that is exactly what the president’s order does. Once again, this new administration has decided to bully.”
Image via RNS/Reuters/Kate Munsch
Despite President Trump’s threat of a “Muslim ban” during the 2016 campaign, Hadil Mansoor Al-Mowafak, a 20-year-old international affairs student at Stanford University, was taken aback when he banned travel from seven Muslim countries, including Yemen, where her husband lives.
“I didn’t think it was even possible,” Al-Mowafak said. “I thought he just used the Muslim ban during his campaign, and once he took power he’d face reality.”
Image via Peg Hunter/flickr.com
On Nov. 29 the Morton County Sheriff’s Department announced that it will not allow any more supplies, or potential demonstrators, to reach the campsite where the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters are gathered, reports Reuters. Maxine Herr, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department, said that retailers have been delivering goods to the protesters, and that from now onward law enforcement “will turn around any of those services.”
Trump's campaign sues over polling location that allegedly stayed open late for voters.
Mark Driscoll with family. Image via Mars Hill Church / RNS
Former Mars Hill Church elder Sutton Turner has filed a motion to dismiss the civil racketeering lawsuit brought against him and former pastor Mark Driscoll by four former members of the now-defunct Seattle church.
That’s because, Turner said, he never was served with the lawsuit, which the state of Washington reportedly requires within 90 days.
Texas state capitol. Image via f11photo / Shutterstock.com
Eleven states have sued in response to the Obama administration’s May 13 directive to provide transgender students with bathrooms matching their gender identity, reports The Washington Post.
The lawsuit was filed May 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Mark Driscoll. Image via Will Foster/flickr.com
A lawsuit against past leaders of the now-defunct Mars Hill Church was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle on Feb. 29. The lawsuit alleges that Mark Driscoll and Sutton Turner solicited charitable contributions that were then misused for other, unauthorized purposes. The lawsuit, filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, is being brought by Brian and Connie Jacobsen and Ryan and Arica Kildea.
Image via Kei Shooting/Shutterstock.com
In an about-face that has surprised many of his allies, a prominent gay rights campaigner has criticized a court’s decision in Northern Ireland to charge a bakery with discrimination for refusing to ice a cake with a slogan in support of same-sex marriage. Peter Tatchell of Great Britain, a leading voice on LGBT issues, came to the defense of the Ashers Bakery in Belfast with a column published on Feb. 1 in the Guardian.
Image via Sally Morrow/RNS
A California atheist who once argued against the Pledge of Allegiance before the Supreme Court has launched a federal legal challenge to the phrase “In God We Trust” on American currency. Michael Newdow , 62, a Sacramento-based emergency-room doctor, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to strip reference to God from paper money and coins in an Ohio court earlier this month. Newdow claims the motto is a violation of his religious freedom.
The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops was sued by a tenant of their Waumini Building in Nairobi. Via RNS.
The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops is facing a lawsuit over the cancellation of a rental contract for a restaurant operated by a Somali Muslim.
Al-Yusra Restaurant Ltd. had signed a six-year lease starting in 2013 to operate a restaurant in a section of Waumini House where the bishops’ conference is based. Baakai Maalim, a Somali Muslim, is a director for the company.
Former NYPD Police Chief Ray Kelly. RNS photo courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Muslim and civil rights groups welcomed the news that the New York City Police Department’s Demographics Unit will disband but said they still fear they may be targets of warrantless surveillance.
Muslim Advocates filed a lawsuit in 2012 to stop the program, and the group was later joined by the Center for Constitutional Rights.
“We need to hear from the mayor and NYPD officials that the policy itself has been ended and that the department will no longer apply mass surveillance or other forms of biased and predatory policing to any faith-based community,” said Ryan Mahoney, president of another Muslim civil rights group, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Mark Zmuda was fired two month ago from his job as a teacher at Eastside Catholic School. Photo by Catherine O’Donnell
Forced out of his Catholic school job for marrying his same-sex partner, a gay teacher in suburban Seattle has filed a wrongful-dismissal suit against his former school.
Mark Zmuda claims that as vice principal of Eastside Catholic School, his duties were “purely administrative and unrelated to any religious practice or activity.” He filed suit in King County Superior Court against and the school and the Archdiocese of Seattle. The suit follows at least eight similar suits filed across the country.
In December, the school fired Zmuda, saying he violated terms of his contract, which require adherence to Catholic Church teachings. The church forbids same-sex marriage, and court rulings have upheld religious institutions’ rights to hire and fire according to the tenets of their faith.
Photo illustration of planned monument for Lake Elsinore, Calif. Courtesy: The American Humanist Association, public record.
A California federal judge has rejected a proposed religious memorial at a publicly owned baseball stadium as a violation of both federal and state laws.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson of California’s Central District ruled that a granite monument depicting a soldier kneeling in prayer before a cross lacked “a secular purpose” and has “the unconstitutional effect” of endorsing religion over nonreligion.
The decision came nine months after a lawsuit was filed by the American Humanist Association, a national organization of nonbelievers. The memorial was planned for city property in Lake Elsinore, Calif., a community of about 53,000 people in Southern California’s Riverside County.