Amicus Briefs

EPPC scholars regularly file amicus briefs in key cases to promote a true and full account of human nature and human flourishing in American constitutional law. Compiled below are some of our amicus briefs in cases addressing the right to life, marriage, gender ideology, religious freedom, free speech, and the rule of law. 

EPPC brief efforts are led by EPPC scholars and attorneys Edward Whelan, Rachel N. Morrison, Eric Kniffin, Mary Hasson, Carter Snead, and Erika Bachiochi. Scholars coordinate with EPPC’s Administrative State Accountability Project, Bioethics and American Democracy, The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture, Life and Family Initiative, Person and Identity Project, and Technology and Human Flourishing Project. 

Abortion

Cedar Park Assemblies of God v. Kreidler

This case challenges Washington State’s abortion mandate, which forces employers—including churches—to secure health plans that provide employees with access to elective abortions. The Ninth Circuit dismissed Cedar Park Assemblies of God’s lawsuit because it found that Washington “enables insurance carriers to accommodate an employer’s religious objections,” even while it recognized that Cedar Park believes the law still requires it to violate its religious convictions against facilitating abortions. Eric Kniffin filed a brief asking the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case en banc because the panel decision conflicts with the Supreme Court’s holding in Hobby Lobby that courts must defer to the sincere testimony of religious parties as to what their convictions demand of them.  

United States v. Idaho

This case involves a claim by the federal government that Idaho’s pro-life abortion law violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). During Supreme Court oral argument, the government made two concessions: (1) EMTALA could never require abortion in a mental health emergency and (2) EMTALA does not override federal conscience protections. The Supreme Court dismissed the case, without an opinion on the merits, back to the Ninth Circuit. EPPC filed an amicus brief, drafted by Butterfield & Patterson PLLC in partnership with Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin, in the en banc Ninth Circuit, arguing that the government’s two concessions ring hollow and undercut the government’s own argument  that EMTALA requires particular procedures, such as abortion.

Tennessee v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

This case involves a challenge by a collation of 17 states to the EEOC’s Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) Rule. The PWFA provides women workplace accommodation protections for  “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” But according to the EEOC, the PWFA imposes an abortion-accommodation mandate, requiring the States to facilitate their employees’ abortions. Even though the PWFA Rule directly regulates the States, the district court held that the States did not have standing to challenge the PWFA rule in court. EPPC’s brief, filed by Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin, urges the Eighth Circuit to reverse the district court and hold that the States have standing to challenge the PWFA Rule and other agency actions that directly regulate them and unlawfully infringe on their sovereign interest in protecting fetal life.  

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food & Drug Administration

This case involved a challenge by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine against the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill. At five different stages of the litigation, Ed Whelan filed amicus briefs on behalf of EPPC explaining that the so-called Comstock Act provisions, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461 and 1462, prohibit sending abortion drugs by U.S. mail or by common carrier and that rebuts the contrived opinion by DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel on which the FDA relies. At the Supreme Court merits stage, Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin filed a brief on behalf of Democrats for Life of America, arguing that the FDA’s actions on mifepristone are part of the Biden administration’s and HHS’s pattern and practice to protect and expand access to abortion drugs in violation of federal and state law.

Center for Medical Progress v. National Abortion Federation

This case challenges a lower-court injunction blocking the Center for Medical Progress from releasing video and audio recordings it made while investigating the sale of fetal tissue procured from abortions. The court found that CMP had waived its First Amendment rights when it signed standard forms to attend NAF conferences. EPPC’s brief shows that in non-abortion contexts the Ninth Circuit has said that courts must “indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver of fundamental constitutional rights” and that plaintiffs like the National Abortion Federation must prove that waiver was “freely given” “by clear and compelling evidence.” The brief argues that the Ninth Circuit’s failure to use the same high standard here is another example of post-Dobbs “abortion distortion” and calls on the Supreme Court to hear this case and uphold CMP’s First Amendment rights.

Center for Medical Progress v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America

This case challenges a district court judgment granting Planned Parenthood $2 million in damages and $14 million in attorney’s fees because the Center for Medical Progress (“CMP”) published evidence that Planned Parenthood was involved in illegal and unethical conduct. EPPC’s brief shows that in non-abortion context, the very same court—the Ninth Circuit—has held that the First Amendment protects undercover journalist’s speech unless the plaintiff could prove the speech was false. The brief argues that the Ninth Circuit’s double-standard is an example of an “abortion distortion”: as Justice Scalia noted, courts had given “abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents,” creating “an entirely separate, abridged edition of the First Amendment applicable to speech against abortion.” EPPC’s brief urges the Supreme Court to hear this case and uphold CMP’s First Amendment right to free speech.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

This case successfully overturned Roe v. Wade and clarified that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion. Three Supreme Court amicus briefs were filed by EPPC and its scholars. First, EPPC filed an amicus brief arguing that stare decisis considerations cut overwhelmingly in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Second, Carter Snead filed an amicus brief with his colleague Mary Ann Glendon arguing against the constitutionality of previability abortions by appealing to abortion jurisprudence’s alienation from the text, history, or tradition of the US Constitution, considers stare decisis principles in justifying the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and positively argues for the essential unconstitutionality of elective abortion because of its unwarranted effect on an indisputably human life. Third, Erika Bachiochi partnered with law professors Terra Collett and Helen Alvaré to lead a brief on behalf of 240 women scholars and professionals, including EPPC fellows Mary FioRito and Mary Rice Hasson, and prolife feminist organizations, rejecting the idea that women need access to abortion to participate equally in the economic or social life in the nation. 

Tennessee v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

This case involves a challenge by the state of Tennessee to HHS’s rescission of Tennessee’s Title X funding solely because the state will not counsel and refer for abortions that are illegal under state law. Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief on behalf of EPPC in support of Tennessee, arguing that HHS’s action is part of the Biden administration’s pattern and practice to unilaterally promote its abortion-at-all-costs agenda and preempt state abortion laws in violation of federal law and contrary to the Supreme Court’s direction in Dobbs to return the issue of abortion “to the people and their elected representatives.” After the Sixth Circuit ruled against Tennessee, the state asked the Sixth Circuit to rehear the case en banc. Morrison and Kniffin filed another amicus brief in support of Tennessee, documenting how the Biden-Harris administration is using federal agencies to unlawfully promote abortion and interfere with state abortion laws.

Vitagliano v. County of Westchester, New York

This case challenges a county ordinance that prohibits sidewalk counselors from within eight feet of anyone near an abortion clinic without express consent. The law was passed five days after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision and is materially identical to a state law the Supreme Court upheld in Hill v. Colorado (2000), a decision that liberal scholar Laurence Tribe called “slam-dunk wrong.” Eric Kniffin and EPPC filed an amicus brief highlighting the close cooperation between Planned Parenthood and Westchester County and urging the Court to overturn Hill as one of the most egregious examples of how abortion politics has distorted the Court’s free speech jurisprudence.

Animal Cruelty

National Pork Producers Council v. Ross

This case narrowly weighs the permissibility of constrictive “gestation crates” on industrial pig farms and more broadly considers whether the restriction of such practices through ballot measures like Proposition 12 in California imposes an undue burden on producers. Carter Snead, along with social commentator Mary Eberstadt and Matthew Scully of National Review, filed an amicus brief arguing that a basic respect and decency toward animals is consistent with the deep tradition of Western thought, and this legitimate moral interest can be articulated by legislation like Proposition 12, which thus does not unduly restrict industry practices and the market at large. 

Contraceptive Mandate

Zubik v. Burwell and Priests for Life v. HHS

This case involved a legal challenge by the Little Sisters of the Poor and the other religious nonprofits to the Obama administration’s so-called “accommodation” on its HHS contraceptive mandate. EPPC filed an amicus brief showing specifically that the Obama administration’s rules fail to satisfy the strict-scrutiny test imposed by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. 

Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby

This case involved religious-liberty challenges to the Obama administration’s HHS mandate on contraceptives. EPPC filed a brief addressing, and thoroughly refuting, the Obama administration’s claim that for-profit corporations are inherently incapable of an “exercise of religion” for purposes of the protections afforded by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. 

Free Speech

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina

This case began when an activist attorney tried to force Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop to create a custom cake symbolizing a gender transition. After the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Phillips’ refusal to create the cake violated Colorado’s nondiscrimination law, he appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief that surveys First Amendment precedent to explain why creating a custom cake of this nature constitutes speech and why the government therefore cannot punish Jack Phillips for refusing to use his talents to celebrate a gender transition.

Archdiocese of Washington v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

The case involved a challenge to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) refusal to run the Archdiocese of Washington’s proposed Advent campaign advertisement. EPPC filed an amicus brief in support of the Archdiocese of Washington arguing that WMATA’s refusal violated the First Amendment. 

Center for Medical Progress v. National Abortion Federation

See the entry under Abortion.

Center for Medical Progress v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America

See the entry under Abortion.

Vitagliano v. County of Westchester, New York

See the entry under Abortion.

“Gender Transition” Interventions

Catholic Charities v. Whitmer

This case challenges a Michigan law that makes it illegal for counselors to help children resolve gender-related distress in favor of their sex. The law requires counselors to affirm children in the belief that they were born in the wrong body. Catholic Charities’ counseling ministry brought suit to protect counselors who believe they have an ethical and religious duty not to push children into harmful, life-altering medical procedures. Mary Rice Hasson and Eric Kniffin filed a brief that surveys recent research to show that Michigan’s “Conversion Law” is based on a harmful and unscientific ideology that prohibits effective psychotherapy for minors.  

Chiles v. Salazar

This case involves a legal challenge to a Colorado state law that forbids therapists serving minors to use anything but a “gender affirming” approach and denies effective psychotherapy to minors seeking psychological help to explore alternative pathways. The brief, drafted by Mary Rice Hasson of EPPC’s Person & Identity Project and EPPC President Ryan T. Anderson, argues in support of Colorado petitioners by highlighting concerns within both European and American medical communities about the reliability of activist-driven evidence in “gender affirming” treatment standards. It also considers how the counseling restriction acts as a legal barrier to the expression of alternative viewpoints. The brief was filed on behalf of EPPC by LiMandri & Jonna LLP in partnership with the Thomas More Society.

United States v. Skrmetti

In this case, the United States argues that Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which bars medical interventions to “transition” minors with gender dysphoria, discriminates on the basis of sex in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The United States claims that so-called “gender-affirming care” is essential medical treatment, but the State of Tennessee and Attorney General Skrmetti argue that the predominant medical standards for gender “transitions” are based on ideology, not science, and often harmful to those whom they purport to treat. Eric Kniffin, Mary Rice Hasson, and Theresa Farnan drafted a Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of EPPC in support of Tennessee’s law. Drawing on the research of EPPC’s Person & Identity Project, the brief argues that the differences between the parties are rooted in two contrasting views of what it means to be a human person: the “Traditional Vision” and the “Transgender Vision.” EPPC’s brief explains that the Traditional Vision is firmly grounded in reason, science, and common experience and that Tennessee did not act unlawfully by developing policy based on this anthropology. Erika Bachiochi signed onto a separate Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of over thirty scholars in philosophy, theology, law, politics, history, literature, and the sciences. The scholars’ brief critiques petitioner’s “philosophical anthropology of fragmentation, in which the mental aspects of sex have almost entirely displaced the meaning of the body and organic wholeness of the person.”

Crouch v. Anderson & Folwell v. Kadel

These two cert petitions, Crouch v. Anderson and Folwell v. Kadel, ask the Supreme Court to uphold West Virginia’s and North Carolina’s right to exclude certain “gender transition” procedures from coverage in their state health programs. The en banc Fourth Circuit held that the states’ exclusions violated the Equal Protection Clause and that West Virginia also violated the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) anti-discrimination provision. The circuit court’s opinion relies, in part, on the belief that a medical consensus exists regarding treatment for gender dysphoria—and that this consensus is reflected in World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) guidelines. EPPC’s amicus briefs demonstrate that no medical consensus exists regarding the medical or surgical interventions for gender dysphoria. Compelling evidence exposes the WPATH guidelines as inadequate: they are neither evidence-based nor reliable, reflecting instead a politicized agenda. The briefs further argue that the façade of consensus is not benign. On the contrary, unproven interventions cause irreversible harm to vulnerable patients. For these reasons, EPPC urged the Supreme Court to grant the petitions and reverse the Fourth Circuit below.

Houston County, Georgia v. Lange

On May 13, 2024, the Eleventh Circuit held that Houston County, Georgia’s group health plan, which excludes coverage for “sex change” procedures, facially discriminates against transgender persons in violation of Title VII: “Because transgender persons are the only plan participants who qualify for gender-affirming surgery, the plan denies health care coverage based on transgender status.” EPPC filed an amicus brief in support of Houston County’s petition asking the entire Eleventh Circuit to rehear the case en banc. EPPC’s brief, filed by Eric Kniffin and Mary Hasson, asks the court to grant the County’s petition and issue a new decision that affirms that employers, courts, and other decisionmakers may take into account the best evidence about how to help people with gender dysphoria. As EPPC notes, the Cass Review recently concluded that “gender transition” medicine is supported by “remarkably weak evidence. . . . The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

C.P. ex rel. Pritchard v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois

This case asks a court to hold that the Affordable Care Act requires a Catholic hospital’s third-party administrator to provide “gender transition” coverage for minors in its health plan. The district court agreed with the plaintiffs, but EPPC’s amicus brief, filed by Eric Kniffin and Mary Hasson, argues that the court got it wrong. Drawing on the Person & Identity Project’s research, the brief argues that one of plaintiffs’ central claims—that “gender-affirming care” is “medically necessary” under well-established “standards of care”—is demonstrably false. The brief summarizes current research and documents the growing international consensus that these medical interventions cause more harm than good. The final section of the brief summarizes two recent developments, the WPATH Files and the Cass Review, that reflect the mounting evidence that “gender transitions” are not in children’s best interests.

State of Texas v. Loe

This case involves a challenge to a Texas law that prohibits physicians and other licensed medical professionals from performing gender transition procedures on minors and restricts the use of public money or public assistance to pay for such procedures. Mary Rice Hasson, Eric Kniffin, and Rachel N. Morrison filed an amicus brief in the Texas Supreme Court explaining that performing “gender transitions” on minors reflects “neither a medical consensus nor the standard of care.” The brief presents current research and surveys state, federal, and international actions to demonstrate that there “is not today, nor has there ever been, a national or international medical consensus in favor of permanent medical interventions on children experiencing gender dysphoria.”

Christian Healthcare Centers v. Nessel (Michigan Civil Rights Commission) 

This case involves a First Amendment challenge by Christian Healthcare Centers to prohibit Michigan from punishing the Centers for ensuring that its employees and its patient care reflect its religious anthropology, which prohibit it from cooperating with an employee’s or patient’s “gender transition.”  

The trial court found that the Center did not facing a credible threat of enforcement and therefore lacked standing. On appeal, Eric Kniffin and Mary Rice Hasson filed an amicus brief on behalf of EPPC arguing that the Center has standing.  Drawing on research by EPPC’s Person & Identity Project, the brief shows that is reasonable for a healthcare institution to decline to participate in social or medical “gender transitions.” The brief also shows that other courts in nearly identical circumstances have found that religious organizations have standing and argues that the lower court’s standing analysis would make it far too easy for government to violate people’s fundamental rights.  

Damiano v. Grants Pass School District No. 7

This case was brought by two Oregon educators who were suspended and then terminated by their school district after they started a grassroots movement, “I Resolve,” to speak out on the district’s policy of socially transitioning kids without parents’ notice or consent. Eric Kniffin and Mary Rice Hasson filed an amicus brief on behalf of EPPC urging the court to reverse the decision below, which granted summary judgment in the district’s favor. Drawing on the Person & Identity Project’s research, the brief argues that the plaintiffs’ advocacy reflects the best social science on how to care for youth identifying as transgender; it is not, as the lower court claimed, “anti-Trans.” The brief also argues that the district’s policy violates parents’ constitutional rights and offers testimony from parents whose public schools had clandestinely pushed their children to socially transition.

Mahmoud v. Montgomery County (MD) Board of Education [Mahmoud v. McKnight]

This case was brought by parents of children enrolled in Montgomery County Public Schools (MD) after the School Board denied parents’ request to opt their children out of the Board’s new sexuality and gender curriculum. Eric Kniffin and Mary Rice Hasson filed amicus briefs to the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court arguing that the school district’s refusal to grant parents’ request for an opt-out violated the parents’ free exercise rights. EPPC’s amicus brief argues that the district court improperly downplayed the conflict between the curriculum and their religious exercise. It shows that the curriculum does more than teach “diversity” and “inclusion”: it teaches elementary school kids that boys can become girls and to say otherwise is “hurtful,” and the Board likened objecting religious parents to white supremacists and xenophobes. The brief demonstrates that the curriculum promotes gender ideology and, drawing upon EPPC’s Person & Identity Project, shows that gender ideology is fundamentally incompatible with Christian anthropology and Catholic teaching.  

Littlejohn v. School Board of Leon County, Florida

This case was brought by Florida parents after school district officials secretly met with their middle school daughter to develop a “gender support plan” that let her choose what name, pronouns, and restrooms she would use, and with what sex she would be housed on overnight trips. Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief arguing that the school’s actions violated the parents’ constitutional rights and telling the story of nine members of Our Duty, a nonprofit that helps parents protect their children from the dangers of gender ideology. The parents’ stories “show that school officials can get diagnoses terribly wrong, ignoring critical mental health issues in favor of a trendy diagnosis that . . . could permanently sterilize and disfigure minor children.”

Tingley v. Ferguson

This case involves a legal challenge to a Washington state law that effectively mandates that therapists serving minors use a “gender-affirmation-only” approach and that denies effective psychotherapy to minors seeking psychological help to explore alternative pathways, including the possibility of desisting from a transgender identity. Mary Rice Hasson of EPPC’s Person & Identity Project and EPPC President Ryan T. Anderson drafted an amicus brief urging the court to consider the serious ethical concerns surrounding the law. The brief was filed on behalf of EPPC by LiMandri & Jonna LLP in partnership with the Thomas More Society.

Dekker v. Weida

This case involves a legal challenge to Florida’s rule prohibiting state Medicaid dollars from funding “gender transition interventions,” including harmful and irreversible cross-sex hormones and surgeries for children. Eric Kniffin and Mary Rice Hasson filed an amicus brief on behalf of EPPC that draws upon the work of the Person & Identity Project to explain that there is no medical consensus regarding an authoritative standard of care for gender dysphoria or transitioning treatments and that such treatments can lead to serious harms, especially for children. Eric Kniffin also submitted another amicus brief on behalf of three “detransitioners” Walt Heyer, Ted Halley, and Billy Burleigh—biological males who suffered deep confusion and distress regarding his gender identity from an early age—sharing how each went through the medical “gender transition” process but found that transitioning did not make them happy or solve their confusion and depression. A third amicus brief was filed on behalf of former civil rights officials, including Rachel N. Morrison, and drew heavily from EPPC’s public comment submitted in opposition to HHS’s proposed Section 1557 rule, explaining that Section 1557 does not require Medicaid funding for gender transition intervention and any holding to the contrary would radically remake American healthcare and harm children.  

American College of Pediatricians v. Becerra

This case involves a legal challenge to an HHS “gender identity mandate,” which under the guise of nondiscrimination, requires healthcare professionals’ performance, insurance coverage, and promotion of “gender-transition interventions” (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries), including for children. Rachel N. Morrison, Mary Rice Hasson, and Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief explaining that there is no medical consensus regarding an authoritative standard of care for the treatment of gender dysphoria or for the proper evaluation of the risks and benefits of medically assisted “gender transitions,” and that gender-transition interventions can lead to significant and irreversible harms, especially for minors. 

Eknes-Tucker v. Alabama

This case involves a legal challenge to an Alabama law that protects children from harmful and irreversible “gender transition” treatments (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries). Rachel N. Morrison and Mary Rice Hasson filed an amicus brief explaining there is no medical consensus regarding an authoritative standard of care for gender dysphoria or transitioning treatments and that such treatments can lead to serious harms, especially for children. 

Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra

This case involves a legal challenge to HHS’s “transgender mandate,” which under the guise of nondiscrimination, requires healthcare professionals to perform and provide insurance coverage for “gender-transition interventions” (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries), including for children. Rachel N. Morrison and Mary Rice Hasson filed an amicus brief explaining there is no medical consensus regarding an authoritative standard of care for gender dysphoria, gender transition interventions are harmful, especially for children, and no healthcare organization or professional should be forced to provide harmful gender transition interventions in violation of their medical judgments and religious beliefs. 

Doe v. Madison Metropolitan School District

This case involves a legal challenge to the Madison School District’s transgender policy of keeping secret from parents that their children are “transitioning” at school if parents might not provide a “safe” or “supportive” environment, as determined by school personnel and the child. EPPC joined the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Concerned Women for America, the National Legal Foundation, the Pacific Justice Institute, and several state-level policy organizations, to file an amicus brief arguing that the policy violates the fundamental right so parents to care for and educate their children by depriving them of relevant information and also violates the procedural due process rights of parents by assuming that “unsupportive” parents are negligent or abusive. 

Marriage

Hollingsworth v. Perry and Perry v. Schwarzenegger

This case involved a legal challenge to California’s Proposition 8, which added a new section to the state constitution that stated, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” EPPC President Ed Whelan submitted two amicus briefs on behalf of EPPC. Both documented the egregious course of misconduct by the district judge below to inform the court to the fact that it should be especially wary of accepting at face value any assertion made by that judge, and the second explained that, if the court is not inclined to reverse the judgment below outright (the disposition we believe to be correct), it should exercise its supervisory power to vacate the judgments below in their entirety. 

Pro-Family

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton

This case involves a challenge to a Texas law that requires commercial porn sites to verify that potential users are over 18. The plaintiffs argue that the law violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause, relying on a 2004 Supreme Court case that held that age-verification requirements are unconstitutional because internet content filters, installed and maintained by parents, adequately protect minors from porn. Eric Kniffin and Rachel N. Morrison filed a Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of Clare Morell and Brad Littlejohn in support of Texas. Drawing on Morell’s and Littlejohn’s advocacy for age-verification laws, the brief summarizes the current landscape of online pornography and content filtering and show why filters alone are not enough to protect children from internet pornography and its harms. The brief explains why parents need the sort of help that Texas’ age-verification law would provide.

Religious Freedom

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond 

This case challenges the State of Oklahoma’s efforts to block St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School from serving rural and underserved Oklahoma children as an Oklahoma charter school. Oklahoma has sought to exclude St. Isidore only because it is religious. St. Isidore argues that the Establishment Clause does not require and the Free Exercise Clause forbids excluding otherwise-qualified charter schools because they are religious.  Eric Kniffin filed a brief on behalf of education scholar Charles Glenn showing that in the nineteenth century, federal and state programs frequently funded schools that taught religious instruction, including explicitly religious schools. The brief argues that this history shows the lower court’s First Amendment analysis was wrong.  

Union Gospel Mission v. Ferguson

This case involves whether religious organizations like Union Gospel Mission have a right to faith-based hiring in Washington State. Washington’s non-discrimination law has a broad exemption for religious employers. But a few years ago the Washington Supreme Court narrowed that exemption such that the State now treats a religious organization like a secular employer except for when it is hiring its top leaders or those entrusted with teaching the faith. EPPC’s brief explains that the Washington Supreme Court’s radical narrowing of the WLAD’s religious employer puts Washington State out of step with American history, other states’ laws, and the First Amendment’s church autonomy doctrine.  

World Vision v. McMahon

This case involves whether religious organizations, like World Vision, have the right to ask their employees to comply with their core religious teachings. A job applicant sued World Vision after it rescinded a job offer after discovering that the applicant falsely represented that she agreed with World Vision’s beliefs and would live in accordance with those standards, including its beliefs and standards reflecting its traditional Christian understanding of marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman. EPPC’s amicus brief, drafted by Boyden Gray PLLC, in partnership with Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin, provided additional context about the history and scope of the First Amendment’s church autonomy protections in the employment context and argued that “[t]he constitutional guarantee that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’ protects the freedom of religious organizations to follow their faiths, including with respect to the people who will ‘personify’ those beliefs, free from federal courts’ second-guessing.”

Barnett v. Inova Health Care Services

This case involves whether Inova Health Care Services lawfully denied Kristen Barnett, a devout Christian, a religious accommodation to Inova’s COVID-19 vaccination policy. The district court ruled against Ms. Barnett’s Title VII claims, going beyond Title VII’s text to consider concerns about creating a “blanket privilege.” Rachel N. Morrison filed an amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit on behalf of herself and former EEOC General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson as experts in religion-related employment discrimination. The brief explained Title VII’s religious discrimination and accommodation standards and how the district court departed from those legal standards, urging the Fourth Circuit to reverse the district court’s error.

Apache Stronghold v. United States

This case began after Congress gave a private corporation the right to mine the area under Oak Flat, a sacred site for the Western Apache. The parties agree that the mining operation will turn Oak Flat into a two-mile-wide, 1,100-foot-deep crater. Apache Stronghold brought suit claiming that the government’s actions violate its rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). But the Ninth Circuit dismissed the lawsuit because it found that destroying Oak Flat, which Western Apache have used for religious ceremonies for over 2000 years, would not substantially burden the plaintiffs’ religious exercise. Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief on behalf of twenty-one Mennonite bodies, urging the entire Ninth Circuit to rehear the case to right this wrong. The brief argued that the court should not have allowed its concerns about speculative harms to infect its substantial burden analysis under RFRA and that the powerful facts of this case undermine any concern that finding for the Apache here would make it too hard for the government to manage federal land in the future. After the Ninth Circuit refused to rehear the case, Eric Kniffin and Rachel Morrison partnered with Ian Speir of Covenant Law PLLC to file a brief on behalf of EPPC and Religious Freedom Institute, urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. The brief explained RFRA’s five threshold limiting principles and how the Ninth Circuit misconceived RFRA’s substantial burden analysis.

Garrick v. Moody Bible Institute

This case involves whether religious organizations, such as Moody Bible Institute, can immediately appeal church autonomy determinations before a final decision on the merits. A Seventh Circuit panel held that they could not. An amicus brief was filed in support of rehearing en banc on behalf of Rachel N. Morrison as a former attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and an expert in religious nondiscrimination and former EEOC General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson. The brief explained how the Seventh Circuit panel’s decision will encourage greater EEOC involvement in religious employment disputes at the expense of constitutional protections, which in turn will impose heavy burdens on religious organizations and inevitably lead to greater governmental entanglement with religion. 

Faith Bible Chapel International v. Tucker

This case involves procedural questions regarding protections for religious organizations under the First Amendment’s “ministerial exception.” Two Supreme Court amicus briefs were filed, one by EPPC and one on behalf of Rachel N. Morrison as a former attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and an expert in religious nondiscrimination and former EEOC General Counsel Sharon Fast Gustafson. EPPC’s brief urged the court to clarify further the protections afforded by the ministerial exception and to give practical guidance on how those protections affect the procedure for applying the doctrine. Rachel Morrison’s brief explained how the Tenth Circuit’s holding invites EEOC intrusion into religious matters and threatens to erode the First Amendment protections of religious organizations. 

Groff v. DeJoy

This case involves the proper legal standard for when employees should receive religious accommodations in the workplace. Rachel N. Morrison filed two Supreme Court amicus briefs on behalf of herself as a former EEOC employee and an expert on religious accommodations and former General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Sharon Fast Gustafson, arguing that Title VII provides vital religious accommodation protections and requires a higher standard than the more than a de minimis cost standard for denying religious accommodation requests.  

Dr. A. v. Hochul 

This case involves a legal challenge by medical professionals to the lack of religious exemptions in New York’s vaccine mandate for health care workers. Rachel N. Morrison filed three amicus briefs on behalf of herself as a former EEOC employee and an expert on religious accommodations and former General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Sharon Fast Gustafson, explaining Title VII’s religious accommodation standard and why New York’s mandate conflicts with Title VII. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel

This case involves whether teachers at two catholic schools qualify as “ministers” under the First Amendment’s “ministerial exception.” EPPC filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to adopt procedural protections in support of the ministerial exception. 

Rule of Law

Chestek v. Vidal

This case involved whether the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is generally subject to “notice-and-comment” requirements during rulemaking. Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin partnered with the Cato Institute to submit a Supreme Court amicus brief, urging the Court to hear the case and emphasizing the importance of the notice-and-comment process by affording interested persons a fair process and a voice, and by improving the content of rules.

June 14, 2024: Federal Circuit Cert Petition Amicus Brief (press release)

The School of the Ozarks, Inc. v. Biden

This case involved whether the College of the Ozarks can sue the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over a Directive ordering HUD to enforce sex discrimination in housing to include discrimination because of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Rachel N. Morrison and Eric Kniffin partnered with the Cato Institute to lead a Supreme Court amicus brief, which was joined by the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, Inc., Reason Foundation, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Manhattan Institute. The brief explained the importance of the procedural requirements of notice-and-comment rulemaking and of protecting the public’s right to participate in the agency rulemaking process and preserving the opportunity to help shape public policy. 

Wisconsin v. Peterson 

This case involves a secretive investigation targeting Governor Scott Walker and his allies. EPPC filed a brief explaining how the reported basis of the secret motion by a special prosecutor to disqualify the state supreme court justices who might put an end to the witch hunt is thoroughly unsound. 

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3

EPPC Scholars File Amicus Brief Supporting Catholic Counselors’ Suit Against Michigan “Conversion” Ban”    

 Eric Kniffin and Mary Rice Hasson

4

EPPC Scholar Files Amicus Brief Urging Ninth Circuit to Protect Church’s Religious Convictions Against Facilitating Abortion

 Eric Kniffin
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