No freedom for the captives?

Held captive by a determination to keep religion confined to churches and homes, the Freedom from Religion Foundation is demanding the Wisconsin Department of Corrections sever ties with an educational ministry that offers inmates a degree in Biblical studies.

Modeled after the 22-year-old seminary housed at Angola Prison in Louisiana, the Wisconsin Inmate Education Association (WIEA) and Trinity International University (TIU) formed a partnership to create Operation Transformation, an educational program offering a Bachelor of Science in Biblical studies to inmates serving life or long-term sentences. After completing the four-year program, the inmates are reassigned to other prisons as “field ministers.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) calls Operation Transformation a “grave” violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and claims in a letter sent to state officials that inmates would be better served by a non-religious education.

Representatives for the WIEA and TIU would not comment on the FFRF letter because they were not aware of its existence until I asked them about it, but they said they are looking into the matter. A representative from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections did not respond to questions by deadline.

The letter demands an immediate suspension of the prison’s association with the WIEA and the university and asks Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher to respond in writing with a detailed plan to ensure the department meets its constitutional obligations.

Colin McNamara, an FFRF attorney, cited laws prohibiting state actors from requiring conformance or participation in religious activities but did not indicate how Operation Transformation violates any of those statutes—other than by its mere existence.

Fourteen states have active or developing seminaries within their prison systems, according to the Global Prison Seminaries Foundation, a ministry started by Burl Cain, the former Angola Prison warden who established a seminary program there. Cain’s work in encouraging Christian ministry at Angola is credited with dramatically reducing violence in a prison once known as America’s bloodiest. Angola’s turnaround prompted other states to adopt similar initiatives.

Wisconsin is one of the newest adoptees. Its first class of 25 seminary students is five weeks into the four-year degree program. Inmates meet for class six hours a day, five days a week.

The FFRF claims the seminary program amounts to an unconstitutional motivational carrot to coerce participation in a religious activity.

“It is illegal for correctional institutions to condition any benefit to inmates on their attendance at religious programs,” McNamara warned, without giving context for the allegation or noting any specific conditions for joining the Waupun Correctional Institute program.

But, of the 25 students enrolled in the first class, 18 relocated from medium- or minimum-security state prisons to the maximum-security Waupun Correctional Institute. They will live among the general population for four years before being transferred to other maximum-security prisons as men of peace in violent and hopeless environments.

“For these inmates, moving into a maximum-security prison has been a significant sacrifice,” said Robin Knoll, the executive director of WIEA.

Trinity Western University students rally outside Canada's high court. Trinity Western University

Lessons in Canadian lawsuits

The Supreme Court of Canada recently heard arguments in two related cases that could determine whether the nation finally will have its first Christian law school. Trinity Western University (TWU), a Christian school in British Columbia, has yet to open its school of law because of antipathy toward the institution’s moral code, based on its Biblical understanding of marriage and sex.

The nine justices heard arguments Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 in the two cases: an appeal by the school and an appeal by one of the three law societies opposed to the school’s moral code. If the law societies’ objections stand, TWU law school graduates would be barred from practicing law in the contested regions, effectively nullifying the school’s accreditation.

In both cases, the school is defending its right to define its character by Biblical convictions, as outlined in the 2,000-word community covenant all students, faculty, and staff must sign. At least one justice seemed baffled by the concept.

“Is there such a thing as a religious law school?” Justice Rosalie Abella asked. “Can a law school have a religion, and is it the right of the law school to have a religion no matter what its tenets? Have we gone so far? Can a law school be Jewish, Muslim, or Christian?”

Some interveners (the Canadian equivalent of a friend-of-the-court brief) defended the school and warned a TWU loss would affect religious minorities nationwide.

The Law Society of British Columbia “claims that it has the right to evaluate Trinity’s religious policies and the obligation to reject Trinity’s application if any of them differ from its own norms. It thereby seeks to establish its own moral views as orthodox, authoritative, and exclusive,” the International Coalition of Law Professors said in its brief to the court.

Rulings in the two cases are expected by June. —B.P.

Trinity Western University students rally outside Canada's high court. Trinity Western University

Students sue high school over speech code

A social media disagreement-turned-ugly prompted a Minnesota high school principal to disband a conservative student organization. In turn, its members filed a lawsuit against the school district, its superintendent, and the principal, claiming district policy violates the U. S. Flag Code and their free speech rights.

Waving American flags and at times bursting out in chants of “USA! USA!” members of the Edina High School Young Conservatives Club met Dec. 7 with their parents and attorney in a park near the school to announce the lawsuit.

At the heart of their complaint is a district policy requiring respect for all student protests and the administration’s pre-approval of a protest during the school’s Nov. 9 Veterans Day observance. During the ceremony, about a dozen students sat on the school’s gymnasium floor during the playing of the national anthem and the playing of taps. The Young Conservatives Club complained and posted a video of the protesters on YouTube.

Social media exchanges among some of the students became heated, and a self-proclaimed “Antifa EHS” member posted a video making threats against the conservative students. Principal Andrew Beaton told the school newspaper the conservative club was allowed to disagree with the Veterans Day protest but “when statements become disrespectful, that’s when we have to step in.” The lawsuit seeks to have the school’s protest policy declared unconstitutional and have the conservative club reinstated as an official school group. —B.P.

No emergency relief for Texas churches

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) policy that prohibits emergency disaster relief funding for houses of worship. But the court granted an expedited appeal for three churches suing the agency.

Oral arguments are set for early February.

Attorneys for the churches filed an emergency appeal Dec. 7 after U.S. District Judge Gray Miller denied their request for a preliminary injunction. He rejected the churches’ argument that FEMA’s policy discriminates against them.

The 5th Circuit ruled the churches were not under an imminent threat because FEMA said it would not reject applications from houses of worship while it considers revising the policy that denies them funding.

Two Florida synagogues damaged during Hurricane Irma joined the chorus of FEMA critics Dec. 4, filing their own lawsuit against the policy. —B.P.

Filing for retribution?

Rowan County, Ky., Clerk Kim Davis refused to issue David Ermold and his same-sex partner a marriage license in 2015, days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled states had to recognize same-sex marriage. Now Ermold wants her job.

Ermold filled out the requisite paperwork for the 2018 election at the rural Kentucky county clerk’s office as Davis looked on, humming “Jesus Paid It All,” according to the Associated Press. She then accepted the completed forms, shook his hand and said, “May the best candidate win.”

Davis earned national attention and five days in jail when, the day after the high court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, she refused to issue any marriage licenses. She could not in good conscience put her name to a same-sex marriage license because of her Christian beliefs about marriage, she said.

Three other candidates have so far filed as Democratic challengers for the position Davis narrowly won in 2014 as a Democrat. She changed her party affiliation to Republican in 2015. —B.P.