Re: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport

[Ed Darrell]

Orlando is managed by the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which does not 
make decisions on allocating space in the terminals. It's the airlines that 
make those decisions, and the money spent is not from taxes, but comes 
exclusively from airline and concession rentals (generally the concession 
rentals offset the high costs of the airlines; still no tax money involved).  

Not sure how non-tax money gets put into a pool labeled "government." I can 
tell you terminals like O'Hare probably couldn't get built were a government 
making the decisions -- just as Grand Central Station was built with private 
money (is it government now?).  

A better analogy might be the great sports stadia, which have bonds nominally 
issued by a municipality, but generally with no tax contributions; and the 
management of the stadium  is left to a semi-governmental entity, or to the 
biggest lease holder (like Cowboy Stadium  -- AT Stadium -- in Arlington, 
Texas).

Does government have a say in whether the New York Giants gather for prayer at 
midfield before or after a game? 

It's not a First Amendment-free zone, but it's not the same as government 
speech, nor the same as government accommodation of speech or religion. 

Ed Darrell
Dallas

 
  From: "Volokh, Eugene" 
 To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics  
 Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 7:53 PM
 Subject: RE: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport
   
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{}#yiv6916772168    I much appreciate the background on how 
airports make their money, but I don’t think this matters for Establishment 
Clause purposes, so long as the decisions are made by a government entity, 
using money at the disposal of government entity (whether it comes from taxes 
or user fees).  The Orlando airport is managed by a government entity, the 
Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, http://www.orlandoairports.net/about.htm, 
and as best I can tell from the stories, it’s making the decision to create the 
reflection room, using money that is in its fisc.  I don’t think that’s any 
different from, say, a public university using student fees to build such a 
room – perhaps permissible, but very far removed from 

RE: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport

[Volokh, Eugene]

Ed:  Is this based on specific knowledge of how Orlando 
International runs these things, or based on an inference about how other 
airports do it.  According to the Orlando Sentinel story, it is the airport 
that is publicly taking credit for the reflection room, as well as for another 
planned chapel.  (“In addition to the reflection room, airport spokeswoman 
Carolyn Fennell said, Orlando International also intends to build another 
chapel and place in the main terminal, where it can be reached without going 
through security.”)  Is that mistaken?  Is it that the airlines actually get 
together and decide such construction questions between them, and the airport 
just takes credit for it.

As to this being “non-tax money,” I’m still not sure what the 
constitutional significance of that is.  The great bulk of UCLA law school’s 
operating expenses, for instance, come from students.  Does that mean that 
there’s no Establishment Clause scrutiny if we build a chapel at the law 
school?  I don’t of any authority for any difference in treatment between 
government funds raised through taxes and government funds raised through user 
fees, though I’d be happy to be enlightened if I’m missing it.

Eugene

From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu 
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ed Darrell
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 1:59 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport

Orlando is managed by the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which does not 
make decisions on allocating space in the terminals. It's the airlines that 
make those decisions, and the money spent is not from taxes, but comes 
exclusively from airline and concession rentals (generally the concession 
rentals offset the high costs of the airlines; still no tax money involved).

Not sure how non-tax money gets put into a pool labeled "government." I can 
tell you terminals like O'Hare probably couldn't get built were a government 
making the decisions -- just as Grand Central Station was built with private 
money (is it government now?).

A better analogy might be the great sports stadia, which have bonds nominally 
issued by a municipality, but generally with no tax contributions; and the 
management of the stadium  is left to a semi-governmental entity, or to the 
biggest lease holder (like Cowboy Stadium  -- AT Stadium -- in Arlington, 
Texas).

Does government have a say in whether the New York Giants gather for prayer at 
midfield before or after a game?

It's not a First Amendment-free zone, but it's not the same as government 
speech, nor the same as government accommodation of speech or religion.

Ed Darrell
Dallas



From: "Volokh, Eugene" >
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 7:53 PM
Subject: RE: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport

   I much appreciate the background on how airports make their 
money, but I don’t think this matters for Establishment Clause purposes, so 
long as the decisions are made by a government entity, using money at the 
disposal of government entity (whether it comes from taxes or user fees).  The 
Orlando airport is managed by a government entity, the Greater Orlando Aviation 
Authority, http://www.orlandoairports.net/about.htm, and as best I can tell 
from the stories, it’s making the decision to create the reflection room, using 
money that is in its fisc.  I don’t think that’s any different from, say, a 
public university using student fees to build such a room – perhaps 
permissible, but very far removed from “religious verse citations listed on the 
soft-drink cups at In-n-Out Burgers.”

   Eugene


From: 
religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu 
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ed Darrell
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 2:31 PM
To: Alan E Brownstein; Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Muslim-focused "reflection room" in airport

Alan, there's a difference between public space and the space people pay rent 
on. Every chapel I know of falls into the private area (there may be others); 
the questions tend to revolve around whether the public spaces of terminals are 
truly public like a public street. At O'Hare we had secular war over whether 
the Chicago newspapers could put boxes up to sell newspapers outside the 
newsstands (airline issue was that newsstands pay very high rents, newspapers 
argued they had a First Amendment right to sell anywhere without paying rent . 
. .).  Many of those issues fell away after the first magnetometers went in, 
and I suspect the rest went away after 9/11 and the advent of TSA.

Some airports successfully put up boxes from which the Hare Krishnas