Re: reserved seat for member of religious organization on police comission

[Alan E Brownstein]

Thanks, Howard. Arguably, context might be relevant in some circumstances. If a 
commission's responsibilities directly related to the treatment of religious 
organizations, that might justify the reservation of a seat for a member of a 
religious organization. If most of the buildings designated as historic 
landmarks by an historic landmark commission were houses of worship, for 
example, arguably that might justify reserving a seat on the commission for the 
member of a house of worship. But there might be more neutral ways to serve 
that goal -- such as reserving a seat for an owner of one of the kinds of 
property that are most often designated as landmarks.


I'm not sure of the purpose for reserving one seat on a police commission for a 
member of a religious group, but I doubt very much that it has anything to do 
with concerns about police relations with a particular faith. Indeed, the 
reservation only reserves the seat for a member of a religious organization. 
The city has the discretion to choose which religious organization's nominee is 
selected. That's one of the problems I see with the appointment reservation 
procedure.


I think there may be a distinction between purely advisory commissions and 
those that exercise government power and between commissions that provide no 
compensation to their members and those that do. I'm less sure that the number 
of commissioners is relevant. Would there be a different constitutional 
analysis if two seats were reserved for members of religious organizations out 
of ten rather than one seat? (Although, of course, if all the seats were 
reserved for members of a religious organization, it would be an easy case.) 
I'm also not sure why the procedure for selecting other commissioners would be 
relevant?


Alan



From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu  
on behalf of Friedman, Howard M. 
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 4:52 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: reserved seat for member of religious organization on police 
comission

It seems to me that much depends on context.  Where a community policing 
strategy makes it important for the police department to have ongoing 
relationships with particular religious groups (e.g. to overcome resistance to 
reporting co-religionists' actions to authorities), then I do not think there 
is a serious constitutional problem.  A reasonable person would not see this as 
an endorsement of the religious group's beliefs.  On the other hand, where the 
reservation of a seat is intended to assure that the dominant religious group 
in the community will be able to perpetuate its influence, that seems to me to 
be a different story.  Also, what authority does the police commission have in 
this community?  How many members does it have? How are the others chosen, and 
why?  These all seem relevant. This triggers in my head the famous lines from 
Robert Cover's Nomos and Narrative-- "There is a difference between sleeping 
late on Sunday and refusing the sacraments, between having a snack and 
desecrating the fast of Yom Kippur, between banking a check and refusing to pay 
your income tax."

Howard Friedman

From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] 
on behalf of Alan E Brownstein [aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu]
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 4:01 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: reserved seat for member of religious organization on police 
comission



Anyone have any thoughts on the constitutionality of a rule that reserves one 
seat on a multi-member police commission for a member of a local religious 
organization (any religious organization would be acceptable) who is nominated 
by the organization. Some compensation is involved.

Alan
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Re: High school athlete disqualified under uniform code for wearing headband with religious writing on it

[Marty Lederman]

Invoke the avoidance canon!  There's no religious freedom issue here; but
still, I wondered, for Free Speech purposes, what the state association's
reason might be for decreeing that no writing could appear on headbands.  I
assumed there would be a general "no writing on uniforms" rule, for
purposes of aesthetic uniformity and/or preventing distractions at meets.
Far as I can tell, however, it turns out that there are no rules about
headbands at all, let alone a rule about writing on headbands; nor could I
find any rule generally ruling out writing on anything worn by the
competitors.  (There are rules prohibiting "hair beads," requiring that
"any visible shirt worn under the track jersey, and other visible apparel
worn under the shorts, must be unadorned and of a single (same) color," and
prohibiting "clothing items with multiple logos"--but those don't appear to
apply here.)  See:

https://www.ghsa.net/sites/default/files/documents/Constitution/Constitution2015-16Complete.pdf



On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 1:52 PM, Volokh, Eugene  wrote:

> Any thoughts on this story?  A variant of this issue – though as to
> nonreligious speech – has also come up at times in other places, see, e.g.,
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/05/high-school-teams-allowed-to-practice-in-slogan-bearing-shirts-i-cant-breathe/
> .  I assume the GHSA would be a state actor, under *Brentwood Academy*,
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2890003226740495113 .
> Georgia doesn’t have a state RFRA, and Georgia courts haven’t considered
> whether the state constitution’s religious freedom clause should be
> interpreted to follow *Sherbert* / *Yoder* or instead to follow *Smith*.
>
>
>
> Eugene
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/12/455766673/high-school-runner-disqualified-after-3rd-place-finish-for-headband-with-writing
>
>
>
> A high school runner was disqualified after finishing third in the Georgia
> cross-country A state championship race for wearing a headband with
> writing on it.
>
> John Green, a senior at West Forsyth High School, ran the race wearing a
> white headband with a Bible verse written on it. After the race, he was
> disqualified for a uniform violation. Though the school appealed the
> disqualification, the Georgia High School Association has said the decision
> will stand.
>
> Now a discussion is taking place about the fairness of the rule and its
> enforcement, unnecessary bureaucracy, and even religious freedom.
>
> ...
>
>
>
> The GHSA released a statement disputing the series of events
>  and saying the decision
> to disqualify Green was a matter of uniform code only.
>
> "First, let's be completely clear that this disqualification had nothing to
> do with what was written on the athlete's headband. The fact that it was of
> a religious nature did not enter into the decision whatsoever.
>
> "Also, despite published reports to the contrary, the athlete and his
> coach were informed before the start of the race that the headband in
> question was illegal and could not be worn during the race.
>
> "After being informed that the headband was illegal, the athlete removed
> the headband and the meet referee assumed he would run the race without it.
> However, at some point after that, the coach and the athlete made the
> decision to ignore the warning and the headband was put back on. Since the
> athlete then ran the race with apparel that had already been ruled illegal,
> there was no choice but to issue a disqualification."
>
> It also included a quote from the referee who disqualified him:
>
> "I was called to the start line by the clerk concerning the headband. It
> was a white headband with large black letters written on it. The coach said
> he could turn it inside-out and make it legal. He did so, and the writing
> was still very visible. The rule said the item had to be unadorned except
> for a logo, and this clearly was not the case. I told the coach and the
> athlete that he could not wear the headband during the competition. The
> athlete took it off — neither the coach nor athlete were happy — and I
> left. When I got back to the finish area, I noticed the athlete had a white
> headband on. So, when I saw him come down the finish hill, I went inside
> the finish corral to watch him finish, and he had the same headband on. I
> told the timer to DQ him, I paged the coach, and told the coach of the
> disqualification."
>
>
>
> ___
> To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see
> http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as
> private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are
> posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or
> 

High school athlete disqualified under uniform code for wearing headband with religious writing on it

[Volokh, Eugene]

Any thoughts on this story?  A variant of this issue - though as to 
nonreligious speech - has also come up at times in other places, see, e.g., 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/05/high-school-teams-allowed-to-practice-in-slogan-bearing-shirts-i-cant-breathe/
 .  I assume the GHSA would be a state actor, under Brentwood Academy, 
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2890003226740495113 .  Georgia 
doesn't have a state RFRA, and Georgia courts haven't considered whether the 
state constitution's religious freedom clause should be interpreted to follow 
Sherbert / Yoder or instead to follow Smith.

Eugene


http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/12/455766673/high-school-runner-disqualified-after-3rd-place-finish-for-headband-with-writing


A high school runner was disqualified after finishing third in the Georgia 
cross-country A state championship race for wearing a headband with writing 
on it.

John Green, a senior at West Forsyth High School, ran the race wearing a white 
headband with a Bible verse written on it. After the race, he was disqualified 
for a uniform violation. Though the school appealed the disqualification, the 
Georgia High School Association has said the decision will stand.

Now a discussion is taking place about the fairness of the rule and its 
enforcement, unnecessary bureaucracy, and even religious freedom.
...


The GHSA released a statement disputing the series of 
events and saying the decision 
to disqualify Green was a matter of uniform code only.

"First, let's be completely clear that this disqualification had nothing to do 
with what was written on the athlete's headband. The fact that it was of a 
religious nature did not enter into the decision whatsoever.

"Also, despite published reports to the contrary, the athlete and his coach 
were informed before the start of the race that the headband in question was 
illegal and could not be worn during the race.

"After being informed that the headband was illegal, the athlete removed the 
headband and the meet referee assumed he would run the race without it. 
However, at some point after that, the coach and the athlete made the decision 
to ignore the warning and the headband was put back on. Since the athlete then 
ran the race with apparel that had already been ruled illegal, there was no 
choice but to issue a disqualification."

It also included a quote from the referee who disqualified him:

"I was called to the start line by the clerk concerning the headband. It was a 
white headband with large black letters written on it. The coach said he could 
turn it inside-out and make it legal. He did so, and the writing was still very 
visible. The rule said the item had to be unadorned except for a logo, and this 
clearly was not the case. I told the coach and the athlete that he could not 
wear the headband during the competition. The athlete took it off - neither the 
coach nor athlete were happy - and I left. When I got back to the finish area, 
I noticed the athlete had a white headband on. So, when I saw him come down the 
finish hill, I went inside the finish corral to watch him finish, and he had 
the same headband on. I told the timer to DQ him, I paged the coach, and told 
the coach of the disqualification."

___
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Re: reserved seat for member of religious organization on police comission

[Alan E Brownstein]

Anyone have any thoughts on the constitutionality of a rule that reserves one 
seat on a multi-member police commission for a member of a local religious 
organization (any religious organization would be acceptable) who is nominated 
by the organization. Some compensation is involved.

Alan
___
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Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can 
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