H eadlines
Agenda Continued from Page 13
Makin say that this ban is
unconstitutional. The Orthodox Union has
filed an amicus brief on behalf
of the complainant parents, and
the Anti-Defamation League is
set to file an amicus brief on
behalf of the state of Maine.

Steve Freeman, the ADL’s
vice president of civil rights
and director of legal affairs,
said that court precedent
allows public money to be
spent on religious schools
as long as it did not involve
religious instruction — for
instance, in the use of funds
for a playground. He said the
ADL, in its amicus brief, will
join arguments that public
money should not fund indoc-
trination in a faith.

Nathan Diament, the
Orthodox Union’s Washington
director, said that the distinc-
tion that the ADL is hoping
the court will uphold may be
impossible to make: There is
little that a religious institution
instructs that is not founded
in religious belief, even if the
topic is ostensibly secular, he
said. The case of the
Christian flag
The ADL and the AJC are both
considering whether to weigh
in on Boston’s rejection of a
Christian group’s request to fly
a Christian flag outside city
hall, a case known as Shurtleff
v. Boston.

The Christian group sued on
free speech grounds because the
city makes the flagpole available
to local groups for a limited
period of time. Excluding a
religious group is discrimina-
tory, the group argues.

The ADL’s Freeman said
the case is “a slam dunk
kind of question that flying a
religious flag in front of City
Hall is not consistent with
what the framers had in mind
when they adopted the First
Amendment.” The AJC’s Stern said a case
could be made that flying
a religious flag on public
grounds amounts to an
endorsement of faith, but he
was also concerned that prece-
dent might not be on the side
of church-state separation-
ists: Courts have for decades
upheld the rights of Jewish
groups (most frequently, the
Chabad-Lubavitch movement)
to position menorahs on public
property during Chanukah.

Heeding the kids from
Parkland challenging a New York state
law that only grants permits
to carry concealed handguns
outside the home if someone
can show “proper cause” for a
need for self-defense.

The Reform movement’s
Pesner said his group has
joined an amicus brief, in part
because younger Reform Jews
have made gun control a focus
since the deadly 2018 shooting
at a high school in Parkland,
Florida. There were a number
of Jewish victims killed in
the attack, and local Jews in
response took up gun reform
advocacy through Reform-
affiliated groups.

The case of the
community college crank
In Houston Community
In New York State Rifle & Pistol College System v. Wilson, a
Association v. Bruen, a gun former member of a commu-
group is joining two individuals nity college’s board of trustees
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sued the board for passing a
resolution censuring him for
his relentless opposition to the
board’s agenda. He allegedly
leaked confidential informa-
tion, filed lawsuits against the
system and trolled the other
members’ constituents with
robocalls. Wilson said the censure
violated his right to free
speech. A lower court said that
the censure amounted to little
more than a statement and
threw out the case. Then an
appeals court reinstated it.

So why is this the single
case, so far, that the AJC is
addressing in an amicus brief?
Stern said a ruling
upholding Wilson’s claim —
that the community college
board limited his free speech
— could have dire conse-
quences for Jewish groups that
call out instances of antisem-
itism. Government officials
should have the freedom to
call people out for bad behavior
without being sued, he argued.

Upholding the right of
the undocumented to a
hearing The court is hearing two cases,
Garland v. Gonzalez and
Jonson v. Arteaga-Martinez,
in which undocumented
migrants in detention who face
dangers if they are deported
to their homeland argue that
they are entitled to a hearing
after six months to determine
whether they are eligible to be
released on bond.

HIAS, the lead Jewish
immigration advocacy group,
is tracking the cases closely,
in part because the Supreme
Court has leaned in favor of
continued detention in recent
cases, said Andrew Geibel, the
group’s policy counsel.

Geibel said the detainees
are susceptible to COVID
infection, are suffering mental
health privations and are
unable to adequately prepare
for their defense while in
detention. l
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