Notre Dame Religious Liberty Clinic files amicus brief supporting right of houses of worship to participate in historic preservation grant program
Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic filed an amicus brief in Mendham Methodist Church et al. v. Morris County, New Jersey, urging the court to grant an injunction prohibiting the County from excluding houses of worship from its historic preservation program simply because they are religious. The brief, filed on behalf of the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, argues that excluding religious organizations from generally available grant programs both violates the law and harms congregations and their surrounding communities.
Houses of worship are essential parts of the United States’ historical and cultural foundation. For more than a decade, Morris County allowed religious organizations to receive funding to ease the financial burden of preserving their historic houses of worship. At least a dozen churches received funding to aid the restoration and preservation of their historic buildings. But now, the County excludes religious properties from its grant program. Several churches have challenged that exclusion, which is squarely unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that excluding religious observers from otherwise available public benefits violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
The Religious Liberty Clinic’s brief demonstrates that this discriminatory exclusion, in addition to violating the law, threatens significant harms that can never be undone. Indeed, depriving these congregations access to critical resources that can help preserve their culturally and historically significant houses of worship threatens to close them — forcing those who worship and serve there to limit their activities or even to move. That stands to harm not merely those forced out of these properties but also their surrounding communities, including the many people who rely daily on services and programs that religious organizations provide.
Mendham Methodist Church v. Morris County (D.N.J.)
Click on the link above to read the amicus brief that Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
“Religious organizations provide extensive social services and other programming to serve their greater communities,” said Meredith Holland Kessler, staff attorney for the Religious Liberty Clinic. “When a congregation is forced to close or to move because it lacks the means to preserve its historic house of worship, the community is deprived of these critical ministries.”
The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty is a nondenominational organization of Jewish communal and lay leaders who seek to protect the ability of all Americans to freely practice their faith and to foster cooperation between Jewish and other faith communities in the public square. Especially given the number of Jewish communities who gather and worship in buildings of historic significance, the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty has an interest in ensuring that programs like Morris County’s are equally open and accessible to all people and all organizations.
“We hope the court will recognize the vital contributions that communities from a variety of faith traditions have made to their neighbors for centuries,” added Kessler.
"It was fascinating to examine the real, tangible impact that religious discrimination in grant funding has on historic places of worship,” said 2023-2024 student fellow Ram Desabhotla. “Working to preserve these centers of community and enabling them to continue serving all people was an incredibly enriching endeavor."
About the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic
The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic represents individuals and organizations from all faith traditions to promote not only the freedom for people to hold religious beliefs but also their fundamental right to express those beliefs and to live according to them. Students in the Clinic work under the guidance of Notre Dame Law School faculty and staff to provide advice, counsel, and advocacy on a broad array of matters related to religious freedom in the United States and abroad. The Religious Liberty Clinic has participated in proceedings at all levels of federal and state courts, in administrative agencies, and before foreign courts and other governmental bodies around the world.
Originally published by at religiousliberty.nd.edu on June 12, 2024.