For the past 17 years, the Bronx Household of Faith has been pressing its case for allowing religious worship services to be held at public schools. On December 5, 2011, the Supreme Court rejected the small church’s plea yet again. In its ruling, the Supreme Court also left in place a ruling with allows public schools to offer prayer and religious instruction but bans worship services.

“We’re very disappointed,” said Pastor Robert Hall. “We think this is a dangerous precedent that allows the state to make a distinction between various types of religious activity.”

For the past several years, many religious groups in New York have been conducting their worship services in public buildings, including Public School 15, where the Bronx Household of Faith has been worshiping since 2002. However, according to the new action passed by the Supreme Court, this will not be allowed after February 12, 2012.

“We view this as a victory for the city’s schoolchildren and their families,” said Jane Gordon, a senior counsel for the city of New York City. “The department was quite properly concerned about having any school in this diverse city identified with one particular religious belief or practice.”

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It does not sound too far-fetched: some college students form a group and set restrictions concerning who they want in their group. Fraternities and sororities do it every day, concerning gender restrictions. Academic groups set restrictions concerning GPA standards.

However, when a Christian campus group applied for official recognition at University of California‘s Hastings College of the Law, it was rejected because it required members to share its religious views and views on marriage. The student group sued the school, and the case went to the Supreme Court. Today, the Supreme Court ruled against the student group. The main conflict was the school’s anti-discrimination policies versus the student group’s First Amendment Rights, mainly those of religion and association.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the school was “caught in the crossfire between a group’s desire to exclude and students’ demand for equal access, may reasonably draw a line in the sand permitting all organizations to express what they wish but no group to discriminate in membership.” Read the rest of this entry »

Elena Kagan, Image Via the DailyPrincetonian.com

President Obama just announced his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court: Elena Kagan.

Kagan was born in New York City and graduated from Princeton, summa cum laude in 1981. She went on to earn her Master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law in 1986.

While Kagan was at Princeton, she was the editor of the Daily Princetonian, the school newspaper, from 1980-1981. The Daily Princetonian issued a report on Kagan on May 3, 2010.

 Here are some excerpts from that report:

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