Private
religious schools may have won a big victory Wednesday when the California Supreme
Court declined to decide whether a so-called "Christian Conduct" rule
prohibiting homosexuality violated the state's premier civil rights law.
The high
court's decision not to review a case out of Riverside County lets stand a
lower court's ruling that the California Lutheran High School is not a business
enterprise and, therefore, not subject to the state's 50-year-old Unruh Civil Rights Act.
In a depublication request filed with the Supreme Court in
March, the San Francisco-based American
Civil Liberties Union of Northern California called the January ruling by
"The
opinion could be construed," ACLU attorneys wrote, "to contain a
wholesale exemption for any private school that in its mission statement claims
to 'inculcate [its students] with a specific set of values.'"
The ACLU said
the ruling causes not only significant confusion "as to when the Unruh act
applies in the private school context," but also potentially defies
"one of the express reasons Unruh applies to 'business establishments' --
the refusal of a private school to make its facilities available to
African-American students."
The
California Lutheran High School, a private religious institution in Wildomar, about 70 miles north of San Diego, and its
principal, the Rev. Gregory Bork, were sued by the mother of a juvenile
plaintiff identified only as Jane Doe and the father of a minor named only as
Mary Roe. The two girls were expelled from the school on suspicion they were
engaging in homosexual activity, which was expressly forbidden under the
school's "Christian Conduct" code.
The two girls
alleged that they had been discriminated against based on perceived sexual
orientation, in violation of the Unruh act. Riverside County Superior Court Judge
Gloria Trask entered summary judgment in favor of the
defendants and the Fourth District affirmed earlier this year.
That court
compared the religious school to the Boy Scouts, which the state Supreme Court
has found exempt from the Unruh act. "Just like the Boy Scouts,"
Justice Betty Richli wrote for the Fourth District,
"the school 'is an expressive social organization whose primary function
is the inculcation of values in its youth members.'"
The court
called its ruling in the case narrow. "We hold only that the school
established, beyond a triable issue of fact, that it
is not a business establishment within the meaning of the Unruh act," Richli wrote.
In their
petition for review, attorneys for the parents of Doe and Roe pointed out that
the Unruh Civil Rights Act has been held by courts to apply to public schools,
nonprofit religious corporations, nonprofit homeowners associations, nonprofit
civic associations, charitable nonprofit organizations and private golf and
country clubs.
"The
court of appeal's decision is ... not based upon the school's
claimed right to freedom of expressive association nor the right of parents to
control the education of their children," lawyers with
The school
didn't file a brief with the Supreme Court, but the Association of Faith-Based
Organizations -- which represents 830 private religious schools in
"Under
the religious autonomy doctrine of the First Amendment, religious institutions
enjoy a certain level of independence and freedom from government interference
when it comes to matters of religion," association lawyer Isaac Fong, of
The Supreme
Court chose not to take the case by a 6-1 vote. Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar favored granting
review.
Neither attorneys for the plaintiffs nor for the Association of
Faith-Based Organizations responded to calls for comment late Wednesday. But
"I think
the appellate court case was well drafted, narrow in its issues and narrow in
its approach to the actual relief sought by the school," the McKay, Graham
& de Lorimier partner said.
"What
the court is saying is what the trial court found," he added, "that
the issues raised by the plaintiffs were in essence not proper [and] that the
school does have a right to provide an education to children within the
religious beliefs that they subscribe to."
The case is Doe
v. California Lutheran High School Association, S171078.