Opinion ID: 3011928
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Determining the appropriate level of scrutiny

Text: The Free Exercise Clause, which binds the Borough pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 (1940), provides that Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]. U.S. Const. amend. I. Depending on the nature of the challenged law or government action, a free exercise claim can prompt either strict scrutiny or rational basis review.24 If a law is neutral and generally applicable, and burdens religious conduct only incidentally, the Free Exercise Clause offers no protection. Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990).25 Smith held that the Free Exercise Clause did not require a state to exempt the ingestion of peyote during a Native American Church ceremony from its neutral, generally applicable prohibition on using that drug. Id. at 882. On the other hand, if the law is not neutral (i.e., if it discriminates against religiously motivated conduct) or is not generally applicable (i.e., if it proscribes particular conduct only or primarily when religiously motivated), strict scrutiny applies and the burden on religious conduct violates the Free Exercise Clause unless it is narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest.26Church of the Lukumi _________________________________________________________________ 24. To survive strict scrutiny, a challenged government action must be narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest, whereas rational basis review requires merely that the action be rationally related to a legitimate government objective. As explained below, an intermediate level of scrutiny may apply in the public employment context. 25. Smith involved a criminal law, but its rule also applies in the context of non-criminal laws and regulations. See Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 531 (1993); Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Newark, 170 F.3d 359, 363-64 (3d Cir. 1999). 26. Strict scrutiny may also apply when a neutral, generally applicable law incidentally burdens rights protected by the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech and of the press, or the rights of parents . . . to direct the education of their children, Smith, 494 U.S. at 881 (citations omitted), but the plaintiffs do not assert such a hybrid rights claim. 26 Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 532, 542 (1993). Further, the Free Exercise Clause’s mandate of neutrality toward religion prohibits government from deciding that secular motivations are more important than religious motivations. Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Newark, 170 F.3d 359, 365 (3d Cir. 1999). Accordingly, in situations where government officials exercise discretion in applying a facially neutral law, so that whether they enforce the law depends on their evaluation of the reasons underlying a violator’s conduct, they contravene the neutrality requirement if they exempt some secularly motivated conduct but not comparable religiously motivated conduct. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 537; Smith, 494 U.S. at 884; Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693, 708 (1986) (plurality opinion); Fraternal Order of Police, 170 F.3d at 364-65. Thus in Lukumi the Supreme Court invalidated an ordinance punishing ‘[w]hoever . . . unnecessarily . . . kills any animal,’  where state and local officials interpreted the ordinance to ban animal sacrifices during Santeria religious ceremonies, but to exempt secular activities such as hunting, slaughtering animals for food, and even using live rabbits to train greyhounds. 508 U.S. at 537 (alteration in original). The officials’ selective application of the ordinance devalue[d] religious reasons for killing by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious reasons, causing religiously motivated conduct to be singled out for discriminatory treatment. Id. at 537-38. Therefore, strict scrutiny applied, and the ordinance failed that test because its proffered objectives [were] not pursued with respect to analogous non-religious conduct. Id. at 546. Because the ordinance in Lukumi gave officials discretion to consider the particular justification for each violation, it represent[ed] a system of ‘individualized governmental assessment of the reasons for the relevant conduct,’  triggering under Smith strict scrutiny of the ordinance’s application to religiously motivated conduct. Id. at 537 (quoting Smith, 494 U.S. at 884). In Fraternal Order of Police, we held that the neutrality principle applies with equal force when government creates categorical, as opposed to individualized, exceptions for secularly 27 motivated conduct. 170 F.3d at 365. A city’s police department applied its no-beard policy, which was designed to promote uniform appearance, to allow medical exemptions but deny similar exemptions to two Sunni Muslim officers whose faith required them to grow beards. Id. at 360-61, 366. Selective enforcement of this nature, we said, exemplified the Supreme Court’s concern in Smith and Lukumi about the prospect of the government’s deciding that secular motivations are more important than religious motivations. Id. at 365. It showed that the police department made a value judgment that secular (i.e., medical) motivations for wearing a beard are important enough to overcome its general interest in uniformity but that religious motivations are not. Id. at 366. Therefore, the enforcement of the policy against the Sunni Muslim officers was sufficiently suggestive of discriminatory intent . . . to trigger heightened scrutiny under Smith and Lukumi.27 _________________________________________________________________ 27. Smith and Lukumi state unambiguously that strict scrutiny applies when government discriminates against religiously motivated conduct. See Smith, 494 U.S. at 884; Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 546. However, our decision in Fraternal Order of Police applied only heightened or intermediate scrutiny, under which the challenged government action must be substantially related (rather than narrowly tailored) to promoting an important (rather than compelling) government interest. We did so because First Amendment rights are limited in the public employment context by a government’s need to function efficiently. See, e.g., United States v. Nat’l Employees Treasury Union, 513 U.S. 454, 465 (1995); Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968). In any event, we determined that the police department’s discriminatory value judgment failed even intermediate scrutiny. Fraternal Order of Police, 170 F.3d at 365-66 & n.7. We note that, in contrast to our decision in Fraternal Order of Police, two other circuit courts have stated that the Free Exercise Clause offers no protection when a statute or policy contains broad, objectively defined exceptions not entailing subjective, individualized consideration. See Swanson v. Guthrie v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. I-L, 135 F.3d 694, 701 (10th Cir. 1998) (stating that school district’s excepting fifth-year seniors and special education students from no-part-time-attendance policy did not require strict scrutiny of refusal to allow Christian home-schooled student to attend part-time); Am. Friends Serv. Comm. v. Thornburgh, 951 F.2d 957, 961 (9th Cir. 1991) (determining that exceptions in statute regulating immigrant hiring for independent contractors, household employees, and employees hired before November 1986 did not trigger strict scrutiny of denial of religiously motivated exemption request because the statutory exceptions exclude entire, objectivelydefined categories of employees from the scope of the statute). 28 Id. at 365. The Sunni Muslim officers’ beards posed no greater threat to uniform appearance than did the beards worn by officers with medical conditions. Id. at 366. Thus the police department’s policy was void under any degree of heightened scrutiny. Id. at 367. Smith, Lukumi, and Fraternal Order of Police point the way to the appropriate level of scrutiny in this case. On its face, Ordinance 691 is neutral and generally applicable. But [o]fficial action that targets religious conduct for distinctive treatment cannot be shielded [from constitutional attack] by mere compliance with the requirement of facial neutrality. Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 534. We must look beyond the text of the ordinance and examine whether the Borough enforces it on a religionneutral basis, as the effect of a law in its real operation is strong evidence of its object. Id. at 535. Because Ordinance 691 is neutral and generally applicable on its face, if the Borough had enforced it uniformly, Smith would control and the plaintiffs’ claim would accordingly fail. The Borough insists it has done so, but the record shows otherwise. Indeed, the Borough has tacitly or expressly granted exemptions from the ordinance’s unyielding language for various secular and religious--though never Orthodox Jewish--purposes. Cf. Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S. 67, 69 (1953) (holding that city violated Free Exercise Clause by enforcing ordinance banning meetings in park against Jehovah’s Witnesses but exempting other religious groups). From the drab house numbers and lost animal signs to the more obtrusive holiday displays, church directional signs, and orange ribbons--the last of which the District Court erroneously deemed irrelevant to the constitutional analysis28--the Borough has allowed private citizens to affix _________________________________________________________________ 28. Pursuant to our constitutional duty to conduct an independent examination of the record as a whole, Hurley , 515 U.S. at 567, we believe there is ample evidence in the record showing that orange ribbons were attached to the Borough’s utility poles for a lengthy period of time and that Borough officials knew about them but made no effort to remove them. A594-95 (Mayor Moscovitz Test.); see also A277 (statement of Tenafly resident Lee Rosenbaum that[s]urely, a town that brandished orange ribbons tied to almost every pole in town for what I think was several years can tolerate some unobtrusive markers). 29 various materials to its utility poles. Apart from their religious nature, the lechis are comparable to the postings the Borough has left in place. If anything, the lechis are less of a problem because they are so unobtrusive; even observant Jews are often unable to distinguish them from ordinary utility wires. While the Borough alleges that the lechis are different because the plaintiffs intend them to be permanent, house numbers nailed to utility poles are likewise intended to be permanent. And although the Borough insists that the lechis’ religious nature justifies its decision to remove them, this is precisely the sort of reasoning that Lukumi and Fraternal Order of Police forbid. We believe that the Borough’s selective, discretionary application of Ordinance 691 against the lechis violates the neutrality principle of Lukumi and Fraternal Order of Police because it devalues Orthodox Jewish reasons for posting items on utility poles by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious reasons, and thus single[s] out the plaintiffs’ religiously motivated conduct for discriminatory treatment. Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 537; Fraternal Order of Police, 170 F.3d at 364-65. 29 Just as the exemptions for secularly motivated killings in Lukumi indicated that the city was discriminating against Santeria animal sacrifice, and just as the medical exemption in Fraternal Order of Police indicated that the police department was discriminating against religiously motivated requests to grow beards, the Borough’s invocation of the often-dormant Ordinance 691 against conduct motivated by Orthodox Jewish beliefs is sufficiently suggestive of discriminatory intent, Fraternal Order of Police, 170 F.3d at 365, that we must apply strict scrutiny. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 546.30 _________________________________________________________________ 29. We note, however, that we reject the plaintiffs’ contention that the Free Exercise Clause bars the Borough from distinguishing between the lechis and the plastic-covered wires attached to utility poles by telephone and cable television companies. Because utility poles exist to facilitate telecommunications, utility wires are obviously unlike any of the other materials the Borough has allowed people to affix to the poles. 30. Whereas First Amendment rights are necessarily limited in the public employment context, see Nat’l Employees Treasury Union, 513 U.S. at 30 The Borough nonetheless contends that three aspects of this case--the plaintiffs’ use of government property, the lack of a substantial burden on the plaintiffs’ religious freedom, and the optional nature of the eruv--place it outside the framework of Lukumi and Fraternal Order of Police, and thus preclude us from applying strict scrutiny even though the Borough has discriminated against conduct motivated by Orthodox Jewish beliefs. First, the Borough insists that, because the utility poles are on its land, this case is governed by Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass’n, 485 U.S. 439 (1988), which held that the Free Exercise Clause did not prevent the federal government from implementing a decision, based on religion-neutral criteria, to construct a road and allow timber harvesting on 17,000 acres of national forest land traditionally used by Native Americans for religious practices. Id. at 447-53; see also Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693, 699-701, 708 (1986) (holding that Free Exercise Clause did not require government to grant religious exemption from generally applicable, religion-neutral statutory requirement that welfare recipients furnish their Social Security numbers where no individualized exemptions were allowed). According to the Borough, the controlling principle is that ‘the Free Exercise Clause is _________________________________________________________________ 465, our case, unlike Fraternal Order of Police , involves purely private conduct. Thus Smith and Lukumi obligate us to apply strict scrutiny. See supra note 27. We note that, in determining the appropriate standard to apply, we do not believe it necessary to consider the subjective motivations of the Council members who voted to remove the eruv. Lukumi and Fraternal Order of Police inferred discriminatory purpose from the objective effects of the selective exemptions at issue without examining the responsible officials’ motives. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 537-38; Fraternal Order of Police, 170 F.3d at 364-66; see also Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law S 5-16, at 956 (3d ed. 2000) (Under Smith, a law that is not neutral or that is not generally applicable can violate the Free Exercise Clause without regard to the motives of those who enacted the measure.). Likewise, the objective effects of the Borough’s enforcement of Ordinance 691 are sufficient for us to conclude that it is not being applied neutrally against the eruv. 31 written in terms of what the government cannot do to the individual, not in terms of what the individual can exact from the government.’ Northwest Indian Cemetery, 485 U.S. at 451 (1988) (quoting Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 412 (Douglas, J., concurring)); Roy, 476 U.S. at 700. Contrary to the Borough’s position, however, the principle of Lukumi and Fraternal Order of Police--that government cannot discriminate between religiously motivated conduct and comparable secularly motivated conduct in a manner that devalues religious reasons for acting--applies not only when a coercive law or regulation prohibits religious conduct, but also when government denies religious adherents access to publicly available money or property. See Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 404-05 (1963) (holding that Free Exercise Clause prohibits state from devaluing religious reasons for seeking unemployment benefits); Davey v. Locke, 299 F.3d 748, 753-54 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that Free Exercise Clause bars state from making college scholarships contingent on recipients not majoring in theology); cf. Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. at 831-35 (holding that Free Speech Clause precludes state university that pays student publications’ printing costs from denying funding based on publication’s religious viewpoint). In contrast, the principle of Northwest Indian Cemetery applies only when a person of faith asks for special, not equal, treatment in the context of a religion-neutral policy. See Adams v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 170 F.3d 173, 181 & n.10 (3d Cir. 1999) (rejecting argument that uniform and facially neutral penalty fora conscious, intentional failure to file taxes could not be applied to religious objector); Swanson v. Guthrie Indep. Sch. Dist. No. I-L, 135 F.3d 694, 701-02 (10th Cir. 1998) (rejecting claim that school district must grant religiously motivated request for individualized exemption from no-part-time-attendance policy where no individualized exemptions were granted). It does not apply when government discriminates against religiously motivated conduct in allocating the rights, benefits, and privileges enjoyed by other citizens. Northwest Indian Cemetery, 485 U.S. at 449. 32 In this case, the plaintiffs are not asking for preferential treatment. Instead, they ask only that the Borough not invoke an ordinance from which others are effectively exempt to deny plaintiffs access to its utility poles simply because they want to use the poles for a religious purpose. Cf. Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 273 n.13 (1981) (This case is different from the cases in which religious groups claim that the denial of facilities not available to other groups deprives them of their rights under the Free Exercise Clause.) (emphasis in original); Davey, 299 F.3d at 757-58 (This is not a case where a person claims that denial of a financial benefit which is not available to others deprives him of his free exercise rights.). Therefore, Lukumi and Fraternal Order of Police, not Northwest Indian Cemetary, control our disposition. Second, the Borough maintains that strict scrutiny should not apply because the plaintiffs have not shown that the removal of the eruv would substantially burden their religious practice. Under Smith and Lukumi, however, there is no substantial burden requirement when government discriminates against religious conduct. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 531-47 (finding Free Exercise Clause violation without considering whether a substantial burden on religious freedom existed); Fraternal Order of Police, 170 F.3d at 364-67 (same); Brown v. Borough of Mahaffey, 35 F.3d 846, 849-50 (3d Cir. 1994) (Applying such a burden test to non-neutral government actions would make petty harassment of religious institutions and exercise immune from the protection of the First Amendment.). Instead, the plaintiffs need to show only a sufficient interest in the case to meet the normal requirement of constitutional standing, Hartmann v. Stone, 68 F.3d 973, 979 n.4 (6th Cir. 1995) (rejecting substantial burden requirement), and their inability to attend synagogue on the Sabbath without the eruv easily suffices. Moreover, Smith admonished courts not to engage in the sort of inquiry the Borough demands. The Supreme Court explained that [j]udging the centrality of different religious practices violates the principle that courts must not presume to determine the place of a particular belief in a religion. Smith, 494 U.S. at 887; see also DeHart v. Horn, 33 227 F.3d 47, 56 (3d Cir. 2000) (en banc) (same). Evaluating the extent of a burden on religious practice is equally impermissible, the Smith Court said, because it entails a forbidden inquiry into religious doctrine. ‘Constitutionally significant burden’ would seem to be ‘centrality’ under another name, and inquiry into ‘severe impact’ is no different from inquiry into centrality.31 Smith, 494 U.S. at 887 n.4; see also Northwest Indian Cemetery, 485 U.S. at _________________________________________________________________ 31. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s admonition in Smith against judicial inquiries into the centrality of religious practices, a number of circuit courts persist in imposing a substantial burden requirement in various contexts. See, e.g., Levitan v. Ashcroft, 281 F.3d 1313, 1320 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (stating in prison context that free exercise plaintiff must demonstrate that the challenged law burdensa central tenet or important practice of [his] religion); Am. Family Ass’n, Inc. v. City and County of San Francisco, 277 F.3d 1114, 1124 (9th Cir. 2002) (noting that Ninth Circuit continues to demand that a plaintiff show substantial burden in challenges to government actions that are not regulatory, proscriptive or compulsory, though the more recent decision in Davey v. Locke, discussed above, did not impose this requirement); Altman v. Minn. Dep’t of Corrections, 251 F.3d 1199, 1204 (8th Cir. 2001) (Government significantly burdens the exercise of religion if it significantly constrains conduct or expression that manifests a central tenet of a person’s religious beliefs, meaningfully curtails the ability to express adherence to a particular faith, or denies reasonable opportunities to engage in fundamental religious activities.); Altman v. Bedford Cent. Sch. Dist., 245 F.3d 49, 79 (2d Cir. 2001) (stating, contrary to Smith and Lukumi and without citing either opinion, that substantial burden test applies when neutral law incidentally impinges on religious exercise); Strout v. Albanese, 178 F.3d 57, 65 (1st Cir. 1999) (quoting a pre-Smith case for the proposition thatthe free exercise inquiry [is] whether government has placed a substantial burden on the observation of a central belief or practice) (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original); United States v. Grant , 117 F.3d 788, 793 (5th Cir. 1997) (rejecting free exercise claim, without citing Smith or Lukumi, on ground that plaintiff’s religious freedom was not substantially burdened); Goodall by Goodall v. Stafford County Sch. Bd., 60 F.3d 168, 173 (4th Cir. 1995) (stating that substantial burden requirement applies when challenged law is not generally applicable); Fleischfresser v. Dirs. of Sch. Dist. 200, 15 F.3d 680, 689-90 (7th Cir. 1994) (requiring substantial burden as prerequisite for free exercise claim without citing Smith); Church of Scientology v. City of Clearwater, 2 F.3d 1514, 1549 (11th Cir. 1993) (stating that strict scrutiny applies when a law that targets religion imposes a substantial burden on believers). 34 451 (Whatever may be the exact line between unconstitutional prohibitions on the free exercise of religion and the legitimate conduct by government of its own affairs, the location of the line cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector’s spiritual development.); cf. Widmar, 454 U.S. at 269 n.6 (rejecting distinction between religious worship and other religious speech because it would require courtsto inquire into the significance of words and practices to different religious faiths and [s]uch inquiries would tend inevitably to entangle the State with religion in a manner forbidden by our cases). Third, the Borough asserts that the plaintiffs cannot state a free exercise claim because the eruv is an optional religious practice. For reasons similar to those counseling against requiring the plaintiffs to demonstrate a substantial burden on their religious practice, we cannot accept the Borough’s contention that courts presented with free exercise claims should, as a threshold matter, determine whether the religious practices at issue are mandatory or optional. We need not consider whether the Borough’s characterization of the eruv is accurate. Neither the Supreme Court nor our Court has intimated that only compulsory religious practices fall within the ambit of the Free Exercise Clause. To the contrary, our en banc decision in DeHart said that conduct implicates the Free Exercise Clause if it is motivated by beliefs which are both sincerely held and religious in nature without regard to whether it is mandatory. 227 F.3d at 51; cf. id. at 54-55 (rejecting contention that, in the context of prisoners’ free exercise claims, conduct based on religious commandments should receive more protection than conduct that isa positive expression of belief); see also Levitan v. Ashcroft, 281 F.3d 1313, 1319 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (holding that, because [a] requirement that a religious practice be mandatory to warrant First Amendment protection finds no warrant in the cases of the Supreme Court or of this court, Catholic prisoners could raise free exercise challenge to rule barring them from consuming small amounts of wine during Communion).32 Further, if the Borough’s position _________________________________________________________________ 32. But see Ward v. Walsh, 1 F.3d 873, 878 (9th Cir. 1993) (suggesting, without citing supporting legal authority, that there is a distinction 35 were correct, the Lukumi Court would have considered whether Santeria adherents believe their faith commands them to sacrifice animals. But the Court did not do so, instead deeming it sufficient that they had a sincere desire to sacrifice animals for religious reasons. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 531. Additionally, if anything turned on whether a religious practice is mandatory or optional, courts would have to question the validity of particular litigants’ interpretations of [their] creeds and perhaps even adjudicate controversies over religious authority or dogma, tasks that are not within the judicial ken. Smith , 494 U.S. at 877, 887 (internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Presbyterian Church in U.S. v. Mary Elizabeth Hull Mem’l Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449-50 (1969) (holding that the Free Exercise Clause prohibits courts from deciding church property disputes by resolving underlying conflicts over the interpretation of particular church doctrines and the importance of those doctrines to the religion); see also United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 84-88 (1944) (holding that courts can inquire into the sincerity, but not the truth or falsity, of religious beliefs). Finally, if the First Amendment shielded only compulsory religious practices, religions without commandments would find themselves outside the scope of First Amendment protection altogether, Levitan, 281 F.3d at 1320, a result antithetical to basic Free Exercise Clause norms. See, e.g., Fowler, 345 U.S. at 70 ([I]t is no business of courts to say that what is a religious practice or activity for one group is not religion under the protection of the First Amendment.). As the Borough’s arguments for eschewing strict scrutiny are unpersuasive, we must consider whether its invocation of Ordinance 691 against the lechis is likely to pass that test. _________________________________________________________________ between a religious practice which is a positive expression of belief and a religious commandment which the believer may not violate at peril of his soul in the context of prisoners’ free exercise claims). 36