Barring AmeriCorps volunteers from religious speech on their own time would be unconstitutional, Becket Fund says of AJC lawsuitFeb 7, 2003 A lawsuit filed by the American Jewish Congress, seeking to force AmeriCorps
to ban its volunteers from engaging in religious speech on their own time, advocates
"censorship" that not only is "not constitutionally required
, [but] would actually impose a constitutionally prohibited restriction on the
religious free exercise rights of both individuals and organizations,"
according to a Becket Fund amicus curiae brief (PDF format, 175K) filed in federal
court today.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in October
2002, challenges AmeriCorps rules providing that volunteers cannot engage in
religious activities "while charging time to the AmeriCorps program"
or "accumulating service or training hours." The American Jewish Congress
claims that an AmeriCorps participant cannot legally engage in religious activities
on his or her own time "regardless of how such hours spent engaging in
religious instruction are counted for the Corporation's accounting purposes."
The Becket Fund brief notes that AmeriCorps explicitly bars participants from
serving as "religious teachers" or "teaching religion" in
private religious schools while on official AmeriCorps time. To go beyond that
limitation and bar them from engaging in such activity on their own time "would
effectively condition participation in the AmeriCorps program on the surrender
of the right to private religious speech and activity," the Becket Fund
brief states.
"Forcing AmeriCorps volunteer to choose between eligibility for the program
and adherence to their faith is at odds with the fundamental principle that
individuals need not surrender their First Amendment rights to be eligible for
a government benefit," the brief continues. Moreover, such a policy would
violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which, although invalidated
by the Supreme Court as applied to the states, continues to govern federal programs
like AmeriCorps.
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