ACLU of Kentucky

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 2:09 pm
Next week at WKU we will host a forum on the Death Penalty.

Morris Dees to deliver Keynote at Bill of Rights Dinner

Monday, April 20, 2009, 1:09 pm

The ACLU of KY is honored to be hosting Morris Dees, Co-Founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as our Keynote Speaker at the 2009 Bill of Rights Dinner on Thursday, October 1st. The dinner will be held this year at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Louisville.

Please join us in welcoming Mr. Dees to Kentucky by attending a pre-dinner reception where you can talk with Mr. Dees personally, or attend the dinner to hear him speak of his journey in the Civil Rights history of the United States. Tickets and on-line registration coming in May!

In 1967, lawyer Morris Dees had achieved extraordinary business and financial success with his book publishing company. The son of an Alabama farmer, he witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice. He sympathized with the Civil Rights Movement but had not become actively involved. A night of soul searching at a snowed-in Cincinnati airport changed his life, inspiring Dees to leave his safe, business-as-usual world and undertake a new mission.

Friday, April 10, 2009, 2:56 pm

Morrison v. Boyd County Board of Education
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

    This case originated as one in which the ACLU represented some students who wished to form a Gay-Straight Alliance group at their school. Although the school initially denied the students’ request, the school agreed to allow the GSA after the ACLU sent a letter to the school's Site Based Decision Making Council in October, 2002. The Boyd Co. Board of Education overruled this decision, however, and rejected the students’ request to form a GSA. In response, the ACLU of Kentucky and the national ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project initiated a lawsuit on behalf of the students.

    The Board of Education initially sought to circumvent our efforts on behalf of the students by "suspending" all student organizations throughout the school district. This tactic proved unsuccessful, however, and U.S. District Judge David Bunning granted our request for a preliminary injunction and ordered the GSA be recognized and afforded equal status with other student organizations. The parties eventually reached an agreement whereby the Board agreed to recognize the GSA, treat it as any other student organization and to implement a district-wide mandatory anti-harassment program for all middle and high school students, faculty and staff. Despite the ACLU's offer of assistance, the Boyd Co. Board of Education elected to develop the program without ACLU involvement or advice.

    The anti-harassment program developed by the Board ultimately resulted in a legal challenge by another Boyd County student, Timothy Morrison, who was represented by the Alliance Defense Fund. The plaintiff challenged the Board’s anti-harassment program on the basis that: (a) the training program violated the First Amendment by prohibiting students from expressing disagreement with, or criticisms of, homosexuality, and (b) the mandatory attendance requirement violated the right to freely exercise one’s religion because the program’s content contradicted his religious beliefs. We agreed with Morrison’s first argument (but not his second) and on that basis sought to intervene in the lawsuit. Judge Bunning refused to decide the constitutional free speech question, however, because the Board adopted a new anti-harassment policy that all parties agreed satisfied constitutional scrutiny.

    Morrison appealed Judge Bunning’s decision to avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the first training program and we agreed with Morrison that the Court should have reached that question. On that issue, the ACLU of Kentucky and that national ACLU’s LGBT Project participated in Morrison’s appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and in July, 2007, Sharon McGowan of the national ACLU’s LGBT Project argued the point at the Sixth Circuit.

    After initially obtaining a favorable opinion in a split 2-1 decision in October, 2007, one of the two majority judges abruptly reversed course and sided with the judge previously in the minority. This second opinion, issued in April 2008, held in favor of the Board and rejected Morrison’s claim that his request for nominal damages required the court to reach the constitutional question. The litigation recently came to a final conclusion in February, 2009 when the U.S. Supreme Court refused Morrison’s petition for cert. to review the second (and final) opinion from the Sixth Circuit.

Pedreira v. Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, Inc.

Friday, April 10, 2009, 2:56 pm

Pedreira v. Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, Inc.
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

    In this case, the state-funded Ky. Baptist Homes for Children (now Sunrise Children’s Services) fired Alicia Pedreira for being a lesbian because that was inconsistent with the organization’s religious-based standards. In 2000, the national ACLU’s LGBT Project, the ACLU of Kentucky and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ms. Pedreira and other Kentucky taxpayers seeking to challenge Kentucky’s funding of KBHC. Ms. Pedreira’s discrimination claims were dismissed on the basis that although religious-based discrimination is unlawful, the discrimination at issue here was based upon her sexual orientation and not her religious affiliation. After several years of continued litigation over the remaining Establishment clause claims, the District Court dismissed the case in March, 2008 on the basis that the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the legislative appropriations to KBHC because there was not a sufficient “nexus” between the appropriations and the allegedly unconstitutional actions.

    The Plaintiffs appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals where Alex Luchenitser of Americans United argued on behalf of the plaintiffs on March 11, 2009. We expect a ruling from the Sixth Circuit later this year.

Juror Questionnaire Forms

Friday, April 10, 2009, 2:55 pm

Juror Questionnaire Forms
Resolved without litigation

    Here, we learned that Graves Circuit Court Judge Timothy C. Stark issued juror summonses in connection with a pending capital case nearing trial. Included in the juror questionnaire forms were the following questions:

    - What is your religious affiliation?
    - If married, what is your spouse's religious affiliation?
    - How often do you attend church?
    - Do you or your spouse hold an office or position at your church?
          If so, please specify

    We submitted a letter to Judge Stark and the Administrative Office of the Courts outlining our concerns over the inclusion of those questions on the basis that the questions represented an impermissible invasion of jurors’ interest in the nondisclosure of private matters. We specifically noted that although such information might be appropriately compelled in rare circumstances where the information would touch upon the jurors’ ability to impartially decide a case, the routine inclusion of those questions (as appeared to be the case here) would impermissibly encroach upon the jurors’ privacy interest in the information and would erode the community’s confidence in the judicial system and the jury selection process. We also noted that the routine inclusion of these questions would invite litigants to improperly exercise peremptory challenges based upon religious affiliation in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

    In response to our inquiry, we received an assurance from the Administrative Office of the Courts on April 1, 2008 that Judge Stark does not routinely include those questions in his juror questionnaire forms and that he would not use the specific form at issue in any future cases.

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