Interesting Church/State Case

Via Howard Friedman comes this story about a church/state case in South Carolina. Woodland High School has been renting its gym to a Southern Baptist church on Sundays for church services for nearly a year for $250 per week. But the school has been trying to evict the church, claiming that they did not intend the arrangement to be permanent and that the church is being subsidized by paying below market rent. U.S. District Judge David Norton just issued an order saying that the church could continue to use the gymasium under the current arrangement until the trial is finished. His reasoning appears sound:

"Defendants' argument that it is subsidizing religion by charging a 'below-market rate' is also without merit," Norton wrote.

"All organizations that use Woodland High School are charged the same amount, and any below market benefit is had by all groups that use the school," he said.

Norton added that if the district feels its schedule of fees is too low, "it can raise the fees charged to all community organizations. Again, any 'harm' to defendants is the direct result of their own actions," he said.

This looks like an easy case to me. Under Lamb's Chapel and Good News Club, a school that makes their facilities available to community groups cannot refuse to rent to religious groups, nor can they charge them more than any other group. If the school district's rate is $250 a week for any group that wants to rent the school gym for that period of time, then it must be that for all groups. If they want to raise that rate, they have to raise it for all groups. They're gonna lose this case and they should cut their losses now rather than cost the district any more money.

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Yeah, the "below market rate" argument was a non-starter, and I can't figure out why their lawyer didn't realize that. If I were on the board, I would ask the lawyer that question. If they want the church or any other group not to be a permanent resident, it seems they could institute a new rule stating that use of the gym is on a temporary basis for all outside groups. If they have a problem with what the church does (leave the gym messy or something like that), it seems they could have addressed it more directly. I suspect fairly strongly that we don't know the whole story, because there is no way a South Carolina school board is antagonistic to religion in general,or southern baptist churches in particular.

By Mark Paris (not verified) on 15 Jun 2006 #permalink

$250/week equates $13,000/year. That doesn't seem below-market value for a school gymnasium in rural South Carolina. I can't imagine there's a whole folk of "community groups" beating down their door for that piece of prime real estate.

How about this. The church uses the school on Sundays. I wonder if two-tiered pricing based on day of use [not type of group using] would stand up? One rate for using school facilities in the evenings during the week, say, and a separate weekend rate [presumably higher]. Would that survive scrutiny, or could it be argued that day of use pricing necessarily discriminates against religious groups whose need for the facility necessarily falls on a weekend day. Should such an argument be compelling?

By flatlander100 (not verified) on 15 Jun 2006 #permalink

Have neither of the parties involved never heard of a lease, or do such documents not apply when the property is government property? It seems foolish that the school district would just start taking someone's "rent" checks and expect to force them to clear out posthaste on demand, and equally foolish for the church to willingly operate without assurance they would be given ample time to pick up and leave in the event of conflict.

flatlander wrote:

How about this. The church uses the school on Sundays. I wonder if two-tiered pricing based on day of use [not type of group using] would stand up? One rate for using school facilities in the evenings during the week, say, and a separate weekend rate [presumably higher]. Would that survive scrutiny, or could it be argued that day of use pricing necessarily discriminates against religious groups whose need for the facility necessarily falls on a weekend day. Should such an argument be compelling?

I can see such an argument standing up if one could justify it. For example, district rules may well say that whenever any activity is going on in the school, there must be a janitor or a guard present, and if union rules say that working on Sunday means double time pay, that could justify the increased cost. But it would be important for the rate to be the same for any group leasing on Sunday, not just a church group.

It seems unjust to make the school rent to someone they don't want to rent to. They do need to get the church to sign a lease with an end date while explicitly having a policy that they would be open to religious groups in general--just not this group.

wait a minute. I just read the actual article. The church had a contract which the school was refusing to renew. That does not sound like the school is refusing to rent to ALL religous groups, just this one.

Susan-

If the school makes their facilities available for rental, they cannot pick and choose who they will and won't rent to on the basis of the content of the meeting. The courts have made that clear many times.

As I said earlier, I suspect there is more to the story than in the article.

By Mark Paris (not verified) on 15 Jun 2006 #permalink