Young Israel of Tampa
is an Orthodox Synagogue located in Tampa, Florida. The Synagogue hosts many events for the various Jewish holidays and celebrations, including Hanukah festivities and Passover dinners. These events are made to celebrate the Jewish religion and share the Synagogue's teachings with anyone in the community who would like to join. In the winter of 2020, the Synagogue put on its Hanukah celebration, which was titled Hanukah on Ice. The description of the event was that it was a family-friendly event with Ice skating music, food, etc. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, or HART, is a local transit station for the Synagogue. Rabbi Rivkin sought to advertise for the event Hanukah on Ice on HART's transit line. HART had a policy that would not run any ads on their buses that included "alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, obscenity, nudity, pornography, politics, and religion." Due to this policy, HART told Rabbi Rivkin and the Synagogue if they wanted to run the ad, they must remove the menorah from the design as this fell under the category of religion. The Synagogue believed removing the aspect of the menorah from the ad was undoable as the lighting of the menorah is a key aspect of the Hanukah celebration and a central aspect of this family event and there for found this request offensive. The Synagogue refused to remove the menorah; therefore, HART refused to run the ad. The Synagogue then filed suit against HART as the Synagogue felt this violated their protection under the First Amendment.
The issue presented is this advertisement the Synagogue is asking to post blatantly for religious purposes or is this about a family event that just includes religion? In the suit, the council states that this is blatant discrimination based on the group's viewpoints. The case also says that the policy itself must come into question as there are no proper written guidelines to what HART considers "religious," which is one of the subjects the company does not run advertisements on. There is a strong case based on this alone, as without written guidelines to what is and what is not religious is a very slippery slope into biases. This also opens the door to the question of what advertisements can HEART consider religious or just include the concept of religion in the bigger picture. To wrap up the argument in the suit, they explain that discrimination against the idea of religion violates the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause. The policy is not neutral toward religion; instead, the policy directly targets religion by not allowing any mention of it all. The policy burdens religious groups as they are disadvantaged compared to non-religious groups permitted to run ads about family-events through HART.
A significant question brought up in this is does HART count as a non-public, public forum, or limited forum? The Synagogue argues that although HART is classified as a non-public, this should not be the case. In terms of this point, I must side with the Synagogues argument as the Transit line is exposed to the public forum daily. An example the council used where the transit public forum was exposed was the streets and sidewalks. The council finishes this argument that even if the court sided with HART on the fact they are a non-public forum, there is still religious discrimination which violates the First Amendment. The Federal district court found that HART violated the First Amendment as there was clear discrimination toward religious groups and that the ban itself had no proper standards to judge what and what was not religious. The court ordered that HART removes its religious ban on its advertisement
In such cases, it is essential to look back on prior rulings that encompass similar topics as what we see in HART. A recent case with a similar issue was the Archdiocese of Washington against the District of Columbia region's mass transit system. In this case, the Archdiocese of Washington was trying to post an advertisement for their Christmas Charity called Find a Perfect Gift. The District of Columbia region's mass transit systems policy was they would not post any advertisements that promoted or talked poorly about any religious activity; therefore, they denied the Archdiocese of Washington's ad request. The district courts found that The District of Columbia region's mass transit policy did not violate the constitution. This case was heavily criticized as the Supreme Court was unable to hear this case. This is because Justice Kavanaugh was on the district court at the time of this case before a decision was made, so the Justice removed himself from the review of the appeal. Justice Gorsuch and Justice Thomas both state that the Supreme Court can not hear this case as they do not have all of the Justices. The Justices also state that if this formality were not in place, this would be a prime candidate for an appeal. In their statements, the Justices state that not allowing for mention religion in advertisement is clear discrimination and is not neutral. The Justices say that this does not leave The District of Columbia region's mass transit without options to make this less restrictive as the transit system can eliminate all advertisements in general, which would be the only way to make this policy neutral to religious and non-religious groups alike.
Although the Archdiocese of Washington against the District of Columbia region's mass transit system case is vital to look at, the Supreme Court never reviewed this case. For this reason, I believe it is essential to research a case the Supreme Court has reviewed which is another similar case of Good News Club v. Milford Central School. In this case, the Milford Central school allowed residents of the area to use the school after school hours for permitted activities. The Good News Club was a Christian group for children run by county residents who wanted to use the school's facilities for the club. The school denied this based on its religious nature, and the residents filed suit. The Supreme Court ruled that denying the club's request was unconstitutional as it was viewpoint discrimination. The school could not simply deny them access to non-religious groups because of the club's views. I believe this is very important when looking at the case of Young Israel of Tampa v. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority because they share similar dilemmas. The court ruled the school could not hold meetings in the school's building because of the club's religious nature, just as HART said the Synagogue might not run its family-event advertisement due to its religious nature. It is essential to show that both groups' viewpoints were discriminated against by not letting them do something any non-religious group had the opportunity to do just because the action happened to involve the group's religious views.
Looking at this case's facts, I must side with Young Israel of Tampa. This was a very intriguing case to me as there is no "silver bullet" to make an opinion on this case. You must break down the different aspects of how the policy could be unconstitutional. When looking at if the policy is neutral, I believe it is not. Although HART believes this is neutral because they have this policy to avoid controversial topics such as religion and politics, I do not think the policy can be justified in banning any mention of religion. As Justice Gorsuch and Thomas stated in the statement regarding the appeal review of the Archdiocese of Washington against the District of Columbia region's mass transit system, the only way to make this neutral would be to allow all advertisements for family events or none at all. Then you must look at the prior ruling of the Supreme Court case of the Good News Club v. Milford Central School and how this case shows that the court will allow for groups to participate in other opportunities non-religious groups have even if the action being done has a groups religious values or beliefs included. You then must look at whether this policy discriminates towards religious groups, which I believe it does, as it favors non-religious groups over religious groups. I say this because allowing a non-religious group to post an advertisement of a family event while not letting a religious group do the same based on the fact it includes religious aspects is clear discrimination. When it comes to what forum category the transit company falls under. I believe this could be argued as many options, but I do not think this matters for the outcome as if there is religious discrimination, the forum would have less weight in the outcome. I believe this case is more an issue of Freedom to exercise religion, and I think, based on these reasons, the policy does violate the First Amendment making this policy unconstitutional.
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7 comments:
While I agree that based on past precedent like in The Good News Club, that case would probably be ruled in favor of Young Israel of Tampa. However, I do not agree with the rulings in The Good News Club, or other similar cases, as I differ from the court in terms of their definition of viewpoint v. content. While I do acknowledge that it is very difficult to give clear differing definitions between viewpoint and content, I believe that like the in the Good News Club meetings, this poster does have religious content, as its subject matter is inherently religious. Because of this, I believe that HART made the correct decision to initially deny Young Israel of Tampa. I also think that HART's restrictions on religious subject matter were neutral, as it prevented all speech pertaining to religion, not just pro religious speech, and it also prevented other types of controversial speech such as politics.
Great post! I feel as if the Young Temple of Israel should be allowed to advertise with the menorah. If Jehovah's Witnesses have the right to walk around neighborhoods and knock on one's door to promote their religion, I believe that having an advertisement promoting an event is constitutionally acceptable. There advertisement did not belittle any other religion or state that their religion is the best, so the advertisement is neutral in context.
I really enjoyed this post! For starters, I think it is really unfortunate that the Supreme Court would not rule on this case as I think it would be a good precedent to be set. While the menorah is used for a religious ceremony, it is likely many people wouldn't even know what it is or the religious meaning behind it. Additionally, I find it strange that the HART was willing to run the ad without the menorah, as advertising for the event was still advertising a religious event. Adding the menorah to the advertisement does not suddenly make it religious. I do agree with the Temple that they should be allowed to put up the advertisement, regardless of whether the menorah is present.
I enjoyed reading this post and found it to be very insightful how the Supreme Court can defend the First Amendment right and therefore religion ( something our take-home exam has me thinking about more critically). I think one thing that stood out to me when reading the post was the fact that the Federal District Court found that HART violated the First Amendment because there was 1) clear discrimination toward religious groups and that the ban itself had 2) NO PROPER STANDARDS to JUDGE what and what was not religious. I think these two factors made this argument the most convincing.
One thing I noticed was that it was stated that this policy is not neutral because it states no religion can be promoted. I think this is a neutral policy if this ban is applicable to not allow any mention of any religion ( which also makes it discriminatory and unconstitutional).
Great Post! I think this is a super interesting issue. I see where you are coming from and you make valid arguments from your side. However I respectfully disagree. I think that HART does have the ability to deny ads on the basis of their restrictions. As you mentioned there are strict restrictions that the company has when it comes to their advertisements. I think Marlee has a good point in her comment that I agree with. If HART is going to deny the ad because of the menorah, but allow it without the menorah this is contradicting. The company needs to be neutral in the sense that they need to make sure to deny all ads that don't fall within their restrictions. You bring up a point of how it is not neutral because the companies policy directly targets religion. While I dont disagree the religious group is being targeted I think its important to think about the implications of the decision and what would happen if the company did not have restrictions on advertisements. What would the ads look like then?
Great post! I like how you broke down the cases that came before this to discuss how the case should be viewed. I am compelled to side with you here, because I do believe that HART's policy did constitute viewpoint discrimination. Like you said, the rule itself was not neutral, and placed a burden on religious individuals. I also think it's interesting to consider whether or not HART should be considered a public forum. I agree that it should, because it is public transportation that many are taking every day, and thus religious groups should also be granted the freedom to advertise there.
It is important to note that while judaism is a religion, it is also a culture. Advertisements for an event like Hanukkah on Ice, are far more cultural than religious in their basis. Furthermore, the state is placing a substantial burden on the group by not letting them advertise, because they need to get the word out to the Jewish community. It also creates a slippery slope because it allows the local government to decide the difference between what is culturally jewish and what is religious.
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