The American Jewish Committee In The Courts

American Jewish Committee
Wednesday, 3 September 1997

The American Jewish Committee has just released its most recent Litigation Report, titled "AJC in the Courts" (August 1997), in which the human relations organization summarizes its participation in recent First Amendment, civil rights and reproductive rights cases.

In its introduction, the report notes that "In 1923, AJC filed its first amicus curiae, or 'friend of the court,' brief in the U.S. Supreme Court….Since that time, AJC has been involved in most of the landmark civil- and religious-rights causes in American jurisprudence. These cases have addressed the issues of free exercise of religion; separation of church and state; discrimination in employment, education, housing, and private clubs based on religion, race, sex, and sexual orientation; women's reproductive rights; and immigration and asylum rights."

Among some of the cases highlighted in AJC's Litigation Report: Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet (the establishment of a special school district for Satmar Hasidic children in an independent village carved out of the town of Monroe, NY); Rachel Bauchman v. West High School (a 15-year-old public high school student in Salt Lake City questions why the songs sung in her choir class were predominantly religious devotionals performed at local churches); City of Boerne v. Flores (the right of a religious community to worship together, and the right of excluded individuals to attend the Roman Catholic Mass, in St. Peter Church in Boerne, Texas); Agostini v. Felton (sending public school teachers into parochial school classrooms); Evans v. Romer (Colorado's Amendment 2, seeking to bar all laws, regulations, ordinances, or policies to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation); and United States v. Commonwealth of Virginia (exclusion of women from its state-supported military college, the Virginia Military Institute).

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org