A federal appeals court has granted an injunction to nine religious schools in Ohio that blocks application to them of a recent county order shutting down public and private schools amid a COVID-19 surge. A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, held that the fact that both public and private schools were included in the Dec. 4 shutdown order of the Toledo-Lucas County, Ohio, health department was not the proper comparison for a neutral, generally applicable pandemic restriction. The religious schools’ First Amendment right of free exercise of religion was being infringed because many “comparable” secular businesses were allowed to remain open, the court said. “In Lucas County, the plaintiffs’ schools are closed, while gyms, tanning salons, office buildings, and the Hollywood Casino remain open,” the 6th Circuit panel said in its Dec. 31 order in Monclova Christian Academy v. Toledo-Lucas County Health Department. “The resolution’s restrictions therefore impose greater burdens on the plaintiffs’ conduct than on secular conduct.” The court said its decision was supported by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Nov. 25 decision in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. v. Cuomo , which blocked pandemic-related limits on church […]
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