A small daily review of Supreme Court news
News from The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won’t get involved in a dispute between breakaway Episcopalians and their former national church over who owns a California church and its property.
The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the St. James Anglican Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles. It is one of several dozen individual parishes and four dioceses nationwide that voted to split from the national church after the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire.
California courts have ruled that, while St. James had the right to split off from the larger church, the congregation could not take parish property with it, even though the parish has held the deed to the church for decades.
Illinois can steer clear of abortion debate, Supreme Court rules — latimes.com
A group pushing for the state to issue a ‘Choose Life’ license plate loses its free-speech claim.
Illinois need not offer “Choose Life” license plates to motorists under a ruling the Supreme Court let stand today.
The justices turned down a free-speech claim from Choose Life Illinois Inc., a group that supports adoption and opposes abortion. It had gathered more than 25,000 signatures from persons who wanted a “Choose Life” plate, but the state refused to issue the specialty plate.
Officials said the state wanted to take no position on the abortion issue.
via Illinois can steer clear of abortion debate, Supreme Court rules — latimes.com.
Justices Decline Review of Pledge, Other School Cases
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied review of several appeals involving public education, including cases about the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, T-shirts bearing Confederate symbols, peer sexual harassment, and special education.
The cases were among several hundred denied by the justices in orders issued on the first formal day of the 2009-10 term of the court. Several of the denials came in cases dealing with hot-button social issues, which I previewed here last month.
The denials of review of the following cases all came without comment by the justices and are not rulings on the merits of the appeals. Here are the education cases denied review on Oct. 5:
via The School Law Blog: Justices Decline Review of Pledge, Other School Cases.
Supreme Court refuses Confederate flag T-shirt case | csmonitor.com
Washington – A group of high school students in Tennessee has lost a lawsuit aimed at forcing school administrators to allow them to wear T-shirts to school displaying the Confederate flag.
A lawyer for the students had taken their free speech fight to the US Supreme Court. On Monday the high court dismissed the case, Barr v. LaFon, without comment.
The action stems from a lawsuit challenging a 2005 policy banning images of the Confederate flag at William Blount High School in Maryville, Tenn.
The ban was enacted during a period of heightened racial tension at the school following an altercation between an African-American student and a white student. In the months that followed, racist graffiti began appearing on school walls, including a drawing of a noose next to a Confederate flag in the boys’ restroom.
Between August 2005 and March 2006, school officials encountered 452 student dress-code violations, including 23 involving displays of the Confederate flag, according to court documents.
Three students, Derek Barr, Roger Craig White, and Chris White, filed a lawsuit claiming the school’s anti-Confederate flag policy frustrated their desire to express their Southern heritage by wearing clothing depicting the Confederate flag to school.
via Supreme Court refuses Confederate flag T-shirt case | csmonitor.com.
