Judge Sides With Chatham School District In Islam Lawsuit

CHATHAM, NJ — A New Jersey federal judge has once again sided with the School District of the Chathams in a lawsuit claiming that a high school class tried converting students to Islam.

The original lawsuit was dismissed nearly four years after Libby Hilsenrath objected to the Islam-focused lessons at a board meeting and then took her complaints to a national audience on Fox News.

United States Circuit Judges Thomas Hardiman and Paul Brian Matey and Chief Circuit Judge Michael A. Chagares reopened the case on July 20 in the United States Court of Appeals, claiming that summary judgment is appropriate in the original lawsuit.

The decision was made in response to the recent Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, Chagares said. "We hereby vacate the District Court’s judgment entered on November 12, 2020, and remand this case to the District Court for further consideration in light of the Supreme Court’s opinion."

In the Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, petitioner Joseph Kennedy was fired as a high school football coach in the Bremerton School District after kneeling at midfield after games to offer a quiet personal prayer.

Kennedy filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that the District's actions violated the First Amendment's Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses.

The Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, siding with Kennedy.

On Oct. 16, U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty once again dismissed Hilsenrath's complaint, noting that there was "no evidence of significant coercion."

"Kennedy is not, however, legally or factually on point with our case. To begin with, there is no countervailing Free Exercise issue in our case that resembles the one in Kennedy; no coaches, faculty members, or even students are claiming that the authorities punished them for practicing their religion on school property," McNulty said in his 20-page opinion.

In her original complaint, Hilsenrath claimed that during the 2016–17 school year, her son was required to view materials and complete assignments in his World Cultures and Geography class that contained religious teachings about Islam—presented as "facts" rather than beliefs.

Hilsenrath called the teachings "a direct call for students to convert to Islam."

"The all-important context here is that this unit was part of a comprehensive curriculum on world cultures, which necessarily included units about the predominant religions in the particular area of the world being studied," McNulty said. "Religion was not taught as revealed truth, but rather as an important fact about the world."

Hilsenrath's son was enrolled in the mandatory course, which aimed to "develop a broad understanding of the world and its people."

The course devoted a unit to each of the world's major regions, which included lessons on religions commonly practiced in each region. This included lessons on Islam during a unit on the Middle East and North Africa.

The lawsuit focused specifically on two YouTube videos as part of the materials.

However, according to the court opinion, in his deposition, Hilsenrath's son testified that he did not remember much about this video and did not recall feeling coerced.

"The educational units at issue, while exposing students to the tenets of religious faiths in various regions of the world, did not require or coerce students 'to support or participate in' the religious faith covered by that unit. Reasonable students, teachers, and parents would understand that the school’s mission here was pedagogical, even if these course units exposed students to world religions whose adherents engage in proselytization," McNulty said.

During the Oct. 16 school board meeting, Chatham Board of Education President Jill Critchley Weber spoke on the lawsuit, asking Hilsenrath to stop suing the school district and costing them money.

"You figure that after the third time, you'd give it up," Weber said.

Members of the board previously conducted research to determine how much the lawsuit, which is covered by insurance, is costing the school. According to Weber, the lawsuit has cost more than $2 million in legal fees.

Since 2018, Weber previously estimated that the district had spent between $80,000 and $90,000 on legal fees that were not covered by insurance.

"By my count, it's good guys three and Libby zero. I would implore her to maybe stop with the lawsuits since her son's in college now, and to my knowledge, he has not converted to Islam," Weber said.