EdLawConnect Blog

Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (“Ninth Circuit”) affirmed a lower court’s decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (9th Cir. 2021) 991 F.3d 1004, holding that a school district’s direction to a high school football coach not to engage in religious conduct through prayer immediately after the game in front of students and spectators did not violate the coach’s First Amendment right to free speech.  On balance, the Ninth Circuit confirmed that allowing the conduct would have risked the school’s violation of the Establishment Clause.  As outlined below, the case outcome was fact-specific and driven by the unique circumstances giving rise to the Coach’s claim.

On August 29, 2016, a California Court of Appeal backed away from an earlier a decision that employers must accommodate employees based on their association with individuals with a disability. (Castro-Ramirez v. Dependable Highway Express (Aug. 29, 2016) 2016 WL 45066089.) Before the court’s groundbreaking holding in April 2016, as reported in this post, no court had held that the Fair Employment ...

On July 16, 2015, Governor Brown approved an amendment to Government Code section 12940 prohibiting an employer or other covered entity from retaliating, or otherwise discriminating, against a person for requesting accommodation of his or her disability or religious beliefs, regardless of whether the accommodation request was granted.

The legislation stems from the Court of Appeal’s decision in Rope ...