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March 3, 2020 Press Releases

Humanists Voice Support at SCOTUS for an Unlikely Friend

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March 3, 2020 Press Releases

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Sam Gerard, sgerard@americanhumanist.org, 202-238-9088 ext. 105

(Washington, DC, March 3, 2020)—To defend First Amendment liberties, the American Humanist Association (AHA) filed a friend of the court brief supporting Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)’s case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, at the Supreme Court. The AHA urges the Supreme Court to take ADF’s case to overturn the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling that leaves many victims of First Amendment violations remediless.

Five judges on the Eleventh Circuit agreed in dissent that under the Eleventh Circuit’s recent opinions, “the government gets one free pass at violating your constitutional rights.”

“While the AHA and ADF stand on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum and disagree on the proper interpretation of the Establishment Clause, the AHA and ADF unite in their esteem for First Amendment liberties and our conviction that such rights are meaningless if they cannot be vindicated,” AHA Legal Director and Senior Counsel Monica Miller wrote in the brief. “A society of ordered liberty such as ours demands that governments be held accountable for violating citizens’ constitutional rights.”

This case has implications for several cases pending in the Eleventh Circuit including the AHA’s victory against the Ocala Police Department.

AHA Executive Director Roy Speckhardt commented: “We must hold government officials accountable for violating First Amendment freedoms.”

Read the AHA’s brief here.

# # #

The American Humanist Association (AHA) works to protect the rights of humanists, atheists, and other nontheistic Americans. The AHA advances the ethical and life-affirming worldview of humanism, which—without beliefs in gods or other supernatural forces—encourages individuals to live informed and meaningful lives that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism, affirms a responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity.

Special thanks to the Louis J. Appignani Foundation for their support of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center.

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