csmonitor--2020-07-09--Supreme Court: Trump tax records open for DA, not Congress – yet

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Manhattan district attorney 's demand for President Donald Trump 's tax returns , but kept a hold on Mr. Trump ’ s financial records that Congress has been seeking for more than a year .
The outcome in the two cases is at least a short-term victory for Mr. Trump , who has strenuously sought to keep his financial records private .
But the justices rejected arguments by Mr. Trump ’ s lawyers and the Justice Department that the president is immune from investigation while he holds office or that a prosecutor must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obtain the records .
The tax returns are being sought as part of a grand-jury investigation .
Because the grand jury process is confidential , the rulings make it likely that none of Mr. Trump ’ s financial records will become public soon .
Mr. Trump ’ s two high court appointees , Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh , joined the majority in both cases along with Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal justices .
Chief Justice Roberts wrote both opinions .
`` Congressional subpoenas for information from the President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the separation of powers .
The courts below did not take adequate account of those concerns , '' Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the congressional case .
The ruling returns the case to lower courts , with no clear prospect for when the case might ultimately be resolved .
The tax returns case also is headed back to a lower court .
The case was argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic .
The fight over the congressional subpoenas has significant implications regarding a president ’ s power to refuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a separate fight at the federal appeals court in Washington , D.C. , over a congressional demand for the testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn , the administration is making broad arguments that the president ’ s close advisers are “ absolutely immune ” from having to appear .
In two earlier cases over presidential power , the Supreme Court acted unanimously in requiring President Richard Nixon to turn over White House tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor and in allowing a sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton to go forward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appointees and two Clinton appointees , respectively , voted against the president who chose them for the high court .
A fourth Nixon appointee , William Rehnquist , sat out the tapes case because he had worked closely as a Justice Department official with some of the Watergate conspirators whose upcoming trial spurred the subpoena for the Oval Office recordings .
The subpoenas are not directed at Mr. Trump himself .
Instead , House committees want records from Deutsche Bank , Capital One , and the Mazars USA accounting firm .
Mazars also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cyrus Vance ’ s subpoena .
Appellate courts in Washington , D.C. , and New York brushed aside the president ’ s arguments in decisions that focused on the fact that the subpoenas were addressed to third parties asking for records of Mr. Trump ’ s business and financial dealings as a private citizen , not as president .
Two congressional committees subpoenaed the bank documents as part of their investigations into Mr. Trump and his businesses .
Deutsche Bank has been one of the few banks willing to lend to Mr. Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defaults starting in the early 1990s .
Vance and the House Oversight and Reform Committee sought records from Mazars concerning Mr. Trump and his businesses based on payments that Mr. Trump ’ s former personal lawyer , Michael Cohen , arranged to keep two women from airing their claims of decade-old extramarital affairs with Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential race .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
@ @ @ @ @

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Manhattan district attorney's demand for President Donald Trump's tax returns, but kept a hold on Mr. Trump’s financial records that Congress has been seeking for more than a year.
The outcome in the two cases is at least a short-term victory for Mr. Trump, who has strenuously sought to keep his financial records private.
But the justices rejected arguments by Mr. Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department that the president is immune from investigation while he holds office or that a prosecutor must show a greater need than normal to obtain the records. The tax returns are being sought as part of a grand-jury investigation.
Because the grand jury process is confidential, the rulings make it likely that none of Mr. Trump’s financial records will become public soon.
Mr. Trump’s two high court appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, joined the majority in both cases along with Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal justices. Chief Justice Roberts wrote both opinions.
"Congressional subpoenas for information from the President, however, implicate special concerns regarding the separation of powers. The courts below did not take adequate account of those concerns," Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the congressional case.
The ruling returns the case to lower courts, with no clear prospect for when the case might ultimately be resolved. The tax returns case also is headed back to a lower court.
The case was argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The fight over the congressional subpoenas has significant implications regarding a president’s power to refuse a formal request from Congress. In a separate fight at the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., over a congressional demand for the testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn, the administration is making broad arguments that the president’s close advisers are “absolutely immune” from having to appear.
In two earlier cases over presidential power, the Supreme Court acted unanimously in requiring President Richard Nixon to turn over White House tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor and in allowing a sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton to go forward.
In those cases, three Nixon appointees and two Clinton appointees, respectively, voted against the president who chose them for the high court. A fourth Nixon appointee, William Rehnquist, sat out the tapes case because he had worked closely as a Justice Department official with some of the Watergate conspirators whose upcoming trial spurred the subpoena for the Oval Office recordings.
The subpoenas are not directed at Mr. Trump himself. Instead, House committees want records from Deutsche Bank, Capital One, and the Mazars USA accounting firm. Mazars also is the recipient of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s subpoena.
Appellate courts in Washington, D.C., and New York brushed aside the president’s arguments in decisions that focused on the fact that the subpoenas were addressed to third parties asking for records of Mr. Trump’s business and financial dealings as a private citizen, not as president.
Two congressional committees subpoenaed the bank documents as part of their investigations into Mr. Trump and his businesses. Deutsche Bank has been one of the few banks willing to lend to Mr. Trump after a series of corporate bankruptcies and defaults starting in the early 1990s.
Vance and the House Oversight and Reform Committee sought records from Mazars concerning Mr. Trump and his businesses based on payments that Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, arranged to keep two women from airing their claims of decade-old extramarital affairs with Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential race.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-07-10--‘Law School 101’: How Supreme Court ended its term

“ The legal conclusions of the Court were really ‘ Law School 101 , ’ ” writes Kimberly West-Faulcon , a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles , in an email .
The second case involved congressional subpoenas for many of the same documents .
Justices ruled that Congress can ’ t obtain those records for now , while lower courts consider whether lawmakers should narrow the scope of the information they want to see .
The high court ruled that President Trump has no absolute right to block state prosecutors from seeing such records .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s subpoena of Trump financial records as part of an investigation into hush money payments made by Mr. Trump ’ s personal lawyer , Michael Cohen , prior to the 2016 election .
The opinions , both decided by 7-2 majorities , held that President Donald Trump can ’ t block subpoenas seeking years of his personal financial records from third parties .
Both emphasized the importance of the rule of law and the specific point that no U.S. president is above it .
The Supreme Court ended its term on Thursday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a clinic in introductory constitutional law .
An eventful U.S. Supreme Court term ended yesterday less with a bang than perhaps the thud of a beginner ’ s constitutional law textbook closing .
In two principles-heavy opinions Chief Justice John Roberts , joined by almost all of his eight colleagues , wrote that President Donald Trump can ’ t block subpoenas seeking years of his personal financial records from third parties .
To some experts , the opinions showed the high court standing up for the rule of law in general and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is above it .
“ The legal conclusions of the Court were really ‘ Law School 101 , ’ ” wrote Kimberly West-Faulcon , a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles , in an email .
“ They read to me a bit like the Supreme Court trying to bring President Trump up to speed on how Presidents have behaved over the last 200 years.
” The president can continue to plead his case in lower courts , and the financial records are expected to remain secret until after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upshot is that the court has affirmed not only the long-established principle that the president is not a king , but also that Congress has the power – with some restrictions – to subpoena a president ’ s non-privileged records .
“ We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need , ” wrote Chief Justice Roberts in the opinion for Trump v. Vance , the case concerning subpoenas sought by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that the court ruled against President Trump – which had been , until this term , a rarity for the majority-conservative court – neither the decision in Vance nor the decision in Trump v. Mazars , the case concerning the House subpoenas , surprised most court watchers .
In a time of stark divisions and political polarization , the Supreme Court acting as the Supreme Court should , they say , is cause for encouragement and optimism .
“ The fact the court spoke with such unanimity on these decisions is critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its legacy , and to knit the country back together at a time when our politics has our country so deeply fractured , ” says Claire Finkelstein , faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School .
As fundamental as the legal principles were , both cases brought their own novelties .
In Vance , the court was reviewing for the first time whether a sitting president is immune from a state criminal proceeding .
The Manhattan district attorney has been seeking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ records from the Trump Organization and Trump-related businesses as part of an investigation into hush money payments from Mr. Trump ’ s former personal lawyer , Michael Cohen , prior to the 2016 election .
Mr. Trump sued in his personal capacity to block the subpoenas , and throughout litigation in lower courts he claimed that , as a sitting president , he should be immune from state criminal investigations .
Before the Supreme Court , the U.S. solicitor general , arguing in favor of the president , didn ’ t adopt that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that state grand jury subpoenas must “ satisfy a heightened standard of need ” for a sitting president ’ s personal records .
“ If there be a paper in the possession of the executive , which is not of an official nature , he must stand , as respects that paper , in nearly the same situation with any other individual , ” wrote Chief Justice Roberts , quoting Chief Justice John Marshall ’ s ruling in 1807 that then-President Thomas Jefferson had to comply with document requests for Aaron Burr ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ addressing another concern of Mr. Trump and the solicitor general , the court noted that existing laws already prevent state officials and grand juries from harassing the executive branch with arbitrary and frivolous investigations .
“ Two centuries of experience confirm that a properly tailored criminal subpoena will not normally hamper the performance of the President ’ s constitutional duties , ” wrote Chief Justice Roberts .
Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch , both appointed by Mr. Trump , agreed with the majority ’ s judgment , but wrote in a concurrence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to show a “ demonstrated , specific need ” for a president ’ s personal records , as the Watergate special prosecutor was required to .
In a dissent , Justice Samuel Alito argued for even more .
“ The Constitution demands greater protection for an institution that is vital to the Nation ’ s safety and well-being , ” he wrote .
Justice Clarence Thomas made similar arguments in another dissent , but Chief Justice Roberts noted in his opinion that the court agreed unanimously that a president isn ’ t immune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while he described Justice Alito ’ s call for heightened protection as a “ double standard [ with ] no basis in law , ” he added in a footnote that the majority and Justice Thomas also agree that , while presidents must comply with subpoenas like any other citizen , they can challenge subpoenas for impeding their unique constitutional duties .
“ The daylight between our opinion and Justice Thomas ’ s ‘ dissent ’ is not as great as that label might suggest , ” the chief justice wrote .
President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court rulings , calling them `` part of a political witch hunt and a hoax , ” during a roundtable discussion with members of the Hispanic community in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington , July 9 , 2020 .
The House case Like the Manhattan district attorney , three House committees issued subpoenas for years of financial records held by third parties for the Trump Organization and Trump-related businesses .
Mr. Trump again sued in his personal capacity to block the subpoenas , claiming that the committees didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subpoenas in the first place .
The novelty here , Chief Justice Roberts explained , is that inter-branch disputes like these have normally been resolved outside court .
Here , however – as with many disputes between Congress and the Trump administration – the White House has refused to comply with any requests or subpoenas from the legislature .
Mr. Trump and the solicitor general argued that the House committees failed to establish a “ demonstrated , specific need ” for the financial records , or outline a clear legislative purpose .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further that the subpoenas weren ’ t “ momentous separation-of-powers disputes , ” given they are non-privileged , personal records outside the executive branch .
In a 7-2 ruling , the Supreme Court disagreed with both Mr. Trump and the House .
The heightened standards Mr. Trump and his administration argued for make sense for privileged materials , Chief Justice Roberts wrote , but “ if applied outside the context of privileged information , would risk seriously impeding Congress in carrying out its responsibilities.
” The House , meanwhile , failed to “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of powers issues ” raised by its subpoenas , the chief justice wrote .
Indeed , “ the House ’ s approach [ would leave ] essentially no limits on the congressional power to subpoena the President ’ s personal records.
” Both parties made flawed arguments , the court ultimately ruled , failing to identify a suitable way to balance their valid and competing concerns .
The court has sent the case back to the lower courts , but with the significant conclusion that , after hearing for the first time the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president ’ s records , the answer is yes – provided four tests are met .
“ There ’ s no bright line rule , and this does give the president the opportunity to make arguments about interference for as long as he ’ s going to be president , ” says Michael Gerhardt , a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law .
But “ it should not be surprising if the courts conclude that whatever burden is placed on Trump isn ’ t as important or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the information.
” The two decisions may not be total losses for the presidency , both in the short and long term .
The Manhattan district attorney can now access Mr. Trump ’ s financial records , though the president could appeal again on different grounds .
The House committees may also try to reissue their subpoenas in line with the court ’ s four tests .
But while Mr. Trump may not have a clear victory in either case , the public is unlikely to see his financial records before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michael Waldman , president of the Brennan Center for Justice , wrote in The Washington Post , the court ’ s new tests may limit – perhaps even eliminate – Congress ’ ability to investigate potential wrongdoing absent a clear legislative purpose .
Still , the two rulings carry great long-term significance , experts say , and they will surely rank alongside other landmark decisions in the court ’ s history .
The Supreme Court decided two of its most politically charged cases of the term with a clinic on basic constitutional law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ educating the president on the principles laid down 200 years ago by the founding generations whose monument he spoke in front of last weekend .
And at a time of deep political divisions , with public opinion of the court increasingly split along partisan lines , yesterday ’ s decisions may reinforce the perception that the high court is resisting the urge to join the political fray .
“ The Court has stood up for the ‘ rule of law ’ in general and the specific principle that the U.S. President is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ School ’ s Ms. West-Faulcon .

“The legal conclusions of the Court were really ‘Law School 101,’” writes Kimberly West-Faulcon, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, in an email.
The second case involved congressional subpoenas for many of the same documents. Justices ruled that Congress can’t obtain those records for now, while lower courts consider whether lawmakers should narrow the scope of the information they want to see.
The high court ruled that President Trump has no absolute right to block state prosecutors from seeing such records.
One case involved the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena of Trump financial records as part of an investigation into hush money payments made by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, prior to the 2016 election.
At a time of deep U.S. political polarization, the Supreme Court ended its term with two decisions that emphasized unifying basic principles: the importance of the rule of law, and the fact that it applies to everyone, including presidents.
The opinions, both decided by 7-2 majorities, held that President Donald Trump can’t block subpoenas seeking years of his personal financial records from third parties. Both emphasized the importance of the rule of law and the specific point that no U.S. president is above it.
The Supreme Court ended its term on Thursday with two principles-heavy opinions that were something of a clinic in introductory constitutional law.
An eventful U.S. Supreme Court term ended yesterday less with a bang than perhaps the thud of a beginner’s constitutional law textbook closing.
In two principles-heavy opinions Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by almost all of his eight colleagues, wrote that President Donald Trump can’t block subpoenas seeking years of his personal financial records from third parties.
To some experts, the opinions showed the high court standing up for the rule of law in general and emphasizing the specific point that no president is above it.
Why We Wrote This At a time of deep U.S. political polarization, the Supreme Court ended its term with two decisions that emphasized unifying basic principles: the importance of the rule of law, and the fact that it applies to everyone, including presidents.
“The legal conclusions of the Court were really ‘Law School 101,’” wrote Kimberly West-Faulcon, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, in an email. “They read to me a bit like the Supreme Court trying to bring President Trump up to speed on how Presidents have behaved over the last 200 years.”
The president can continue to plead his case in lower courts, and the financial records are expected to remain secret until after the election in November.
But the upshot is that the court has affirmed not only the long-established principle that the president is not a king, but also that Congress has the power – with some restrictions – to subpoena a president’s non-privileged records.
“We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts in the opinion for Trump v. Vance, the case concerning subpoenas sought by the Manhattan district attorney.
Outside of the fact that the court ruled against President Trump – which had been, until this term, a rarity for the majority-conservative court – neither the decision in Vance nor the decision in Trump v. Mazars, the case concerning the House subpoenas, surprised most court watchers. In a time of stark divisions and political polarization, the Supreme Court acting as the Supreme Court should, they say, is cause for encouragement and optimism.
“The fact the court spoke with such unanimity on these decisions is critical for the court’s credibility, its legacy, and to knit the country back together at a time when our politics has our country so deeply fractured,” says Claire Finkelstein, faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
The Manhattan case
As fundamental as the legal principles were, both cases brought their own novelties.
In Vance, the court was reviewing for the first time whether a sitting president is immune from a state criminal proceeding. The Manhattan district attorney has been seeking from an accounting firm years of financial records from the Trump Organization and Trump-related businesses as part of an investigation into hush money payments from Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, prior to the 2016 election.
Mr. Trump sued in his personal capacity to block the subpoenas, and throughout litigation in lower courts he claimed that, as a sitting president, he should be immune from state criminal investigations.
Before the Supreme Court, the U.S. solicitor general, arguing in favor of the president, didn’t adopt that argument. What he argued instead was that state grand jury subpoenas must “satisfy a heightened standard of need” for a sitting president’s personal records.
A 7-2 majority of justices rejected both claims.
“If there be a paper in the possession of the executive, which is not of an official nature, he must stand, as respects that paper, in nearly the same situation with any other individual,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts, quoting Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling in 1807 that then-President Thomas Jefferson had to comply with document requests for Aaron Burr’s trial for treason.
Furthermore, addressing another concern of Mr. Trump and the solicitor general, the court noted that existing laws already prevent state officials and grand juries from harassing the executive branch with arbitrary and frivolous investigations.
“Two centuries of experience confirm that a properly tailored criminal subpoena will not normally hamper the performance of the President’s constitutional duties,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts.
Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, both appointed by Mr. Trump, agreed with the majority’s judgment, but wrote in a concurrence that they would have required a state to show a “demonstrated, specific need” for a president’s personal records, as the Watergate special prosecutor was required to.
In a dissent, Justice Samuel Alito argued for even more.
“The Constitution demands greater protection for an institution that is vital to the Nation’s safety and well-being,” he wrote.
Justice Clarence Thomas made similar arguments in another dissent, but Chief Justice Roberts noted in his opinion that the court agreed unanimously that a president isn’t immune from a state criminal investigation. And while he described Justice Alito’s call for heightened protection as a “double standard [with] no basis in law,” he added in a footnote that the majority and Justice Thomas also agree that, while presidents must comply with subpoenas like any other citizen, they can challenge subpoenas for impeding their unique constitutional duties.
“The daylight between our opinion and Justice Thomas’s ‘dissent’ is not as great as that label might suggest,” the chief justice wrote.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters View caption Hide caption President Donald Trump speaks about today's Supreme Court rulings, calling them "part of a political witch hunt and a hoax,” during a roundtable discussion with members of the Hispanic community in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, July 9, 2020.
Like the Manhattan district attorney, three House committees issued subpoenas for years of financial records held by third parties for the Trump Organization and Trump-related businesses. Mr. Trump again sued in his personal capacity to block the subpoenas, claiming that the committees didn’t have the authority to issue the subpoenas in the first place.
The novelty here, Chief Justice Roberts explained, is that inter-branch disputes like these have normally been resolved outside court. Here, however – as with many disputes between Congress and the Trump administration – the White House has refused to comply with any requests or subpoenas from the legislature.
Mr. Trump and the solicitor general argued that the House committees failed to establish a “demonstrated, specific need” for the financial records, or outline a clear legislative purpose. The House argued the opposite, and claimed further that the subpoenas weren’t “momentous separation-of-powers disputes,” given they are non-privileged, personal records outside the executive branch.
In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed with both Mr. Trump and the House. The heightened standards Mr. Trump and his administration argued for make sense for privileged materials, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, but “if applied outside the context of privileged information, would risk seriously impeding Congress in carrying out its responsibilities.”
The House, meanwhile, failed to “take adequate account of the significant separation of powers issues” raised by its subpoenas, the chief justice wrote. Indeed, “the House’s approach [would leave] essentially no limits on the congressional power to subpoena the President’s personal records.”
Both parties made flawed arguments, the court ultimately ruled, failing to identify a suitable way to balance their valid and competing concerns. The court has sent the case back to the lower courts, but with the significant conclusion that, after hearing for the first time the question of whether Congress can subpoena a president’s records, the answer is yes – provided four tests are met.
“There’s no bright line rule, and this does give the president the opportunity to make arguments about interference for as long as he’s going to be president,” says Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. But “it should not be surprising if the courts conclude that whatever burden is placed on Trump isn’t as important or weighty as the government’s need for the information.”
Constitutional law clinic
The two decisions may not be total losses for the presidency, both in the short and long term.
The Manhattan district attorney can now access Mr. Trump’s financial records, though the president could appeal again on different grounds. The House committees may also try to reissue their subpoenas in line with the court’s four tests.
But while Mr. Trump may not have a clear victory in either case, the public is unlikely to see his financial records before the presidential election in November. And as Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote in The Washington Post, the court’s new tests may limit – perhaps even eliminate – Congress’ ability to investigate potential wrongdoing absent a clear legislative purpose.
Still, the two rulings carry great long-term significance, experts say, and they will surely rank alongside other landmark decisions in the court’s history.
The Supreme Court decided two of its most politically charged cases of the term with a clinic on basic constitutional law and history, with the majority seemingly educating the president on the principles laid down 200 years ago by the founding generations whose monument he spoke in front of last weekend.
And at a time of deep political divisions, with public opinion of the court increasingly split along partisan lines, yesterday’s decisions may reinforce the perception that the high court is resisting the urge to join the political fray.
“The Court has stood up for the ‘rule of law’ in general and the specific principle that the U.S. President is not a king,” wrote Loyola Law School’s Ms. West-Faulcon.


csmonitor--2020-07-10--Points of Progress: Fiji reefs restored with traditional knowledge, and more

NASA ’ s headquarters building in Washington , D.C. , will be named after Mary W. Jackson , the agency ’ s first African American female engineer .
Ms. Jackson began her career at Langley Research Center in Hampton , Virginia , as a mathematician in the 1950s .
After getting special permission to participate in a training program at a segregated high school , she was promoted to engineer .
Her story was popularized by the 2016 book and movie “ Hidden Figures.
” Three years later , she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal , along with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Christine Darden .
“ NASA facilities across the country are named after people who dedicated their lives to push the frontiers of the aerospace industry , ” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine .
“ The nation is beginning to awaken to the greater need to honor the full diversity of people who helped pioneer our great nation.
” ( NASA ) Researchers have reencountered the ultra-rare blue calamintha bee , which was last observed in 2016 .
The shiny navy blue bee is believed to live only in the Lake Wales @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country ’ s most diverse and fastest-disappearing ecosystems .
In fact , scientists weren ’ t sure the rare insect still existed .
Over the next year , researchers will continue recording its whereabouts to better understand the species ’ range and behavior .
Florida ’ s State Wildlife Action Plan currently lists the blue bee as a species of greatest conservation need .
Depending on what researchers discover in the coming months , it could qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act .
( Florida Museum ) Colombian environmental group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forests by persuading farmers in San Lucas to plant coffee instead of coca , which is used to make cocaine .
The dense forests are home to rare predators such as ocelots , a type of small wild cat , and highly endangered spectacled bears .
Deforestation spiked after a 2016 peace deal with the country ’ s largest rebel group , the FARC , and the ecosystem is threatened by drug cultivation .
In a first-of-its kind project , WebConserva has partnered at least 10 families with coffee roasters across Colombia who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of forest .
Participants promise to act as good stewards of the land and refrain from chopping down additional trees or hunting the forest ’ s animals .
The goal is to protect roughly 50,000 acres of forest by signing on 200 families .
( Reuters ) The Constitutional Court has ruled that children of unmarried people who were denaturalized by Nazis are eligible for German citizenship .
The case centered around a woman born to an American mother and Jewish father who was stripped of his German citizenship by Nazis in 1938 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ born in 1967 in the United States , was entitled to the same naturalization rights as children of married couples , and local courts had unlawfully discriminated against her because of her parents ’ marital status .
The ruling reaffirms the country ’ s Basic Law , which states that any Germans who were denaturalized based on political , racial , or religious grounds during Adolf Hitler ’ s 12-year reign can get their citizenship back , along with their descendants .
( Reuters ) With the help of an updated weather forecasting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ track incoming storms and alert people , allowing them to avoid being caught by mudslides and flooding .
The life-saving technology has been used by developed countries for years , but was largely unavailable in sub-Saharan Africa .
As extreme weather becomes more common across the continent , a project at the University of Leeds in England has made real-time satellite data available to countries such as Senegal , Nigeria , Ghana , and Kenya .
“ We had forecasting methods before but they were not as good , ” said David Koros @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department .
“ It ’ s very important because we can issue information for the safety of lives , property , and the environment.
” ( Thomson Reuters Foundation ) Local reefs are in robust health after Fijians reintroduced an ancient reef and fishery management tool following decades of overfishing .
Tabus , or no-fishing zones marked with pillars in the sea floor , had not been used in the Navakavu reef for about half a century .
Originally , tabus were used after a chief ’ s death to close off fishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feast .
The modern tabu was suggested during a community consultation with marine scientists , and today ’ s closures are meant to be indefinite .
Before reviving the tabu tradition , fish were not maturing to a size that would sustain local communities , and reefs were dying because of pollution from nearby cities and boats .
Hemo Marvela , chairman of a committee that governs the marine area , said the community still struggles with poachers , but the reef has become much healthier in recent decades .
( The Guardian @

1. United States
NASA’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., will be named after Mary W. Jackson, the agency’s first African American female engineer. Ms. Jackson began her career at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, as a mathematician in the 1950s. After getting special permission to participate in a training program at a segregated high school, she was promoted to engineer.
Cover Images/NASA/AP/File View caption Hide caption Mary W. Jackson became NASA’s first Black female engineer in 1958, and was the author or co-author of several research reports.
Her story was popularized by the 2016 book and movie “Hidden Figures.” Three years later, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, along with her colleagues Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden. “NASA facilities across the country are named after people who dedicated their lives to push the frontiers of the aerospace industry,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “The nation is beginning to awaken to the greater need to honor the full diversity of people who helped pioneer our great nation.” (NASA)
Why We Wrote This This is more than feel-good news – it's where the world is making concrete progress. A roundup of positive stories to inspire you.
2. United States
Researchers have reencountered the ultra-rare blue calamintha bee, which was last observed in 2016. The shiny navy blue bee is believed to live only in the Lake Wales Ridge region of Florida, one of the country’s most diverse and fastest-disappearing ecosystems.
Chase Kimmel/Courtesy of Florida Museum of Natural History View caption Hide caption A rare calamintha bee is captured for study, then released.
In fact, scientists weren’t sure the rare insect still existed. Over the next year, researchers will continue recording its whereabouts to better understand the species’ range and behavior. Florida’s State Wildlife Action Plan currently lists the blue bee as a species of greatest conservation need. Depending on what researchers discover in the coming months, it could qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act. (Florida Museum)
3. Colombia
Colombian environmental group WebConserva is helping build protective borders around forests by persuading farmers in San Lucas to plant coffee instead of coca, which is used to make cocaine. The dense forests are home to rare predators such as ocelots, a type of small wild cat, and highly endangered spectacled bears. Deforestation spiked after a 2016 peace deal with the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC, and the ecosystem is threatened by drug cultivation.
Oliver Griffin/Reuters View caption Hide caption Arcadio Barajas stands among his coffee plants in San Lucas, Colombia, Feb. 26, 2020. The fields were once full of coca plants.
In a first-of-its kind project, WebConserva has partnered at least 10 families with coffee roasters across Colombia who in turn will protect nearly 1,000 acres of forest. Participants promise to act as good stewards of the land and refrain from chopping down additional trees or hunting the forest’s animals. The goal is to protect roughly 50,000 acres of forest by signing on 200 families. (Reuters)
4. Germany
The Constitutional Court has ruled that children of unmarried people who were denaturalized by Nazis are eligible for German citizenship. The case centered around a woman born to an American mother and Jewish father who was stripped of his German citizenship by Nazis in 1938. The court found the woman, born in 1967 in the United States, was entitled to the same naturalization rights as children of married couples, and local courts had unlawfully discriminated against her because of her parents’ marital status. The ruling reaffirms the country’s Basic Law, which states that any Germans who were denaturalized based on political, racial, or religious grounds during Adolf Hitler’s 12-year reign can get their citizenship back, along with their descendants. (Reuters)
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5. Africa
With the help of an updated weather forecasting system, meteorologists in Africa can now track incoming storms and alert people, allowing them to avoid being caught by mudslides and flooding. The life-saving technology has been used by developed countries for years, but was largely unavailable in sub-Saharan Africa. As extreme weather becomes more common across the continent, a project at the University of Leeds in England has made real-time satellite data available to countries such as Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. “We had forecasting methods before but they were not as good,” said David Koros, principal meteorologist at the Kenya Meteorological Department. “It’s very important because we can issue information for the safety of lives, property, and the environment.” (Thomson Reuters Foundation)
6. Fiji
Local reefs are in robust health after Fijians reintroduced an ancient reef and fishery management tool following decades of overfishing. Tabus, or no-fishing zones marked with pillars in the sea floor, had not been used in the Navakavu reef for about half a century. Originally, tabus were used after a chief’s death to close off fishing grounds for 100 days until a memorial feast. The modern tabu was suggested during a community consultation with marine scientists, and today’s closures are meant to be indefinite. Before reviving the tabu tradition, fish were not maturing to a size that would sustain local communities, and reefs were dying because of pollution from nearby cities and boats. Hemo Marvela, chairman of a committee that governs the marine area, said the community still struggles with poachers, but the reef has become much healthier in recent decades. (The Guardian)


csmonitor--2020-07-10--Religious liberty’s big week at the Supreme Court

Some liberal-leaning scholars question whether the legacies of religious bigotry are necessarily similar to those surrounding racism and white supremacy .
“ It ’ s really not exactly the same thing in a lot of ways , ” says Professor Jessie Hill .
“ One of which , and the most obvious is , Catholics have tremendous political and cultural power right now.
” “ Whether they ’ re right in worrying about that or not , only time will tell , ” continues Professor Muñoz .
“ But certainly that ’ s a fear social conservatives have.
” “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says Vincent Phillip Muñoz .
“ I mean , there ’ s been a huge cultural shift over the last handful of years , an increasing acceptance of LGBT rights , and for many traditional religious believers , they worry that their beliefs are no longer welcome , or even will no longer be tolerated.
” In three end-of-term decisions , the U.S. Supreme Court has elevated religious liberty – which was taken up in legislation in the 1990s to offer protections to Native American religions – and weighted the rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ LGBTQ Americans .
The rulings come amid a rapidly changing U.S. society , where a majority of Americans believe in equal rights for LGBTQ Americans and fewer Americans identify as religious .
Last week , in one of the Supreme Court ’ s major rulings about the meaning of religious freedom and the separation of church and state , Justice Samuel Alito wrote a passionate account of the ugly anti-Catholic animus that once animated the country ’ s education policies .
At issue in the first of three end-of-term rulings – each hailed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the cause of religious liberty , and decried by critics as allowing religious Americans to infringe on the rights of others – was the state of Montana ’ s no-aid provision , or so-called Blaine amendment .
Such provisions , long enshrined in 37 state constitutions , restrict public funding from religious establishments and , proponents say , maintain a careful “ wall of separation ” between church and state .
In Espinoza v. Montana , Justice Alito described how the nation ’ s Blaine amendments were rooted in 19th- and 20th-century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts to stave off “ sectarian ” Catholic schools and their foreign ideas and ways of worship .
The court ’ s majority said the state ’ s no-aid provision violated the First Amendment ’ s free exercise clause when it excluded religious schools and families from a tax-credit scholarship program .
“ They are members of the community too , ” the court said in the 5-4 decision in Espinoza .
“ Their exclusion from the scholarship program here is odious to our Constitution and can not stand.
” Taken together , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s prioritization of religious liberty as it expands this protected and unique sphere in American social life .
On the one hand , the decisions of the current court could be seen as chipping away at the wall of separation – an extra-textual First Amendment metaphor that often makes religious conservatives bristle .
But at the same time , the decisions this term and over the past few years have been refortifying the wall of separation , bolstering its height and thickness even as it expands religious establishments ’ many exemptions from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ norms otherwise .
As a result , the court ’ s left-leaning critics say , many women and LGBTQ Americans have found their own freedoms especially curtailed .
All three decisions , too , come amid a rapidly changing U.S. society in which fewer Americans identify as religious and where a majority of Americans have welcomed married same-sex couples and others into the country ’ s traditional norms and affirmed their equal rights – a seismic shift few thought possible even a decade ago , experts say .
As a result , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says Vincent Phillip Muñoz , professor of religion and public life at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana .
“ I mean , there ’ s been a huge cultural shift over the last handful of years , an increasing acceptance of LGBT rights , and for many traditional religious believers , they worry that their beliefs are no longer welcome , or even will no longer be tolerated.
” “ Whether they ’ re right in worrying about that or not , only time will tell , ” continues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas in their opinions in Espinoza .
“ But certainly that ’ s a fear social conservatives have.
” For some liberal-leaning scholars , such fear , rooted in a sense of cultural vulnerability expressed by other minority groups , risks becoming reactionary .
Like Justice Alito ’ s passionate account of what might be called WASP supremacy or a Protestant bigotry toward foreign religious “ others , ” religious conservatives have in many ways begun to see themselves as a despised and ridiculed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assume the mantle of oppression for Catholics and other Christians in the U.S. , Justice Alito and other conservatives seem to want to join the current cultural zeitgeist , or this particular cultural moment when we are trying to figure out how to respond to centuries of oppression , ” says Jessie Hill , professor at the School of Law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland , noting similar recent descriptions of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 .
“ But it ’ s really not exactly the same thing in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ One of which , and the most obvious is , Catholics have tremendous political and cultural power right now.
” It was not always the case .
In his concurring opinion Justice Alito , who , like four others on the nation ’ s high court , is Roman Catholic , expressed an implicit sense of grievance and vulnerability .
At the outset , the conservative justice admitted that such historical appeals are not normally part of his interpretive toolbox .
In a previous case this year that recounted the ugly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Oregon and Louisiana , he noted he had dissented , arguing that only the texts of these laws , and not their historical contexts , should constitute the court ’ s primary focus .
“ But I lost , and [ the case ] is now precedent , ” he wrote .
“ If the original motivation for the laws mattered there , it certainly matters here.
” Including a picture of a famous cartoon from 1871 that “ depicts Catholic priests as crocodiles slithering hungrily toward American children as a public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice Alito described how religious bigotry not only infused the nation ’ s elites , but also erupted in episodes of violence and murder .
“ In Massachusetts and elsewhere , Catholic students were beaten and expelled for refusing to read from the King James Bible , ” Justice Alito wrote .
“ In New York , a mob destroyed the residence of Bishop John Hughes , who had argued that , if the State was going to fund religious public education , it should also support church schools.
” Most notorious were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Months of scaremongering broke out into riots that left two of the city ’ s Catholic churches burned and several people dead , ” he continued .
Among the proponents of Blaine amendments , he also noted , was the Ku Klux Klan .
Even before the Supreme Court ’ s landmark Obergefell decision in 2015 , which legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states , the rapid pace of social change led many religious conservatives to emphasize their influence in the federal judiciary .
They sought out legal pathways to opt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weddings in the public sphere , even while seeking more room to freely exercise their deeply held religious convictions unencumbered by certain civil rights protections for sexual minorities and women .
“ While these rulings will certainly disappoint those who want a stronger wall of separation between church and state , these conservative Supreme Court outcomes are exactly why evangelicals so strongly support President Trump , ” says Mark Miller , director of the law and society program at Clark University in Worcester , Massachusetts .
“ Their top priority is getting conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these constitutional clauses in ways that the religious right favors.
” In the final week of the Supreme Court ’ s current term , such priorities have appeared to pay off .
In the first of two opinions issued Wednesday , the court continued to reshape its religious freedom jurisprudence , expanding a doctrine known as the “ ministerial exception ” and bolstering religious institutions ’ exemptions from general employment discrimination laws .
Courts should not be able to intervene in a religious institution ’ s employment disputes , the justices ruled in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Nor , more significantly , should courts question whom religious institutions deem “ ministerial ” and thus exempt from employment discrimination protections .
In a dissent , Justice Sonia Sotomayor , who is also Catholic , joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , contrasted this ruling with the Espinoza decision last week , and focused on the vulnerabilities of women , LGTBQ people , and others affected by expanding exemptions for the nation ’ s religious groups .
“ Recently , this court has lamented a perceived ‘ discrimination against religion , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here it swings the pendulum in the extreme opposite direction , permitting religious entities to discriminate widely and with impunity for reasons wholly divorced from religious beliefs.
” “ The inherent injustice in the court ’ s conclusion will be impossible to ignore for long , particularly in a pluralistic society like ours , ” she added .
Wednesday ’ s second ruling , a 7-2 decision holding that businesses and other entities can claim religious and moral exemptions from the Affordable Care Act ’ s contraceptive mandate , follows a similar theme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were no constitutional issues at question in the case , Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania , and the majority held that the Trump administration ’ s expanded exemptions were lawful .
In a dissent , however , Justice Ginsburg , joined by Justice Sotomayor , accused the court of departing from its long-held “ balanced approach ” to ensuring that “ the religious beliefs of some [ don ’ t ] overwhelm the rights and interests of others who do not share those beliefs.
” “ Today , for the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree , ” she added .
But Professor Muñoz points out that the Supreme Court also issued a groundbreaking and far-reaching victory for LGBTQ rights this June when it redefined “ sex ” and thus greatly expanded civil rights protections to include sexual minorities in the workplace .
“ It ’ s hard for people to remember that , originally , the idea of religious exemptions and , you know , carving out a robust sphere of protection for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberal jurisprudence 50 years ago , ” he says , noting that state and federal “ religious freedom restoration acts ” began as efforts to shield the religious rituals of Native peoples from certain generally applicable drug laws .
“ In a way , this has been the year of nondiscrimination – nondiscrimination for progressive groups as well as religious groups , ” continues Professor Muñoz .
“ And it ’ s not so obvious that this is against the wall of separation .
”

Some liberal-leaning scholars question whether the legacies of religious bigotry are necessarily similar to those surrounding racism and white supremacy. “It’s really not exactly the same thing in a lot of ways,” says Professor Jessie Hill. “One of which, and the most obvious is, Catholics have tremendous political and cultural power right now.”
“Whether they’re right in worrying about that or not, only time will tell,” continues Professor Muñoz. “But certainly that’s a fear social conservatives have.”
Religious liberty laws were passed in the 1990s to protect Native American religions. The Supreme Court has now ruled that they can be broadly applied to prioritize the rights of Christians.
“Traditional religious believers certainly feel under attack,” says Vincent Phillip Muñoz. “I mean, there’s been a huge cultural shift over the last handful of years, an increasing acceptance of LGBT rights, and for many traditional religious believers, they worry that their beliefs are no longer welcome, or even will no longer be tolerated.”
In three end-of-term decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has elevated religious liberty – which was taken up in legislation in the 1990s to offer protections to Native American religions – and weighted the rights of Christians above those of women and LGBTQ Americans. The rulings come amid a rapidly changing U.S. society, where a majority of Americans believe in equal rights for LGBTQ Americans and fewer Americans identify as religious.
Last week, in one of the Supreme Court’s major rulings about the meaning of religious freedom and the separation of church and state, Justice Samuel Alito wrote a passionate account of the ugly anti-Catholic animus that once animated the country’s education policies.
At issue in the first of three end-of-term rulings – each hailed by religious conservatives as an important victory for the cause of religious liberty, and decried by critics as allowing religious Americans to infringe on the rights of others – was the state of Montana’s no-aid provision, or so-called Blaine amendment. Such provisions, long enshrined in 37 state constitutions, restrict public funding from religious establishments and, proponents say, maintain a careful “wall of separation” between church and state.
In Espinoza v. Montana, Justice Alito described how the nation’s Blaine amendments were rooted in 19th- and 20th-century Protestant bigotry and a central part of efforts to stave off “sectarian” Catholic schools and their foreign ideas and ways of worship.
Why We Wrote This Religious liberty laws were passed in the 1990s to protect Native American religions. The Supreme Court has now ruled that they can be broadly applied to prioritize the rights of Christians.
The court’s majority said the state’s no-aid provision violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause when it excluded religious schools and families from a tax-credit scholarship program. “They are members of the community too,” the court said in the 5-4 decision in Espinoza. “Their exclusion from the scholarship program here is odious to our Constitution and cannot stand.”
Taken together, all three decisions continue the Supreme Court’s prioritization of religious liberty as it expands this protected and unique sphere in American social life. On the one hand, the decisions of the current court could be seen as chipping away at the wall of separation – an extra-textual First Amendment metaphor that often makes religious conservatives bristle.
But at the same time, the decisions this term and over the past few years have been refortifying the wall of separation, bolstering its height and thickness even as it expands religious establishments’ many exemptions from the country’s social and legal norms otherwise. As a result, the court’s left-leaning critics say, many women and LGBTQ Americans have found their own freedoms especially curtailed.
All three decisions, too, come amid a rapidly changing U.S. society in which fewer Americans identify as religious and where a majority of Americans have welcomed married same-sex couples and others into the country’s traditional norms and affirmed their equal rights – a seismic shift few thought possible even a decade ago, experts say.
As a result, “traditional religious believers certainly feel under attack,” says Vincent Phillip Muñoz, professor of religion and public life at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “I mean, there’s been a huge cultural shift over the last handful of years, an increasing acceptance of LGBT rights, and for many traditional religious believers, they worry that their beliefs are no longer welcome, or even will no longer be tolerated.”
“Whether they’re right in worrying about that or not, only time will tell,” continues Professor Muñoz, whose work was cited by both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas in their opinions in Espinoza. “But certainly that’s a fear social conservatives have.”
For some liberal-leaning scholars, such fear, rooted in a sense of cultural vulnerability expressed by other minority groups, risks becoming reactionary. Like Justice Alito’s passionate account of what might be called WASP supremacy or a Protestant bigotry toward foreign religious “others,” religious conservatives have in many ways begun to see themselves as a despised and ridiculed class.
“In their eagerness to assume the mantle of oppression for Catholics and other Christians in the U.S., Justice Alito and other conservatives seem to want to join the current cultural zeitgeist, or this particular cultural moment when we are trying to figure out how to respond to centuries of oppression,” says Jessie Hill, professor at the School of Law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, noting similar recent descriptions of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921.
“But it’s really not exactly the same thing in a lot of ways,” she continues. “One of which, and the most obvious is, Catholics have tremendous political and cultural power right now.”
Philadelphia Bible riots
It was not always the case. In his concurring opinion Justice Alito, who, like four others on the nation’s high court, is Roman Catholic, expressed an implicit sense of grievance and vulnerability.
At the outset, the conservative justice admitted that such historical appeals are not normally part of his interpretive toolbox. In a previous case this year that recounted the ugly history of racism in the jury rules of Oregon and Louisiana, he noted he had dissented, arguing that only the texts of these laws, and not their historical contexts, should constitute the court’s primary focus.
“But I lost, and [the case] is now precedent,” he wrote. “If the original motivation for the laws mattered there, it certainly matters here.”
Including a picture of a famous cartoon from 1871 that “depicts Catholic priests as crocodiles slithering hungrily toward American children as a public school crumbles in the background,” Justice Alito described how religious bigotry not only infused the nation’s elites, but also erupted in episodes of violence and murder.
“In Massachusetts and elsewhere, Catholic students were beaten and expelled for refusing to read from the King James Bible,” Justice Alito wrote. “In New York, a mob destroyed the residence of Bishop John Hughes, who had argued that, if the State was going to fund religious public education, it should also support church schools.”
Most notorious were the Philadelphia Bible riots in 1844: “Months of scaremongering broke out into riots that left two of the city’s Catholic churches burned and several people dead,” he continued. Among the proponents of Blaine amendments, he also noted, was the Ku Klux Klan.
Changing U.S. society
Even before the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell decision in 2015, which legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, the rapid pace of social change led many religious conservatives to emphasize their influence in the federal judiciary. They sought out legal pathways to opt out of the ritual aspects of same-sex weddings in the public sphere, even while seeking more room to freely exercise their deeply held religious convictions unencumbered by certain civil rights protections for sexual minorities and women.
“While these rulings will certainly disappoint those who want a stronger wall of separation between church and state, these conservative Supreme Court outcomes are exactly why evangelicals so strongly support President Trump,” says Mark Miller, director of the law and society program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. “Their top priority is getting conservative judges on the courts who will read these constitutional clauses in ways that the religious right favors.”
In the final week of the Supreme Court’s current term, such priorities have appeared to pay off. In the first of two opinions issued Wednesday, the court continued to reshape its religious freedom jurisprudence, expanding a doctrine known as the “ministerial exception” and bolstering religious institutions’ exemptions from general employment discrimination laws.
Courts should not be able to intervene in a religious institution’s employment disputes, the justices ruled in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru. Nor, more significantly, should courts question whom religious institutions deem “ministerial” and thus exempt from employment discrimination protections.
In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is also Catholic, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, contrasted this ruling with the Espinoza decision last week, and focused on the vulnerabilities of women, LGTBQ people, and others affected by expanding exemptions for the nation’s religious groups.
“Recently, this court has lamented a perceived ‘discrimination against religion,’” she wrote. “Yet here it swings the pendulum in the extreme opposite direction, permitting religious entities to discriminate widely and with impunity for reasons wholly divorced from religious beliefs.”
“The inherent injustice in the court’s conclusion will be impossible to ignore for long, particularly in a pluralistic society like ours,” she added.
End of the “balanced approach”?
Wednesday’s second ruling, a 7-2 decision holding that businesses and other entities can claim religious and moral exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, follows a similar theme, according to some justices.
There were no constitutional issues at question in the case, Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, and the majority held that the Trump administration’s expanded exemptions were lawful. In a dissent, however, Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sotomayor, accused the court of departing from its long-held “balanced approach” to ensuring that “the religious beliefs of some [don’t] overwhelm the rights and interests of others who do not share those beliefs.”
“Today, for the first time, the Court casts totally aside countervailing rights and interests in its zeal to secure religious rights to the nth degree,” she added.
But Professor Muñoz points out that the Supreme Court also issued a groundbreaking and far-reaching victory for LGBTQ rights this June when it redefined “sex” and thus greatly expanded civil rights protections to include sexual minorities in the workplace.
“It’s hard for people to remember that, originally, the idea of religious exemptions and, you know, carving out a robust sphere of protection for religious individuals and institutions, that was liberal jurisprudence 50 years ago,” he says, noting that state and federal “religious freedom restoration acts” began as efforts to shield the religious rituals of Native peoples from certain generally applicable drug laws.
“In a way, this has been the year of nondiscrimination – nondiscrimination for progressive groups as well as religious groups,” continues Professor Muñoz. “And it’s not so obvious that this is against the wall of separation.”


csmonitor--2020-07-10--How Catholic Church got $1.4bn from Paycheck Protection loans

When the coronavirus pandemic caused a broad economic downturn and Depression-era unemployment rates , Washington responded with trillions of dollars in federal relief .
One centerpiece was the $ 659 billion Paycheck Protection Program .
Congress created the program to help smaller businesses and nonprofit groups – generally those with fewer than 500 employees – keep their workers on the payroll .
An Associated Press analysis has found that a special exemption to the 500-employee cap set the stage for approval of at least $ 1.4 billion for groups affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church , making it one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those millions are going to pay salaries and other expenses in dioceses that recently paid huge financial settlements to victims of clergy sexual abuse .
The Small Business Administration , which manages the Paycheck Protection Program , typically makes or oversees loans backed by taxpayer money to for-profit companies with fewer than 500 employees .
When the pandemic hit , Congress gave nonprofit groups access as well .
Lobbied by religious leaders , the Trump administration went one step further by granting all faith groups a special waiver to the 500-employee cap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant instead of all churches , schools , and other organizations in a diocese grouping their employees into a single total – making many ineligible due to their size – each could apply as an independent , `` small '' entity .
As a result , AP found , at least 3,500 Catholic organizations qualified for loans that the government will forgive if recipients spend the money on payroll , rent , and utilities .
Loans to Catholic entities that AP identified were worth at least $ 1.4 billion – and as much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly an undercount : A Catholic financial officers ' organization says a survey of its members tallied approximately 9,000 Catholic-affiliated recipients .
Initially , faith groups had limited eligibility under the law Congress passed .
They were still subject to the `` affiliation rule , '' which meant only dioceses or other Catholic organizations with fewer than 500 people employed across often-vast territories could apply .
That rule was changed after lobbying by religious groups including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles , whose leader is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Catholic News Service reported that the bishops ' conference and several major Catholic nonprofit agencies worked the week of March 30 to ensure that religious groups would not be limited .
In a written statement , bishops ' conference spokesperson Chieko Noguchi said including faith groups was a matter of fairness .
She also acknowledged lobbying by the conference , which she said , `` regularly works with Congress and the administration on legislation and regulations of concern to the bishops , including the emergency relief that is being provided during the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ salaries of priests and ministers , some legal experts see a troubling precedent given the separation of church and state called for in the Constitution .
Micah Schwartzman , a University of Virginia law professor specializing in constitutional issues and religion , said the treatment of faith groups goes beyond fairness by giving them preferential treatment .
`` That 's something we have n't seen before , '' he said .
`` That 's new . ''
AP 's analysis found that the Archdiocese of New York , where Cardinal Timothy Dolan has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeking federal aid , was a major beneficiary among Catholic organizations .
The New York Archdiocese received 15 loans worth at least $ 28 million just for its top executive offices .
Its iconic St. Patrick 's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was approved for at least $ 1 million .
More rural dioceses also received loans valued at between $ 5 million and $ 10 million .
They included the dioceses of Covington , Kentucky , and Knoxville , Tennessee .
Loans reflect only a range of value because the government refused to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the loan data released this week does n't name recipients of loans under $ 150,000 , which would include many Catholic parishes and schools .
The AP and several other news organizations have sued the Small Business Administration to compel the release of complete information .
Although the Paycheck Protection Program was intended to help businesses and non-profits financially squeezed by the pandemic , the AP found that some dioceses receiving loans were already suffering financial stress due to large payments to clergy abuse victims .
In the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreeing to pay victims $ 210 million , church officials told AP that at least 80 of its parishes and affiliated organizations applied for money .
Clergy abuse payments also have strained the Diocese of Erie , Pennsylvania , as well .
Since 2018 , following an explosive state attorney general 's investigation , the diocese has spent at least $ 12 million to settle lawsuits and establish a compensation fund for victims .
The diocese told AP that approximately 80 affiliated organizations including schools and parishes received $ 10.3 million in paycheck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received nearly $ 883,000 .
Diocesan spokesperson Anne-Marie Welsh told AP , `` the Diocese of Erie 's participation in the Payroll Protection Program was not related to the clergy sex abuse crisis . ''
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

When the coronavirus pandemic caused a broad economic downturn and Depression-era unemployment rates, Washington responded with trillions of dollars in federal relief.
One centerpiece was the $659 billion Paycheck Protection Program. Congress created the program to help smaller businesses and nonprofit groups – generally those with fewer than 500 employees – keep their workers on the payroll.
An Associated Press analysis has found that a special exemption to the 500-employee cap set the stage for approval of at least $1.4 billion for groups affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, making it one of the program's big winners. Many of those millions are going to pay salaries and other expenses in dioceses that recently paid huge financial settlements to victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Special treatment for religion
The Small Business Administration, which manages the Paycheck Protection Program, typically makes or oversees loans backed by taxpayer money to for-profit companies with fewer than 500 employees. When the pandemic hit, Congress gave nonprofit groups access as well.
Lobbied by religious leaders, the Trump administration went one step further by granting all faith groups a special waiver to the 500-employee cap. For the Catholic Church, that meant instead of all churches, schools, and other organizations in a diocese grouping their employees into a single total – making many ineligible due to their size – each could apply as an independent, "small" entity.
As a result, AP found, at least 3,500 Catholic organizations qualified for loans that the government will forgive if recipients spend the money on payroll, rent, and utilities. Loans to Catholic entities that AP identified were worth at least $1.4 billion – and as much as $3.5 billion.
That is certainly an undercount: A Catholic financial officers' organization says a survey of its members tallied approximately 9,000 Catholic-affiliated recipients.
A lobbying campaign
Initially, faith groups had limited eligibility under the law Congress passed. They were still subject to the "affiliation rule," which meant only dioceses or other Catholic organizations with fewer than 500 people employed across often-vast territories could apply.
That rule was changed after lobbying by religious groups including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, whose leader is the president of the conference. The Catholic News Service reported that the bishops' conference and several major Catholic nonprofit agencies worked the week of March 30 to ensure that religious groups would not be limited.
In a written statement, bishops' conference spokesperson Chieko Noguchi said including faith groups was a matter of fairness. She also acknowledged lobbying by the conference, which she said, "regularly works with Congress and the administration on legislation and regulations of concern to the bishops, including the emergency relief that is being provided during the pandemic."
With government money paying the salaries of priests and ministers, some legal experts see a troubling precedent given the separation of church and state called for in the Constitution.
Micah Schwartzman, a University of Virginia law professor specializing in constitutional issues and religion, said the treatment of faith groups goes beyond fairness by giving them preferential treatment. "That's something we haven't seen before," he said. "That's new."
Big loans, murky data
AP's analysis found that the Archdiocese of New York, where Cardinal Timothy Dolan has helped lead the push for religious groups seeking federal aid, was a major beneficiary among Catholic organizations.
The New York Archdiocese received 15 loans worth at least $28 million just for its top executive offices. Its iconic St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was approved for at least $1 million.
More rural dioceses also received loans valued at between $5 million and $10 million. They included the dioceses of Covington, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Loans reflect only a range of value because the government refused to release precise amounts. In addition, the loan data released this week doesn't name recipients of loans under $150,000, which would include many Catholic parishes and schools. The AP and several other news organizations have sued the Small Business Administration to compel the release of complete information.
Clergy sex abuse payments
Although the Paycheck Protection Program was intended to help businesses and non-profits financially squeezed by the pandemic, the AP found that some dioceses receiving loans were already suffering financial stress due to large payments to clergy abuse victims.
In the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, where church leaders recently emerged from bankruptcy after agreeing to pay victims $210 million, church officials told AP that at least 80 of its parishes and affiliated organizations applied for money.
Clergy abuse payments also have strained the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania, as well. Since 2018, following an explosive state attorney general's investigation, the diocese has spent at least $12 million to settle lawsuits and establish a compensation fund for victims.
The diocese told AP that approximately 80 affiliated organizations including schools and parishes received $10.3 million in paycheck protection loans, while its administrative offices received nearly $883,000. Diocesan spokesperson Anne-Marie Welsh told AP, "the Diocese of Erie's participation in the Payroll Protection Program was not related to the clergy sex abuse crisis."
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This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


On to Mars

When you ’ ve got troubles , nothing beats stepping back and getting a long-range perspective .
In this case , from more than 30 million miles away .
This month three countries plan to send probes to explore Mars , the opening salvo in a space race to the red planet that looks as if it will continue for years to come .
The Hope Probe – a project of the United Arab Emirates and the first effort of an Arab nation to visit another planet – is scheduled for launch July 15 .
China ’ s Tianwen-1 goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July 25 .
It will be that country ’ s first visit to the planet .
The United States , after several delays , plans its launch for July 30 , its fifth mission to Mars .
Russia and the European Union are expected to join this new Mars explorers ’ club in a couple of years .
India and Japan are planning trips after that .
Mars beckons in part because it could answer a big question : Are humans alone in the universe ?
Over its history the planet has shown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least at one time , the presence of water .
If any life has ever existed there , how likely then is the possibility for life anywhere in a universe filled with uncounted planets ?
Mars has long been a fascination – and an intriguing distraction – for humanity .
As European relations grew tense and World War I approached a century ago , astronomer William Pickering peered through his telescope and described what he saw as changing weather systems on Mars , which he imaged as a vast wilderness .
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refuge , “ free of suffering and injustice and of difficulty , ” points out Sarah Stewart Johnson in her new book “ The Sirens of Mars : Searching for Life on Another World.
” It was a place “ free from all of the horrible things that were happening in his world , on his planet.
” But even as telescopic views improved , astronomers ’ frustration grew : If only they could get a closer , better look .
That finally happened in the last half-century as space probes began plunking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including photos .
The car-sized American rover Curiosity – named by then 12-year-old Clara Ma after a national essay competition – has been wandering the planet since 2012 , and continues to explore it .
For the United Arab Emirates and China , visiting Mars means gaining scientific stature back on Earth .
For the U.S. it means maintaining its prominent role in space exploration .
Each of the missions will advance human knowledge .
The U.S. rover , named Perseverance , for example , will include a robotic helicopter that will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fly in the Martian atmosphere and , it is hoped , serve as a scout for the rover .
Perseverance will also collect rock and soil samples that some future mission would be able to return to Earth .
This flurry of exploration sets the stage for the ultimate Mars endeavor : putting humans on the red planet .
That goal remains a couple of decades away at least , U.S. researchers say .
But a visit to the moon by humans once seemed unthinkable .
Now Mars is coming ever closer in @ @

When you’ve got troubles, nothing beats stepping back and getting a long-range perspective. In this case, from more than 30 million miles away.
This month three countries plan to send probes to explore Mars, the opening salvo in a space race to the red planet that looks as if it will continue for years to come. The Hope Probe – a project of the United Arab Emirates and the first effort of an Arab nation to visit another planet – is scheduled for launch July 15. China’s Tianwen-1 goes next, sometime between July 20 and July 25. It will be that country’s first visit to the planet.
The United States, after several delays, plans its launch for July 30, its fifth mission to Mars.
Russia and the European Union are expected to join this new Mars explorers’ club in a couple of years. India and Japan are planning trips after that.
Mars beckons in part because it could answer a big question: Are humans alone in the universe? Over its history the planet has shown intriguing potential for life, including, at least at one time, the presence of water. If any life has ever existed there, how likely then is the possibility for life anywhere in a universe filled with uncounted planets?
Mars has long been a fascination – and an intriguing distraction – for humanity. As European relations grew tense and World War I approached a century ago, astronomer William Pickering peered through his telescope and described what he saw as changing weather systems on Mars, which he imaged as a vast wilderness.
To Pickering, the planet was almost a refuge, “free of suffering and injustice and of difficulty,” points out Sarah Stewart Johnson in her new book “The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World.” It was a place “free from all of the horrible things that were happening in his world, on his planet.”
But even as telescopic views improved, astronomers’ frustration grew: If only they could get a closer, better look. That finally happened in the last half-century as space probes began plunking the Martian surface, sending back data, including photos. The car-sized American rover Curiosity – named by then 12-year-old Clara Ma after a national essay competition – has been wandering the planet since 2012, and continues to explore it.
For the United Arab Emirates and China, visiting Mars means gaining scientific stature back on Earth. For the U.S. it means maintaining its prominent role in space exploration. Each of the missions will advance human knowledge.
The U.S. rover, named Perseverance, for example, will include a robotic helicopter that will test what it’s like to fly in the Martian atmosphere and, it is hoped, serve as a scout for the rover. Perseverance will also collect rock and soil samples that some future mission would be able to return to Earth.
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This flurry of exploration sets the stage for the ultimate Mars endeavor: putting humans on the red planet. That goal remains a couple of decades away at least, U.S. researchers say.
But a visit to the moon by humans once seemed unthinkable. Now Mars is coming ever closer in thought.