Utah federal judge rules sex at high school didn't violate family's religious freedom
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A federal judge ruled that a Utah County high school did not violate a family's religious freedom by relaxing attendance rules during the last week of school.
- The student's parents say their son used his free time to have sex with his girlfriend in the school parking lot, against the family's religious beliefs.
Why it matters: If the family had prevailed in its religious freedom claim, the case could have opened the doors to a reinterpretation of the First Amendment — one that obligates government entities to actively aid the practice of religion.
Driving the news: U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish ruled last week that the school did not compel the student to break the rules of his family's Latter-day Saints faith during an informal hooky week at Skyridge High School in May 2022.
- Yes, but: Parrish sent the case back to a state court to determine whether the family could sue the school for negligence.
Details: A lawsuit filed in August claimed the parents were closely monitoring their son to stop him from having premarital sex when the school relaxed its attendance rules for the last week of classes, and he had sex in the parking lot.
- The mother alleged school employees did not know her son's whereabouts when she tried to check him out of classes, and she saw students "engaging in public displays of affection" in the halls. The lawsuit alleged other students were also having sex in the parking lot.
- Neither the family's attorney nor the Alpine School District returned Axios' calls for comment.
Of note: This is the same high school where LGBTQ+ students and allies alleged they were mocked, followed and threatened with knives in March for wearing rainbows to protest the Alpine School District's ban on Pride flags.
The intrigue: The lawsuit claimed the school "undermined and deprived" the family's "fundamental right to practice and uphold their religious beliefs" because the teen was able to have sex during school hours.
- It further argued the school violated the family's "fundamental right to parent," which Parrish also rejected.
What they're saying: The parents "assert that the Alpine School District did not do enough to help them perform their religious obligations," Parrish wrote.
- "But the Free Exercise Clause does not impose such a duty on government entities. … The district has no constitutional duty to modify its internal procedures to further the [family's] religious goals."
The other side: Parrish did not rule on the family's claim that the school was negligent, referring that argument back to Utah's state courts.
- In the lawsuit, the parents cited a school police officer as saying that the students attend shortened classes during the final days of school and then "are excused and left unsupervised to roam the halls."
The big picture: It is not the first dispute in Utah over whether public agencies and resources are, or should be, used to aid religious practice.
- BYU's campus police department for years used its access to a government-held police database to investigate students who reported sex crimes, for violations of the school's religious code of conduct.
- In 2016, a federal jury found the police department for the sister towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, "operated as an arm of" the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, discriminating against nonbelievers at church leaders' behest.