Forest Hills Early Learning Center, Inc. v. Lukhard

Summary

The court held that Virginia Code § 63.1-196.3, which exempted religiously affiliated child care centers from general state licensing requirements, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The court concluded that operating child care centers was a secular activity and that the exemption was not justified as an accommodation of free exercise rights. The action followed multiple appeals and remands concerning standing, class certification, and the existence of protected religious activity.

Holdings

1. Virginia Code § 63.1-196.3 lacks a valid secular purpose and violates the Establishment Clause because the asserted purpose of accommodating free-exercise rights is not supported by a showing that the exempted child-care activities are religiously protected.
2. The operation of a child-care center by a sectarian institution is a secular activity and is not per se entitled to Free Exercise Clause protection.
3. Requiring church-run child-care centers to obtain a license does not burden free exercise because licensing regulates a secular activity; alternatively, any burden is justified by the compelling state interest in protecting children and is the least restrictive means of doing so.
4. Requiring a church-run child-care center to disclose projected income, expenses, assets, and liabilities does not burden free exercise; alternatively, the requirement is justified by the compelling interest in ensuring that centers can safely operate and is narrowly tailored to that interest.
5. Applying the prohibition on corporal punishment to church-run child-care centers does not violate the Free Exercise Clause; any burden is justified by the compelling interest in protecting children from physical and emotional harm and by the absence of another effective preventive method.
6. The child-abuse reporting requirements do not burden the churches' free exercise rights and are independently justified by the compelling state interest in preventing further child abuse.
7. The good-moral-character and program requirements do not impermissibly burden free exercise because they do not prevent churches from applying stricter standards, hiring converted individuals, retaining religious program content, or avoiding activities they consider religiously objectionable.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Virginia Code § 63.1-196.3 violates the Establishment Clause by exempting religiously affiliated child-care centers from the general licensing requirements applicable to nonsectarian centers.
2. Whether operation of a church-affiliated child-care center is a religious activity protected by the Free Exercise Clause.
3. Whether the licensing, financial-disclosure, corporal-punishment, child-abuse-reporting, good-moral-character, and program requirements burden the defendant-intervenors' free exercise rights.
4. If any of the challenged requirements burden free exercise, whether those requirements are justified by a compelling state interest and are the least restrictive means of protecting that interest.

Disposition

other