Year in review 2024:
By Patrick Elliott
The last year involved many changes for the legal department at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In April, FFRF’s longtime legal director, Rebecca Markert, accepted a position with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I was promoted to legal director after more than 14 years on the legal team. Over the years, I have met many FFRF members by responding to their emails, phone calls or at FFRF conventions. For those who I haven’t met, I am pleased to share with you a summary of FFRF’s work over the past year.
I want to start out with an anecdote from my own life to help explain what we do on the legal team. As I was driving my 4-year-old son last year, we passed an old and ornate church. While I grew up going to Catholic Mass every Sunday, he has never been to church and was interested in the building. As we both were looking at the church he exclaimed, “Dad, look at that castle!” I can use that as a reference point when he gets older and asks what I do for a living. “Keeping castles and the government separate,” is one way to respond.
Later in the year, as he was a much wiser 5-year-old, I thought it would be interesting to see if he had an idea of what I do for work. I asked him, “What does dad do for work?” He had a sense of what it means to be a lawyer at FFRF, although he was a bit optimistic. His response was, “You go to the judge and get people in trouble.” I wish it was so simple.
While we don’t always “get people in trouble,” FFRF has been able to adroitly navigate changes in both the judiciary and in the law. While our goals remain the same, our efforts and our strategies have had to evolve in response to a new paradigm. Christian nationalists have increased their efforts to abuse governmental authority to adopt and promote religion, especially in public schools. We have responded with new coalition lawsuits, continued legal advocacy and renewed efforts to educate the public and governmental actors.
Here is an overview of our legal work in 2024:
Staff changes
Our work is naturally “team work” and we have an experienced team. Liz Cavell was promoted to deputy legal director after 12 years of working at FFRF. Sam Grover was promoted to senior litigation counsel after 11 years working on FFRF lawsuits.
We also added some new staff members. FFRF hired Sammi Lawrence as a staff attorney after she completed a two-year fellowship. Hirsh Joshi (University of Missouri Law School) started as a legal fellow in January 2024. Kyle Steinberg (University of Minnesota Law School), started as a legal fellow in September. We also hosted three law student interns and two undergraduate interns.
Litigation
In 2024, FFRF favorably settled two lawsuits and filed three new court challenges, adding to our three other ongoing cases. Increasingly, we have worked with partner organizations to challenge state laws that significantly violate constitutional rights.
In October, FFRF was part of a coalition that filed a petition with the Oklahoma Supreme Court to block State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ mandate that all public schools incorporate the bible into their curricula. The petition asks the court to stop the state from spending millions of taxpayer dollars on bibles to support Walters’ mandate.
FFRF and a similar coalition filed a lawsuit in June challenging a new Louisiana law that requires all public schools from kindergarten through college to display the Ten Commandments. This law mandates that every classroom display a particular version of the Ten Commandments. On Nov. 12, U.S. District Judge John DeGravelles ruled in our favor and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the implementation of the law. That decision was appealed by state officials and local school districts to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to rule this year.
FFRF’s other new lawsuit involved preferential treatment provided to the evangelical Good News Club by a Tennessee school district. In March, FFRF filed a lawsuit on behalf of The Satanic Temple (TST) against a Memphis-area school district for unlawfully discriminating against the After School Satan Club’s request to meet in a district elementary school. The Good News Club, which is Christian, was being treated far more favorably. The district was charging the TST club excessive fees, canceling its reservations and refusing to communicate with it. The lawsuit was settled after the district agreed to treat TST’s club equally going forward. The district paid FFRF and our cooperating attorneys over $15,000 in fees and costs.
It’s finally over! FFRF filed a lawsuit in 2016 challenging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s removal of FFRF’s approved Bill of Rights “nativity” display from the Texas Capitol while permitting a Christian nativity. After winning in the district court and several favorable appeals court decisions, 2024 marked the end of the road for Abbott. After previously granting a final judgment in FFRF’s favor, the district court awarded FFRF and outside law firm Boardman Clark $358,000 in attorneys fees and costs.
FFRF and other organizations also successfully resolved a lawsuit against eight federal agencies that had rolled back civil rights protections as President Trump was leaving office in January 2021. In May, the lawsuit was voluntarily dropped after new rules reinstated safeguards that ensured people receiving social services are not forced to attend or participate in religious activities. The Biden administration rules additionally eliminated Trump-era provisions that were designed to allow social service providers to refuse to provide key services and that were intended to open the door to discrimination in taxpayer-funded programs.
FFRF attorneys have also been busy preparing informative friend-of-the-court briefs. We set a record this year by filing 12 such briefs in cases around the country.
Nonlitigation advocacy
We primarily resolve disputes through letters of complaint to government officials or by providing information to members and other complainants pursuing matters on their own. FFRF’s legal intake team handles incoming complaints over constitutional violations from FFRF members and members of the public, at no cost to complainants. In 2024, our intake attorneys processed 2,451 incoming state/church contacts. Our attorneys sent 667 letters of complaint to government agencies across the country.
While we work on matters from all over the country, a disproportionate number of complaints last year originated in one region of the country. We handled a higher number of complaints per capita from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama.
In 2024, FFRF was able to achieve 227 victories through nonlitigation efforts. Those victories will continue to come in through 2025. The vast majority of the victories we achieved involved protecting public school students from religion.
In Raleigh County, W.Va., a teacher was prevented from continuing to read elementary school students bible stories and to lead them in prayer. Likewise, in Decatur, Miss., a kindergarten teacher was forced to cease leading students in daily prayers. We stopped many other religious practices forced on students by school teachers and coaches.
Our victories have had an impact in other communities. In Itasca County, Minn., FFRF was successful in having a new jail facility remove a giant Ten Commandments display. In San Diego, Calif., FFRF ended segregation in a correctional facility based on religious affiliation.
Education
The FFRF legal team works to provide legal education and highlight the importance of state/church separation. This endeavor is becoming increasingly important given the ultra-conservative majority of the Supreme Court and its fixation on increasing religious privilege for Christians by strengthening the Free Exercise Clause and diminishing the Establishment Clause.
FFRF attorneys regularly respond to news media requests on legal issues related to religion, including 63 interviews or responses in 2024. We also frequently write or speak on FFRF media platforms about our work. In addition, FFRF attorneys were featured speakers at eight events last year.
FFRF jointly produces the “We Dissent” podcast with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. American Atheists was also a production partner during 2024. It is a monthly podcast featuring FFRF Deputy Legal Director Liz Cavell and secular women attorneys discussing religious liberty issues in the state and federal courts and our joint work to keep religion and government separate. The podcast has 37 published episodes with more than 70,000 downloads. This past year, “We Dissent” episodes covered the 2024 Supreme Court term, the urgent state of reproductive rights, escalating public school violations, taxing churches, Christian nationalism and current threats in state legislatures.
Looking ahead
FFRF is preparing for significant threats to the First Amendment in 2025. We have prepared two new lawsuits to start the year with a bang. Emboldened state officials and an incoming Trump administration will undoubtedly abuse their secular authority to advance Christian nationalism. We stand ready to defend the vaunted wall of separation between state and church.
Patrick Elliott is FFRF’s legal director.
