Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Bible Study Ban Case Backed by ACLJ Brief

We told you this fight was headed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Now it’s official.

On June 30, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Grand v. City of University Heights, Ohio (No. 25-965) – agreeing to take up the case of Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jewish man who was harassed, surveilled, and driven out of his own home simply for hosting a minyan, a small prayer gathering, with his neighbors. The ACLJ filed an amicus brief urging the Court to grant review. The Court listened. Now the real work begins.

Let’s be clear about what happened in this situation. Mr. Grand didn’t build a church. He didn’t open a synagogue. He invited friends into his living room to pray. For that, the city of University Heights subjected him to a campaign of bureaucratic intimidation – demanding architectural drawings, encouraging neighbors to report on him, and grinding him down until he withdrew his permit application. Then the Sixth Circuit turned around and blamed him for the chilling effect on his own constitutional rights, ruling that he couldn’t even get into federal court because he hadn’t first exhausted the very administrative gauntlet the city was using as a weapon against him.

The question the Court has agreed to decide is narrow but enormously consequential: Must Americans first complete a hostile, drawn-out municipal process before they can vindicate their religious liberty in court? If the answer is yes, then every small-group Bible study, every home prayer meeting, and every informal gathering of believers in this country is at the mercy of whatever the zoning board decides. Out of frustration, many will give up before ever reaching a judge.

We’ve seen this playbook before on the local level in Virginia, Georgia, and California. Local officials targeted home-based worship while approving book clubs and poker nights of similar sizes.

Now that the Court has granted cert, the ACLJ will file a merits-stage amicus brief and stand with Mr. Grand to defend the right of every American – Jewish, Christian, or otherwise – to gather and pray in their own home without a permit slip standing between them and God.

Take action with the ACLJ. Sign the petition: Defeat the Left’s War Against Christians.