Judge: federal grants to USCCB for human-trafficking victims are unconstitutional

March 27, 2012

Siding with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a federal judge has declared that grants made to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to assist human-trafficking victims are unconstitutional because the grants represent a government endorsement of Catholicism.

In 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services solicited grant applications to assist victims of human trafficking. In its application, the USCCB declared:

As we are a Catholic organization, we need to ensure that our victim services are not used to refer or fund activities that would be contrary to our moral convictions and religious beliefs … Specifically, subcontractors could not provide or refer for abortion services or contraceptive materials for our clients pursuant to this contract.

Between 2006 and 2011, the USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services received $13.9 million in federal funds to assist human-trafficking victims, making clear to subcontractors that “funds shall not be used to provide referral for abortion services or contraceptive materials, pursuant to this contract.”

(In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services declined to renew the grant to the USCCB. The Washington Post reported that the department’s leadership overruled its own staff members, who had wished to continue the grant.)

In 2009, the ACLU filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that federal officials “have violated and continue to violate the Establishment Clause ofthe First Amendment by permitting [the] USCCB to impose a religiously based restriction on the use of taxpayer funds.”

In his March 23 ruling, US District Court Judge Richard Stearns, whom President Bill Clinton appointed to the bench in 1993, declared that

the government defendants violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, insofar as they delegated authority to a religious organization to impose religiously based restrictions on the expenditure of taxpayer funds, and thereby impliedly endorsed the religious beliefs of the USCCB and the Catholic Church.

 

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Further information:

• Court Prohibits Religious Restrictions on Government-Funded Trafficking Victims' Program (ACLU)
• Full text of ruling (United States District Court)
• USCCB files freedom-of-information request over HHS grant denial (CWN, 11/3/11)