Challenge to Missouri Law Regulating Boarding Schools at 8th Circuit Court of Appeals
CNS International believes law violates its religious freedom.
A law in Missouri intended to bring transparency and accountability to boarding schools is being challenged by a group that claims it infringes on their religious freedom.
Heartland Children and Youth Homes campus / Video screenshot
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit recently heard oral arguments in a case involving the Residential Care Facility Notification Act passed in 2021.
The act requires boarding schools to register, undergo inspections, conduct employee background screenings, and provide access to parents and grandparents of the residents.
The act was passed after the shuttering of four boarding schools in Missouri in 2020 due to allegations of abuse and neglect, including abusive corporal punishment and the withholding of food and water.
Several months after its passage, CNS International, also known as Heartland, challenged the law for violating its religious freedom and other constitutional rights. The district court dismissed the lawsuit, but CNS appealed to the 8th Circuit.
CNS International operates Heartland Children and Youth Homes that are designed to minister to troubled children and provide a place of “nurture, hope, and accountability for children and teenagers in a loving and godly environment.”
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It asserted that the State of Missouri had applied the requirements of the Residential Care Facility Notification Act to two of its homes, neither of which had any history of problems with children. The background checks required by the state disqualified potential support staff for janitorial and lunchroom positions for offenses that CNS says have nothing to do with children.
CNS attorney Timothy Belz argued that the 8th Circuit determined in 2005 that CNS is “an educational, social, religious, cultural, even economic organization, which speaks of association rights under the First Amendment, which leads directly to strict scrutiny.”
Strict scrutiny is a high standard requiring the government to prove that it is impeding on constitutional rights because of a compelling interest and by the least restrictive means available.
In its brief to the court, CNS International argues that the law as written has very “broad” requirements and that the state’s interpretation narrowing the requirements is not binding on future administrations.
“A narrowing interpretation or rewriting offered by the State in litigation does nothing to protect CNS International Ministries, Inc. from a future official with the desire to enforce the statute exactly as written—broadly, categorically, and unconstitutionally,” CNS wrote.
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