AFLC Month in Review: January 2013

General George Patton once said that “there are three ways that men get what they want: by planning, by working, and by praying.”  Rest assured, by doing all three, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) has gotten off to a fast start in 2013, all made possible by your generous support.  Indeed, January was an incredibly busy month.

• On January 10th, AFLC filed a civil rights lawsuit in a New York federal court on behalf of Joelle Silver, a high school teacher for the Cheektowaga Central School District and a devout Christian, who was forced by school officials to censor her personal speech and remove all religious content from her classroom under threat of being terminated from her employment.  Read more about this case here.

• AFLC took and defended several depositions – including defending a deposition of a crucial witness in California – in the case of four Christian missionaries who were arrested for preaching the Gospel to Muslims at the 2010 Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan.  You can read more about the case here.

• On January 31st, AFLC and the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. filed a reply brief in support of their motion for summary judgment in D.C. federal court on behalf of five former clients of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who had earlier filed two separate lawsuits in federal court against CAIR, alleging common law and statutory fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Read more about this case here.

• In another case involving CAIR, AFLC Co-Founders and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise were in Washington, D.C., at various times throughout the month, taking and defending numerous depositions as AFLC continues its defense of the Center for Security Policy (CSP) and several of its employees, who were sued by CAIR for conducting an undercover documentary designed to expose CAIR’s corrupt activities.  Read more about this case here.

• On New Year’s eve, AFLC filed a petition for an en banc – or full court – rehearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on behalf of Crystal Dixon, a former human resources administrator at the University of Toledo who was fired in 2008 for expressing her personal, Christian viewpoint on homosexuality in an op-ed published in the local newspaper.  On January 28th, the Sixth Circuit requested that the University respond to AFLC’s petition, which is a strong indication that the appellate court is interested in the petition because a response is not filed unless directed by the court.  Read more about this case here.

• AFLC continues its lawsuit filed on behalf of several Christian evangelists who were stoned by Muslims for preaching the Gospel at the 2012 Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan.  We started working on a major brief that will be filed next week.  Read more about this case here.

• AFLC achieved a major victory in Chicago, where the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) notified AFLC that it will accept several proposed “counter-jihad” advertisements submitted by our clients, the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI) and its executive directors, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  FDI’s proposed advertisements are in response to an advertisement campaign brought by CAIR’s Chicago chapter. The CTA had originally denied FDI’s advertisements, but AFLC immediately sent them a letter threatening legal action. As a result, CTA agreed to accept the advertisements because they feared losing in court after hearing about AFLC’s previous court victories in New York and Washington, D.C.  Read more about this victory here.

• Yerushalmi and Muise were interviewed by numerous local and national media throughout the month for various cases.  Muise also appeared on Michael Coren’s Canadian television program, “The Arena,” to discuss religious freedom in the United States.  The analysis included an overview of AFLC’s defense of Crystal Dixon, which is mentioned above.  You can watch the interview here.

• And the list goes on . . .