The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (via YouTube screengrab/WTVF). Inset: Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram (via Americans United for Separation of Church and State).
An appeals court has ruled that a Jewish couple who was denied foster care services in Tennessee has the right to sue the state for discrimination.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram, a Jewish couple living in Knox County, were denied foster care placement and training services by a state-funded agency. That agency, Holston United Methodist Home for Children, turned the couple away because, according to an email to the family from a Holston employee, the agency is “a Christian organization” and the executive team had decided “to only provide adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our belief system[.]”
The Rutan-Rams sued the state, challenging a Tennessee law that allows private child-placement agencies that receive state funding to deny services to prospective foster or adoptive parents based on the agencies’ religious beliefs. A trial court ruled in Tennessee’s favor in 2022, finding that the couple had “failed to allege a practical or a stigmatic injury sufficient” to support standing.
In a unanimous three-judge ruling on Thursday, the state’s Court of Appeals reversed that decision, finding that the Rutan-Rams did properly allege an injury under state law and that they have a right to sue.
“In the present case, the allegations of the complaint assert that the Couple has been denied and are being denied equal access to stated-funded foster and adoption services because of their Jewish faith,” the decision says.
Although Tennessee still provided the couple with child-placement services, that wasn’t enough, the court found.
“[W]hen the state makes it more difficult for members of one group than for members of another group to obtain services, the injury in fact ‘is the denial of equal treatment resulting from the imposition of the barrier, not the ultimate inability to obtain the benefit,’” the judges wrote.
The higher court judges disagreed with the lower court’s majority ruling that the Rutan-Rams failed to show that the state “would not contract with a Jewish agency similarly situated” to the Christian organization that rejected them, and therefore the Tennessee law “does not single out people of the Jewish faith as a disfavored, innately inferior group.”
“The majority seems to believe that discrimination is permissible as long as multiple groups are subjected to unequal treatment,” the appeals court said, noting that neither the lower court nor the state cited “any authority” for that conclusion, which the judges imply is unconstitutional. “When a statute subjects a group of people to unequal treatment based upon their religious beliefs, the fact that the statute may allow discrimination against other religious groups does not negate a disfavored group’s standing to challenge the statute.”
The appeals court ruled only on the matter of standing, or whether the Rutan-Rams and additional taxpayers could sue at all. Absent an appeal from the state, the case will now return to the lower court for litigation.
“We are reviewing the court’s decision,” Amy L. Wilhite, director of communications for the attorney general’s office, told Law&Crime in an email.
“Liz and Gabe Rutan-Ram suffered outrageous discrimination because they are Jewish,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, which represented the couple. “This loving couple wanted to help a child in need, only to be told that they couldn’t get services from a taxpayer-funded agency because they’re the wrong religion. Liz and Gabe deserve their day in court, and Americans United intends to see that they get it. Religious freedom must never be a license to harm others — and AU is the shield that protects us all from those who would weaponize it.”
Read the court’s ruling here.
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