BREAKING: Ave Maria School of Law Wins Its HHS Mandate Case in Federal Court

The Obama Administration has suffered another defeat in its quest to force Catholics and people of faith to pay for abortion-causing drugs, as required by the HHS Mandate.

Today the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida came down in favor of Ave Maria School of Law, ruling that the Catholic law school cannot be forced to implement portions of the HHS Mandate which compel faith-based organizations to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees.  Attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, representing the law school in Ave Maria School of Law v. Sebelius, argued that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Ave Maria School of Law President and Dean Eugene R. Milhizer said of the Mandate,

“The First Amendment protects Americans from mandates that require us to act against our deeply held religious convictions. But the mandate leaves us with no real choice: we must either comply and abandon our religious freedom and conscience, or resist and be fined for our faith.”

Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement following today’s ruling:

“Faith-based educational institutions should be free to live and operate according to the faith they teach and espouse. The court was right to uphold the religious freedom of institutions that value the sanctity of life. If the government can force Ave Maria School of Law to violate its faith in order to exist, then the government can do the same or worse to others. ”

The Becket Fund’s “HHS Information Central” includes status updates regarding 53 non-profit lawsuits and 49 for-profit lawsuits against the HHS Mandate.  As of today, at least 33 non-profits have received injunctions against implementation of the requirement to fund abortion-inducing drugs as part of their employee benefit packages.  Five of the for-profit cases have been awarded permanent injunctions against the Mandate, with another 39 receiving temporary injunctions while their cases progress through the court system.

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I was working for the Ave Maria Foundation in 1999, when Domino’s Pizza magnate and Catholic philanthropist Tom Monaghan first established the Ave Maria School of Law.  I was personally acquainted with the first faculty and administrators, with whom I had worked at the University of Detroit Mercy.

Recognizing a critical need for a legal curriculum and faculty dedicated to protecting and preserving the Catholic Faith, Mr. Monaghan opened the school in an office building in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just a mile down the road from our offices.

The AMSL mission statement explains its noble vision:

Ave Maria School of Law offers an outstanding legal education in fidelity to the Catholic Faith as expressed through Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the Church. University legal education began in Catholic universities, and Catholic law schools have been the bearers of a tradition that safeguards the dignity of the human person and the common good. Ave Maria School of Law affirms Catholic legal education’s traditional emphasis on the only secure foundation for human freedom – the natural law written on the heart of every human being. We affirm the need for society to rediscover those human and moral truths that flow from the nature of the human person and that safeguard human freedom.

Earlier this month, the Princeton Review included Ave Maria School of Law in its list of the Best 169 Law Schools in America.  Ave Maria School of Law is one of 70 schools in the book (41% of the 169 profiled) that appear on one or more of the book’s ranking lists.  It ranks number one on the “Most Conservative Students” list.