FCA alleges that Hopewell Valley officials are engaging in viewpoint discrimination by barring religious student clubs from having outside mentors, while allowing them for secular clubs.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) has filed suit against a New Jersey school district, claiming its leaders are discriminating against religious clubs and students in violation of the Constitution and federal and state laws.
The national organization, as well as its local chapters, brought the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against the Board of Education for the Hopewell Valley Regional School District and its administrators.
FCA is a religious ministry that supports student-athletes committed to living out their Christian faith on and off the playing field. Founded in 1954, FCA also helps form student-led clubs, called “Huddles,” on college, high school, and middle school campuses, where students gather for fellowship, Bible study, prayer, and games. Hopewell Valley had an FCA club in place for years without any issue.
That all changed on March 13, 2025, when the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an atheist group and frequent antagonist of Christian expression, sent a letter to the district claiming that FCA adults were being given “special access to students for the purpose of promoting religion and proselytizing students, including leading students in religious activities during school-sponsored club meetings.”
FFRF asked that the district ensure adults were not allowed to participate in student religious clubs. On March 25, 2025, the district sent a letter to FFRF stating that it had completed an investigation and announced a new policy banning outside adults from any involvement in religious clubs.
FCA claims that no such investigation took place but spent the next year trying to resolve the issue out of court. After months of efforts by volunteers, FCA alleges that it sent a letter to the district’s legal counsel, Paul Green, on January 15, 2026. Green said he would review the letter and reply, but he never did.
Meanwhile, secular clubs, including the LGBTQ Spectrum Club and the Youth Environmental Society (YES) Club, have been permitted not only to have adult volunteers attend meetings but also to help run their clubs.
With the 2026-2027 school year approaching, FCA filed suit, alleging that the district violated the First Amendment’s guarantees of the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the federal Equal Access Act, and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
Supreme Court precedent holds that if a government entity restricts a person or group’s free exercise of religion, that policy must be neutral and generally applicable. That means it may not treat comparable secular activity more favorably than religious activity and it may not be hostile toward religion.
In 2023, FCA won a similar case involving a California school that had banned its FCA student club entirely. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the school had acted with hostility and that FCA could resume meeting on campus.
The FCA’s lawsuit references the landmark rulings in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, Carson v. Makin, and Good News Club v. Milford Central School District, which all held that the government may not deny a benefit to religious organizations if it is available to everyone else.
Trinity Lutheran specifically stated that government representatives cannot “single out the religious for disfavored treatment” and that the First Amendment “protects religious observers against unequal treatment” and “against laws that impose special disabilities on the basis of religious status.”
Espinoza and Carson each relied on Trinity Lutheran as precedent and found that when government disqualifies “otherwise eligible recipients” from receiving a benefit “solely because of their religious character,” it “imposes ‘a penalty on the free exercise of religion that triggers the most exacting scrutiny.’”
In Espinoza, the Court stated that an exclusion “that hinge[s] solely on religious status” is “odious to our Constitution.”
The district recognizes the benefits of adult volunteers to secular clubs and encourages their participation. But FCA argues that the district denies that benefit to religious groups solely because of their religious status.
“The District imposes one set of rules for secular student groups and another for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA)—solely and expressly because FCA is religious,” the lawsuit states.
“While other student groups benefit from regularly hosting adult volunteers (a resource often crucial to the groups’ long-term health), the District has declared that for ‘religious clubs,’ ‘no outside individuals are permitted’ at all. This damaging double standard is precisely the type of discrimination the Constitution and civil rights law forbid.”
The suit also claims that the district violates students’ right to freedom of speech by discriminating against them based on their viewpoint.
But the suit alleges more than just constitutional violations; it alleges violations of federal and New Jersey law.
FCA argues that the district is violating the Equal Access Act, a law passed by Congress in 1984 that prohibits schools from discriminating against student-led groups based on their religious, political, or philosophical beliefs or topics of discussion.
The law, which was passed by a sweeping margin in both houses of Congress, requires equal access for religious clubs, protecting their right to meet on school grounds so long as the meetings are voluntary and led by students.
FCA says that all meetings are led by students, completely voluntary, and open to all.
The Equal Access Act was challenged in court, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1990 in Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens.
FCA also argues that the policy violates the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations based on “creed.”
Represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, FCA seeks relief through an injunction blocking the policy, as well as punitive damages.
Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket Fund and lead attorney for the FCA suit, said in a statement,
“An atheist advocacy group didn’t like that Christian kids were choosing to learn about faith, life, and sports from trusted mentors. And after years of a great relationship with FCA clubs, the school district regrettably gave the advocacy group its way. Fortunately, the Constitution forbids religious discrimination. We’re confident the court will restore equal access for all student groups.”
Adult volunteers are vital to FCA, just as they are to any other student club, secular or religious. They provide mentors for students and help keep clubs going.
FFRF knows how valuable adult volunteers are to students, yet it sought to prevent those volunteers from participating in FCA. Its objection was not to adult volunteers generally but specifically to their involvement in religious clubs. Hopewell Valley leaders also know the benefits of adult volunteers to student clubs, yet their policy now denies those same benefits to religious clubs.
FCA isn’t asking for any special treatment. It’s simply asking for the same rights as secular clubs.
And that’s a major problem for Hopewell Valley Regional School District because any policy that applies different rules to religious clubs is immediately unconstitutional based on numerous Supreme Court rulings over the past several years, as well as federal and state law.
The fact that Hopewell is banning adult volunteers from not just FCA but any religious club makes the discrimination that much more obvious. The policy clearly denies a benefit to religious clubs purely because of their religious status.
As the Court said in Espinoza, such discrimination is “odious to our Constitution” and should be blocked in court. But that will only happen because people who served students through FCA were also willing to challenge the district’s policy.
While the Constitution guarantees our liberties, it takes people fighting for those liberties to actually keep them.
If you like this article and other content that helps you apply a biblical worldview to today’s politics and culture, consider making a donation here.
