Church's discrimination suit against UMaine falters at First Circuit

BOSTON (CN) — The University of Maine violated the Constitution when it backed out of a deal to sell one of its buildings to a fundamentalist church, the church’s lawyer told the First Circuit at oral argument Monday, but the panel of appellate judges seemed doubtful that the university did anything wrong.

Calvary Chapel in Belfast, Maine, sought the building order to house an addiction treatment center, a facility for people with special needs and a homeschool co-op. The university declared the church the winning bidder in August 2024, but that decision resulted in community opposition due to the church’s conservative views — it believes in a literal heaven and hell, the rapture and traditional approaches to marriage and sexuality.

The controversy led the university to issue a press stating that it “cannot discriminate, including on the basis of religion. Doing so would be against the law and inconsistent with the university’s commitment to inclusion."

However, several months later the university’s vice chancellor, Ryan Low, rescinded the results and asked for new bids, eventually selecting a different bidder — one that the church claimed had been active in stoking the community protests.

Low insisted that the rescission had nothing to do with religion and was based on changed plans for an internet networking hub located in the structure, an explanation that the church described in its complaint as “transparently pretextual.”

The church sued the university for violating equal protection and the First Amendment. But a lower court denied a preliminary injunction, finding that Low was genuinely concerned about the Internet hub, and the church appealed.

“The press release was the first half,” the church’s lawyer, Daniel Schmid of Liberty Counsel in Washington, D.C., told the First Circuit panel. But “after halftime, the disappointed bidders ramped up their religious animus,” calling the church “a little fascist factory.”

But U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta was unimpressed. “Low was the decisionmaker,” he said. “He testified that religion played no role. The district court specifically said I believe him. Isn’t that fact finding? I’m not understanding how you proceed with your case after that.”

Schmid insisted that the lower court should have inferred discrimination from the community outrage. But Kayatta, a Barack Obama appointee, told him that he still had to find some way to connect the decision to the outrage, and if he couldn’t, “you lose.”

“Are you saying Low lied?” Kayatta asked.

“He created a pretext,” Schmid replied.

“That’s a lawyer’s way of saying he lied,” Kayatta responded.

Schmid complained that discrimination defendants almost never openly admit that they’re discriminating, and “we have to look beyond that.”

But “you have to argue for an error of law,” said U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez, a Bill Clinton appointee. “I’m not understanding what that was. I just don’t see where the district court did that.”

Schmid maintained it was suspicious that Low had overruled the recommendation of a subordinate on the matter. But the university’s lawyer, Melissa Hewey of Drummond Woodsum in Portland, Maine, said that wasn’t suspicious because that’s how the system was supposed to work — an underling makes a recommendation and the chancellor reviews it and agrees or disagrees. That’s not a “procedural irregularity,” she said; it’s the procedure itself.

Schmid was left with little more than a claim that the result seemed fishy. “You have to look at the totality of the circumstances,” he argued.

“But that’s what the district court did,” Lipez replied.

U.S. Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo, a Joe Biden appointee, joined Lipez and Kayatta on the panel.