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Design technology is being used to lock Americans out of court when the government curtails their first amendment rights. The Supreme Court should stop it.
When the government threatens to exercise a constitutional right, can it force you to run the bureaucratic gauntlet before a federal court hears your case? On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court agreed to answer that question at its next term in Grand v. City of University Heights. It should answer no.
A prayer group and a cease and desist letter
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Daniel Grand is an Orthodox Jew in University Heights, Ohio. His faith calls him to pray with a minyan, a congregation of ten men, and forbids driving on the Sabbath. This makes going to a distant synagogue impossible. So, he invited twelve neighbors to pray at his house, but someone complained. Days later, on January 21, 2021, the city of University Heights sent Grand a cease and desist letter. The city told Grand that he would have to get permission to use his home as a place of “religious assembly.” If he did not get the permit and continued to host the minyan, he could be cited for code violations and fined. All the while his neighbors were free to host friends to watch a football game, play poker, or hang out.
Grand canceled his next prayer meeting and applied for a permit through the University Heights plan. Yet that process was as hostile as it was Kafkaesque. Grand was shocked at the zoning board’s hearing, with one neighbor expressing fear that the neighborhood would be “called Jewish.” And that special use permit? Grand learned that if he got the necessary permit, it would convert his home into a “house of worship” under the local code. That meant that Mkhulu could pray there, but he could not sleep there because it would no longer be considered a place to live. Grand abandoned the permit process and instead filed a civil rights lawsuit to protect his First Amendment right to pray in his home.
When Grand sued under the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Human Institutions Act (RLUIPA), the courts did not reach jurisdiction. A unanimous Sixth Circuit panel dismissed the case as premature. Because Grand withdrew his consent request, a “final decision” had not yet been reached. And under the case of Williamson County Planning v. Hamilton Bank, the land use claim is not matured until the government officials reach a final decision through the prescribed administrative process. The Sixth Circuit took the law on forfeiture and used it to close the court’s door to a First Amendment claim.
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The final rule makes sense in our case because the injury depends on the administrative process. You don’t know regulation has taken too much of your assets until you know how far it reaches. But a First Amendment case is different. Grand was injured when he received that cease and desist letter. He read the threat to the city. He did not pray. He canceled his minyan. As the Supreme Court held in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, a credible threat to law enforcement is itself an actionable injury. Making the Grand exhaust a design process does nothing to sharpen the damage that has already been done.
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The Sixth Circuit gave the government a dirty playbook. Any city that wants to shut down a house of worship, a bookstore, or an unpopular meeting can order a moratorium, seek permission, and then hide through its administrative boards and lawsuits to lock the courthouse door. The division between circuits makes it worse: the same enforcement is reviewed in one part of the country and not affected in another, so your right to pray in your home depends on your zip code.
The Great Principle it stands for is… great. The Constitution does not require Americans to ask permission before meeting and praying in their homes. When an official wants permission to pray, he should be able to enter the court immediately. We must not first grant an unconstitutional permit application by inserting ourselves into the zoning process. The last rule is the rule of taking. There is no business locking the court door on First Amendment claims. When the Court hears the argument about this fall, it should make that clear.
