Sheridan Road Baptist Church v. Department of Education

This case involves primarily a free exercise of religion challenge based on the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and art 1, § 4, and art 8, § 1, of the Michigan Constitution1 to the state *466statute requiring teachers in nonpublic schools to be certified by the state. The lower court also found that the regulations resulted in an Establishment Clause violation.

Specifically, the free exercise challenge is in two parts. The first part is phrased as follows in plaintiffs’ reply brief:

To repeat: the Churches’ point is not that a certified teacher may not…