Transcripts For CSPAN Administration Officials Discuss Religious Freedom 20240713

Administration. Way im the Vice President of the institute for Constitutional Government here at heritage. Silence cell phones please john on september the 23rd, President Trump delivered an important speech on religious freedom at the united nations. He said our founders understood that no right is more fundamental to a peaceful, prosperous and Virtuous Society than the right to follow ones religious convictions. He added that too often people in positions of power preach diversity while silencing, shunning or censoring the faithful. True tolerance means respecting the right of all people to express their deeply held religious beliefs. How right he is. During the last administration, religious adherents felt besieged. While the Obama Administration was prepared to honor freedom of worship, freedom of religion was another matter. Obama Administration Officials preached that tolerating religious adherence was great. For a moment, they can find their way to houses of worship and did not try to adhere to their sincerely held religious beliefs at their jobs from a in their communities. The administration argued in nash case that it was ok for the government to interfere with the admission of religious organizations and churches. The issue to mandate under obamacare requiring religious organizations should provide abortion inducing drugs and contraception free of charge to their employees in direct violation of the organizations beliefs. The revoked grant from the u. S. Conference of catholic bishops which adduce the funds over a tenyear. Traffickingman sex because of the bishops objection to abortion. I could go on, but you get the point. This administration has taken a different approach. We have three outstanding speakers with us today to tell us about it. I will keep their introductions short. I can assure you, much shorter than they deserve so that you will have more time to hear from them and less for me. First, we will hear from eric dreiband. Eric serves as the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division in the department of justice. Prior to that, he was a partner at the jones day law firm. Here in washington d. C. He also. Serves a special counsel at the equal Employment Opportunity commission, at the u. S. Department of labors wage and Hours Division and as associate , independent counsel with ken starr. He received his law degree from northwestern university. A masters of theological studies from harvard divinity school, and his undergraduate gray from princeton university. He also clerked for judge william bauer. On the seventh Circuit Court of appeals. After eric, we will hear from reed rubinstein. Reed is the acting counsel at the department of education. Before transitioning over to the department of education, he was deputy associate at the Justice Department. Reid was a partner at the law firm of dinsmore and stoll. He also served as a senior Vice President in charge of litigation. Before that, he served as senior counsel at the Environment Technology and Regulatory Affairs for the u. S. Chamber of commerce. He got his undergraduate degree in, a philosophy masters in and his political science, and his law degree all from the university of michigan. Go wolverines. [laughter] finally we will hear from roger severino. Roger is the director from the office of civil rights at the u. S. Department of health and Human Services. Prior to joining hhs, roger was my colleague here at heritage where he served as the director of the de vos center for religious society. Prior to joining heritage, roger served for several years of the office of Civil Rights Division where he litigated cases involving the fair housing act, the religious land use and institutionalized persons act, and titles two and six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He also previously served as chief operating officer and Legal Counsel for the becket fund for religious liberty. Roger received a jd degree from harvard a masters in Public Policy from carnegie mellon, and his bachelor degree from usc. The floor is yours. Eric thank you john. I want to begin primarily by talking about the department of justices work on religious liberty since 2017. The attorney general william barr has emphasized that religious freedom is our first freedom. It is the first freedom mentioned in the bill of rights. And in the First Amendment itself. The departments efforts with respect to religious freedom really began with the president s executive order order on religious freedom he issued in may 2017. The president directed the attorney general to develop guidance for the various federal departments and agencies on religious liberty. Former attorney general sessions issued a memorandum on federal laws that protect religious liberty and issued that memorandum in october of 2017. The attorney generals memorandum which is still binding lays out 20 key principles. While there are too many to mention here, i want to talk about a few of the key principles we are working on and will continue to work on at the department of justice. The first is the principle of equal treatment. This is the idea that religious individuals and groups and institutions should be treated equally and should not face legal disabilities because they are religious in nature. Our work in this regard grows out of the Supreme Court decision in the Trinity Lutheran case. In that case, the Supreme Court held it was a violation of free exercise of the First Amendment to exclude a Church Daycare from a state program because the institution itself was religious. We have taken the guidance from the Supreme Court and the attorney general and applied that in many cases throughout the United States. Especially in the area of School Choice and other government benefits. We have argued that governmental institutions cannot exclude religious people and institutions because of their identity and character. A couple of weeks ago, in a case called espinoza versus Montana Department of revenue, the solicitor general filed a brief arguing that a socalled Blaine Amendment in a nash in montana violates the constitution because religious schools were deprived of tax advantaged scholarships because they are religious schools. These were programs that were otherwise available throughout the state of montana. But not to religious schools. It is our position, and we hope the Supreme Court agrees with us that that kind of program unlawfully discriminates against religious institutions in violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. We generally argued in that brief and others that the principles of equal freedom equal treatment include protecting religious liberty. Individuals and organizations that should not be pressured to abandon religious faith in order to obtain or be eligible for some kind of government benefit. That citizens should be treated equally. Equal treatment for religious individuals and institutions. We think that by acting that way, the government can reduce strife in our society with respect to religious and nonreligious individuals. We also filed yesterday in the court of appeals for the First Circuit in a case called carson versus macon. In that brief, we are making essentially the same argument we are making in the Supreme Court. In that case the state of maine , excludes religious schools from certain tuition programs. We take the position in our brief that that kind of exclusion violates the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. We have a similar case pending in vermont as well. We filed a statement of interest and support of religious freedom there in a case we believe involves discrimination against high school students. In the state of vermont. Secondly, Church Autonomy. This is important. The department of justice takes the position consistent with the case that john mentioned, the tabor case, that religious institutions are entitled to run their affairs they deem appropriate. One case that is currently pending, which a couple of weeks ago we filed a statement of a statement of interest. The Payne Elliott Burgess Roman archdiocese of indiana. That case involves a plaintiff who is in a samesex marriage with a schoolteacher at a Catholic High School indianapolis, indiana. The archdiocese instructed the school that if the school was going to remain catholic could not employ an individual who is in a public samesex marriage. The school discharged the individual and settled with the teacher. That former teacher is suing the archdiocese of indianapolis and in a tort law claim. We argued that the Church Autonomy doctrine and the freedom of association protections of the protect the First Amendment Catholic Churchs right to operate and and howoing to operate it is going to associate with people. In this case, how it will decide how to associate or not with a particular high school. In the case. In another case called believers in christ versus the university of iowa, we filed a statement of interest that the deregistration of a Christian Group violated First Amendment. The free exercise clause of the in that case, the Student Group called believers in christ had a statement of its principles or an oath in which it took the , position that the organization itself adhered to traditional opposite sex notions of marriage and did not agree with samesex marriage. As a religious matter. The University De registered the group. The group sued. The District Court agreed that such an action by the university to strip the Student Group of the rights to participate in campus life violated the free exercise clause. Of the First Amendment. The attorney generals memorandum expressed his view about how the religious freedom restoration act should be implemented. This is a federal law that requires strict scrutiny of any kind of substantial burden on religious exercise. Our position is reflected in the case called trump versus commonwealth of pennsylvania. The Justice Department filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to endorse the department of health and Human Services rulemaking to protect conscience rights under its statutes enforced by the department of health and Human Services. I will leave that to roger. The general theme as john pointed out is we take a much different approach to the religious freedom restoration act then the prior administration. The commonwealth of pennsylvania in case, we are taking the position that the department of health and Human Services is authorized by that law to add conscious conscience exceptions to things like contraception. When their religion comes into play with respect to objections they may have two otherwise neutral federal law requirements. I will mention a couple of other things. The Justice Department also enforces title vii of the Civil Rights Act which deals with religious antidiscrimination protections in employment. That law requires among other things reasonable accommodations for individualsreligious observances in the workplace. And practices of their faith. In addition, we enforce the religious land use and institutionalized persons act. Under the departments place to worship initiative, we have doubled the number of investigations that we are bringing, as well as many lawsuits on behalf of religious institutions whose free exercise of religion has been burdened by typically land use regulations. For example, when they attempt to build a church, mosque or synagogue using a particular parcel of land. We have in several cases we have sought successfully relief for those individuals. In addition, in institutionalized settings, prisons, we have an active litigation practice there as well. Announced a settlement regarding kosher meals and access to worship to prisoners in state institutions. Our hate crimes prosecution. We at the department of justice particularly prosecute federal hate crime laws. Those involve criminal prosecutions where there can be arsons, mass shootings, with individuals engaged in places of worship or practicing faith. Two cases are currently pending. One involved a mass shooting where 11 people were killed at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. Six other people were nearly killed in that case. We are prosecuting that case criminally with the u. S. Attorneys office. The motive there we alleged there was antisemitic hatred toward the individuals worshiping at the synagogue at the time. Similarly, we are prosecuting a case in california involving a similar attack on a synagogue where an individual was killed, others injured. While they were practicing their faith. Hate crime prosecutions both religious hate crimes and others are among the most important we do at the department. We take them seriously. With that, i will turn it over to my colleagues. [applause] good afternoon. Thank you for coming out. First, before i get into the substance of what we are doing at the department of education. On behalf of betsy devos, i want to take a moment to think and acknowledge john and heritage for their stalwart work. These past many years. Creating the intellectual capital, intellectual foodstuffs. Many initiatives that secretary devos, our department, and the administration generally has undertaken had their origins or were founded or buttressed by the publications and programs, including legal policy, that heritage has offered. The Trump Administration has done great things. Our department has done great things to advance liberty. Religious and otherwise. To protect and promote the rule of law. Two cabinet the ministry state without heritage, we might not even be here. We might not be as effective as we are. So, thank you. Secretary devos, as you know, is a strong advocate for religious freedom and rule of law. Under her leadership, the department has taken a number of critical steps technical steps, but critical steps to protect this first freedom. First and most significantly have been changes to the regulations that apply to Higher Education under the Higher Education act. There are, as a result of Trinity Lutheran and the attorney generals memo that eric mentioned, we undertook a regulatory review to determine how our title iv regulations dealing with colleges and federal student aid might affect the rights of faithbased organizations under the free exercise clause and also those , of students. We went through and reviewed them. Eric as a result of will making, made a series of changes. First with respect to accreditation, the process by which congress has given a given to private organizations the ability to condition the eligibility of those organizations for student aid. We have made it clear that religious mission must be taken into account. Perhaps that an aggradation perhaps an accreditation and organization might require a Christian College to, as part of awarding a masters in social degree, require counseling with respect to samesex marriage. We have attempted to change the regulations. As a result of our work, consensus work with the industry, by regulation which is now out there for public comment. We encourage you to take a look. Accreditation organizations must acknowledge the pervasive impact that a mission can have on the campus while allowing them a comprehensive curriculum. The regulation has defined religious mission as a published Institutional Mission approved by the governing body of the college. That includes or is predicated upon religious tenets, police beliefs, or teachings. Allows religious institutions to seek a review, if they get an adverse action. That is to say denial of accreditation by an organization because of a failure to respect religious mission. They clarify that the department of education will always recognize legal authorization. Of a college with a religious mission to operate, when that institution is otherwise exempt from state requirements under state admin strata coming out or constitutional law. Coming out shortly will be what we call the religious title four. Religious freedom title iv. The npr m has not been published. It has not been published, but the consensus language is publicly available. Were going through deleting outdated reglet tory language. Presuming memory is a religious orders have no dental eligibility i can talk about it under title iv. For a moment. We are deleting outdated regulatory language, presuming that members of religious orders have no financial need for purposes of eligibility. We are modifying work studying employment involving the construction operations of the names of sectarian worship. We are replacing existing regulatory provisions with the statutory language to clarify that we take a narrow view. We read statutes the way they are written. We are deleting provisions that exclude borrowers from receiving loan forgiveness under the Loan Forgiveness Program if they are working four organizations engage in activities related to religious instruction or worship. Another blitz activities. These are technical changes, but they are all going to have significant cumulative effect that will advance religious liberty. On college campuses. The department, and all the things that we do, grantmaking, and our work in grant administration, we work to ensure the principles of religious liberty and equality are faithfully executed. And carried out and protected. In august of this year, working closely with eric and folks at the department of justice, we obtained an opinion from the office of Legal Counsel with respect to historically black colleges and universities. It turns out, the department of education was authorized by congress to provide loans to these colleges and universities. However the loans may not be , made for any educational program, activity or Service Related to sectarian instruction or religious worship provided by a school or department of divinity or institution for which a substantial portion of its functions are assumed in a religious mission. That is congress sentence, not mine. Is subsumed in a religious mission. That is what they said. They said no money for you if it relates to religious activities. Our office the office of the , general counsel, supported by the great work of someone sitting here today, reached out to the department of justice and said we think this is a problem. In august, we received a memo saying it is. What congress did is inconsistent with the First Amendment. And is free exercise clause. Were going to be taking so appropriate action very soon. There are a lot of other things we have done, i can talk about in detail afterwards. Or in questions. There are two things i want to note. First, the secretary has been outspoken calling out antisemitism on college campuses. The Justice Departments antisemitism program, she addressed it and identified the bds movement as a significant problem. The department does not take regulatory action. There is something called the First Amendment. Her recognition is significant and consistent with Everything Else that we do. Finally, i want to let you know that we are working on a number of other initiatives which we cannot yet talk about to advance principles of religious liberty and to ensure that this first freedom is fully protected. I am looking forward to taking questions. I turn it over to roger. [applause] roger are there any john lennon fans . The song imagine. Do you remember the lyrics, imagine all the people them, imagine there is no heaven imagine there is no religion . , that was the pessimistic view of religion and civil society. Nothing to die for. He forgot the live part. He said nothing to kill or die for. Most people think of religion as something to live for. It is an organizing principle in peoples lives. What if we took john lennons thought experiment seriously. What if we said there were no religion . What would america be like . Would be a better place . Would it a more humane place . Would it be Something Different . Something different that the different than what the founders imagined america to be. They saw it as a force for the public good that made society of Virtuous Society. In fact, the precondition for our society to be a republican all was that we had a virtuous citizenry. Religion was a fundamental part of that. When i listen to john lennon, i have a different thought in mind. Imagine if it was taken seriously and there were no Little Sisters of the poor. Little sisters of the poor exists literally to be there so that the elderly poor do not die alone. That is what they do. They dont care who you are. Where you come from. So that you do not die alone. They are driven by the religious impulse to be there. When nobody else would be there for them. Hhs and our federal government to Little Sisters of the poor you can no longer exist , as that sort of organization if you refuse to provide assistance to your fellow nuns to get contraception. That is what it is about. Nuns, you must help provide nuns contraceptive coverage or you cannot serve the elderly poor. In their dying days. They would face millions of dollars of funds if they did not follow the mandate. Meanwhile, exxon, pepsi were exempt. They were grandfathered in. We had millions of people who were not under the mandate. But no, Little Sisters of the poor have to provide assistance with contraceptive coverage. By the way if you know anything , about nuns, they are not huge consumers of these services. [laughter] how do we get to a point in society where we thought the world may actually be a better place . Imagine a World Without the Little Sisters of the poor, that is what we are headed towards. It took a Supreme Court intervention to stop it. At least put the brakes on it. For a time. Then we had rulemaking spurred by the president himself he invited the Little Sisters up to the podium and said we are going to get off your backs and leave you alone and told hhs, what are you going to do . We did. We took that instruction to heart. We issued regulations that protect the religious and moral convictions of anybody who objects to the contraceptive mandate. Meanwhile, allowing for the mandate as it stood in the past. It expanded the exemption beyond the crass notion that the Previous Administration that the ministry of jesus christ himself may not have qualified because it was not a formal religion at the time. Was 12 apostles enough . Only the irs would know. [laughter] we are in that position. Things have been changing ever since. I want to harken back this is , coming from the president himself. Recently when he spoke to the u. N. , he said one of his highest priorities is religious freedom. And religious liberty. He has come back to that theme repeatedly. We are getting one executive order per year on religious freedom. We mentioned what eric has done in doj, the wonderful work they have done their with the attorney generals guidance. The department of education has done good work. Labor has done excellent things. Hhs has been ground zero because hhs one is so big. We have so many programs. We touch so many lives on fundamental questions. When you get to the question of health and Human Services, there are questions dealing with life and death. That is when religious impulse comes to the four. Comes to the fore. John lennon notwithstanding, you cannot get rid of the religious impulse. It is part of human nature. When we grapple with questions of life and death, according to the founders that must be done with freedom. Freedom to reach your own conclusions without government coercion. We have a tradition of exempting quakers from the revolutionary war. Who would not take blood. Doctors who do not want to prescribe lethal cocktails for duly convicted executions. We allow space for that. After roe v. Wade when it comes to abortion, no dr. Should be compelled to assist or perform an abortion against his or her will. That was the bipartisan nationwide consensus. Regardless of what you think about its legality, you cannot force someone to pay for. It, or refer for it. That message, unfortunately, did not get through. Congress passed these laws that ratified the will of the people. This consensus. For years, these laws were not but enforced. When people sought relief in court, courts were saying you do not have a private right of action. In many times these statutes are enforced exclusively by the office for Civil Rights Act dhhs. In the eight years before President Trump, we were receiving a little over one complaint per year under conscience authorities. We are receiving 343 in the last fiscal year. What Committee Explanation . Either there were no violations for all those years. One possibility. I think the more logical one is we announced that we are open for business. That you have these rights. We are willing to enforce them. We are there for you. People listened. And people responded. That is the reality. We recently issued several notices of violation. One on this question of abortion. This was the university of Vermont Medical Center that had a nurse who had objected to her bosses, saying, i cannot assist in abortions. Her conscience was respected for a time. The Medical Center started doing abortions in earnest. She was told one day to come in for a procedure. She reasonably believed it was going to be for the aftereffects of miscarriage. She walked in, the doctor says, do not hate me. He knew that this was going to be an abortion. She objected. At that moment she raised her , objection again and was denied even though the hospital could have switched out with another nurse. This was no emergency circumstance. This was preplanned. She could have been accommodated. Her job was on the line, and potentially her license to Practice Medicine at all. She relented and suffered a severe traumatic moral injury. This is a moral injury when it is of conscience where we should be free to answer these fund middle questions of life when people suffer. Not only that, it violated the law. We investigated the case and issued a notice of violation to the university of vermont. We got encouraging signs as to their willingness to reconsider their policies. We stand ready for any eventuality because we are here to enforce the law. As we did with the state of california. There, they passed a law called the fact act that was targeted against pregnancy resource centers. These organizations, faithbased, which provide womens options other than abortion. The state of california went after them. Required them to effectively refer to free or lowcost Abortion Services in the state of california and to otherwise post disclaimers in their advertisements. Meanwhile exempting all sorts of other organizations in the field that do not engage in abortion. The Supreme Court said it likely violated the First Amendment. Rise of these organizations. We said it absolutely did. Amendmente weldon which perhaps hhs funds from going to a state that prohibits from going against entities that refuse to refer for abortions. We reached an accord with hawaii where they would not enforce their loss similar to there law, similar to californias against any prolife resource center. We are winning on the board because we are enforcing these laws. Is not only a matter of enforcement it is a matter of , institutionalizing these protections. We started a conscious and religious Freedom Division within the office of civil rights to make sure these rights are treated as least as well as any other civil right. We want to see this expand to the rest of the federal agencies to make sure we are changing the culture of government so that Little Sisters of the poor will not face a situation that they face, but it would become unthinkable for the government to do such a thing. To make sure there is space for everybody of all religious convictions or no religious faith, to partner with the federal government. We are institutionalizing it by having a full division that will enforce these laws. There are 25 different provisions that we discovered. A notice of proposed rulemaking identified 25 identified proposed statutes affecting health care that Congress Passed and are finally being given life and force. The Effective Date has been pushed to november 22. There have been lawsuits around it which to my mind are baffling. These are laws that Congress Passed. These are laws that should be enforced. This should not be controversial. Whether or not religious liberty and the enforcement of our laws rises and falls should not depend on who happens to sit in my office. It should not have to depend on having President Trump, who is a forceful and fearless in defending conscience religious liberty. It should not depend on that. Just like civil rights, we have got to the point where it is the National Consensus regardless of changes in administration. That is where we want to be. We are setting the stage now as we bring these cases forward, and of course i say this as we also enforce hippa. If you believe there is a violation, bring them to ocr. We will figure out whether there is statutes, with a greater race, religion, the exercise of conscience and religious freedom, age, sex, race. Is statutes. We also know include the exercise of conscience and religious freedom. Those of the things we have been doing. We have worked on these issues in the context of adoption and foster care. We are taking the religious freedom restoration act seriously. Now, we open the doors to people of faith and conviction to say they now have a place to turn because the federal government is willing to help make sure that they are not marginalized. I imagine a world in the future that is very different than john lennons. [applause] john in a moment, i am going to open this up to questions. I would ask you to please raise your hand, wait until you get a microphone handed to you. Briefly state who you are. We welcome some day giving you the opportunity to be a speaker at heritage. But today is not that day. So keep whatever it is youre going to say very short. And and it with a question mark. As people formulate their questions, i was thinking off the top of my head the four most contentious issues we face in our society that people talk about a lot. Racial preferences climate climate change, abortion and the religiousof many adherents in the traditional definition of marriage. You are implicated in two out of those four. You face significant headwinds, i have to say in that one within your own departments are there and in support of the positions of the last administration. You also have the media, Corporate America is against you. Even the language changes. When roger was talking about doctors being able to opt out for conscience reasons or nurses performing abortions. When these things are introduced, they are compromises, or accommodations among people who have reasonable beliefs on both sides of the debate. Todays compromise becomes tomorrows loophole that has to be closed because there are bigots that are preventing justice from being done. I am wondering how you deal with those headwinds, and what you tell your people as they go about doing the job you have tasked them to do. It is a general question. I had given this a lot of thought. I think if you start with the principal of equal dignity and respect for everybody which the origin for me of that conflict is a religious one. That concept is a religious one. That is what animates in me. If you believe in equal dignity of every human being regardless of their walk of life, and then you do not presume the worst that we are all trying even on these contentious issues to , seek the common good, it helps to take down the temperature. I have instilled in my staff that same attitude. When i arrived, i told folks look, we may be having Different Directions on the edges, but when it comes to civil rights we have been heading westward. Were not going to go eastward all of a sudden, but it may be northwest or southwest versus what it was before. It is rooted in human dignity, we are still going full speed ahead. If there is an issue you disagree with, i believe in conscience. All of my staff, they know this well, you do not need to work on an issue that violates your conscience. I want everybody to be happy working on civil rights every day. Taking those steps to make sure you are looking out for the best interests of everybody does a lot. I have done a lot of outreach with lgbt groups. I have a great relationship with jocelyn samuels, my predecessor from the Obama Administration. The stair together the stage together at functions at leading lgbt think tank. A it was a great event to show that even though we have different policy decisions, we are on the same boat. We are in it together. I think bringing that up will help bridge that gap a bit more. Eric the department of education is blessed with tremendous political staff. The career staff certainly at senior levels but throughout, or are very conscientious and professional lawyers. As a result when we talk about , things like the rule of law, and about how to read our authorizing statutes and how regulations when it is appropriate to regulate, when is it appropriate some would say never to issues of regulatory to issue sub regulatory guidance. The manner in which the work of our department actually gets done, there are different views on how you would potentially how far you should go into reading a statute. We have not really seen a lot of headwinds from the attorneys within the oj c. A lot of what our department does is grant making. Our role by statute often is relatively limited. What we can do as i alluded to is ensure the law is followed , meaning all the provisions of the law. Statutes, regulations, constitutional provisions to ensure there is accountability in how money is spent to not be is spent, and that the Public Public protected the fisk is protected. In those terms, the response internally, political has been very positive. Much of the work that we do with respect to religious liberty is not particularly controversial. When we sue civilly a state that has prevented a religious organization or institution from building a church, synagogue or mosque due to what we regard as an unlawful landuse regulation. Are career lawyers and investigators have worked very diligently on these cases. The same thing when we prosecute religious motivated hate crimes of which we have seen a lot. Particularly antisemitic hate crimes. Our team of professionals do wonderful work in that area. Other areas, obviously, sometimes are career attorneys and other staff might disagree with the positions that we are taking in a particular case. I will talk about two other points with respect to john. With your spec to this issue. Particularly some of the controversies john mentioned. There are times when we have filed statements of interest or friend of the court briefs or lawsuits in very contentious areas, that involve for example conflict between religious liberty and samesex marriage. My own view of that is that the First Amendment protects the religious believers for reasons i mentioned at the podium and the circumstances in which we have participated in. I think that the law to me is very clear on that. Secondly, i took the oath of office to defend the and protect the constitution of the United States. I have no problem in any way doing that. In fact, i am proud to do that even though it may at times engender criticism. Part of the hostility we see when we weigh in as we did in the archdiocese of indiana case i mentioned, is protected by the freespeech protections of the First Amendment. So as part of a free society, it , is something that as public officials, we should expect. And protect. While i do not enjoy the and sowhile i do not enjoy the, criticism and hostility directed at me, it is something that the First Amendment protects. I would not have it any other way. John ok, audience questions. Does anybody have anything they want to ask . Thank you. On china, the Trump Administration is planning to put a Chinese Company who who manufactures surveillance products on the blacklist. The companies are believed to have been involved in taking part in tremendous human rights and religious persecutions against the uighurs and felon gone and many were the groups in china. Could you please comment on this. I did a case at the doj civil rights. Under title to, it prohibits discrimination against religious accommodation. And race. Some of the fights that occurred on Mainland China where persecution of all religions that are not under the thumb of the state, including following falun gong. We saw some of that spill over here where folks are being kicked out of restaurants because they were members. I took the case and we won. It is an issue that religious discrimination targets especially minority religions. Theyre the ones who get the worst of it. When i was at doj civil rights, i am sure you see it now. When you protect religious conscience and religious freedom for all, it is really advancing diversity because it is really protecting the ones who need it most and that is usually minorities. Our jurisdiction here at the Justice Department Civil Rights Division extends only to the United States. We do our best to enforce religious liberty protections. In the country. I want to add one other point i think is relevant. The reason we have the free exercise clause of the First Amendment the establishment clause of the is that our First Amendment, Founding Fathers rejected notions of state tyranny with respect to religion that they viewed as emanating from the english king. At the time. As part of living in a free society where we have a government as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it, of the people by the people and for the people, is that we reject dictatorships. We do not accept that in any way. It has been unfortunate in our World History that we have seen over and over again even up to the present time, in various parts of the world, dictators, emperors kings and others have sought to suppress religious freedom. It is a terrible tragedy and one that we are fighting every day of the Justice Department to make sure it does not happen here. The department of education does not regulate or sanction corporations. The problem that you mentioned is significant. For those who are interested, the department of educations website has a page dedicated to what we call section 117. A statutory requirement that colleges and universities report with respect to foreign donations and foreign gifts that are used for a variety of purposes here in the United States and overseas. On the webpage, you will find a number of letters other investigatory actions this administration has taken to ensure there is transparency with respect to foreign money flowing to u. S. Universities. With regard to to President Trumps speech at the u. N. , how could the president claim that religious liberty, demanding liberty in the world. As soon as he became president the First Executive order he issued was against six countries with muslim majority to enter this country. Disregarding the rights of the palestinians in israel. How could that happen . How could he justify it . The work that i do at the Civil Rights Division deals only with domestic affairs. And religious freedom in our country. The matter of the travel ban was litigated up to the supreme states ande united their decision stands on that. What i can focus on and what i do focus on is our president s executive order on religious freedom he issued in may 2017 to seek protections. He directed the part of justice to seek religious liberty protections. That is what we are doing. There should be no doubt about our commitment to make sure that all religious believers are protected whether they are muslim, jewish, zoroastrian and nonbelievers as , well. I would add, although i am not one of todays speakers that the palestinian israeli situation is longstanding and complicated. With respect to the travel ban, there are over 50 muslim majority countries in the world, indonesia, and, the philippines that were not , affected. That was identified by the officials who implement that band. Not that they were majority muslim countries but did not do proper vetting of people coming to our shores and that there were known terrorist elements operating in those countries. Obviously, the challengers to the travel ban portrayed that differently but the administrations view was articulated and the administration prevailed. I was formerly a deputy in the Civil Rights Division. Under Brad Reynolds and the great attorney general ed meese. My question for the three of you is, what kind of feedback have you gotten from the hill in the last 10 months about what you are doing . What kind of oversight, harassment or whatever i have not heard too much from capitol hill. [laughter] have not heard or have not listened . I testified in front of the house subcommittee a few months ago. One of the members suggested the administration was hostile to civil rights. I responded that i thought such a statement was inaccurate and offensive. That was the end of it. Under our constitutional system under our system, congress has certain oversight rights and responsibilities. All power needs to be checked. Our belief is those are good and healthy. Our department has had our share of no more than our share of oversight issues. One in particular i believe related to our actions to ensure religious liberty and to address constitutional issues and some statutes we administer. Of the by and large, we have been able to accomplish what we need to accomplish in order to carry out our mission. With all respect to our friends. In congress. In congress they do have a , duty of oversight. We respect that duty they have. We are stewards of public funds. Taxpayer funds. They need to know how we are spending it and on what. Is it lawful, etc. That is perfectly fine. Sothat is perfectly fine. , it is a good exchange. It makes us better knowing that we have to answer for what we do. And the fact that congress, members of congress are asking these questions shows that we are effective. I think that is a good way of looking at it. It is a good giveandtake. All it means is that we are being effective at compass and big things. If you get a microphone. Thank you for your efforts in falun gong being expelled from the restaurant. Okt june, tribunals and the make the conclusion that Organ Harvesting is still happening on a large scale in china. Institutionsedical in the United States are engaging in collaborating and training chinese knuckle doctors. Avon of a pledge they will stick to the medical ethics in the United States, when they went back to china, there still committed to this Organ Harvesting. Im wondering from an hhs perspective if any relation can actually limit this. Not so directly. In our conscience regulation with route expected to advance directives. It is really deferring to state law that exists. Several of our statutes are of that form. If there is a state law or religious protection it must be followed if youre receiving federal funds. It could come up in that way, but it does illustrate a point. When the issue is lifeanddeath, thats when the religious questions really come up. There is no avoiding it. We have an exception under hipaa, where clergy can go through hospitals without violating hipaa. Why do we do that . Because when it comes to issues of life in lifeanddeath, the religious impulse needs to be accommodated. Needs to be accommodated. It is so important to so many people. Look at what we have done with advanced directives. The greater point remains that this is why we need conscious conscience protections for these most important questions and deepest questions that affect the ultimate questions of who we are. When we ask the question who god is, we are also at the same time saying who we are. And that question should be left individuals to seek the truth as we best see it without the government discriminating or funding discrimination. Last question to this young lady here. I am the social issues News Reporter at the daily caller news foundation. I have a question for the department of education. You talk about religious liberty issues, especially in Higher Education. Im curious about liberty issues in public schools, where they are starting in Sex Education as young as kindergarten and teaching them Different Things such as in california about really graphic sexual acts, graphic descriptions, teaching them that they are allowed to get abortions without parental consent. This is not just in california but also in the United States schools. Im wondering at that apartment of educations has any plans to address these religious liberty issues and what are your thoughts on this matter. Thats quite a question. [laughter] the department of education, certainly under this administration, certainly under this office of general counsel, and under this secretary, is very careful about reading its authority as far and only as far as the statutes take it. The often unintended consequences of trying to get out of your lane as a government department, we have seen that play out over multiple administrations over many years. We have worked very hard to ensure that we cabin what administrative agencies generally do. Our department, over and over in our statutes, Congress Says that what goes on in local k12 schools with respect to curriculum is a local matter. And that the federal government should not be involved in order dictating to k12 schools what they teach. Teachers,arents and and administrators at the local level, are ultimately responsible for what is presented to their children. Actually is that normatively right. It puts a tremendous response building on parents to pat tension it puts tremendous possibility on parents to Pay Attention to what their children are being taught. Secretary devos has made it her centerpiece, the notion that all parents should be able to choose whether they are rich or poor. Educational options that work for their children. So we have a varietywere working on a variety of scholarship programs, and encouraging that a bomb of charter schools, and other similar educational options. Day, what end of the goes on in the california schools or what goes on in new jersey or wherever, has to be first and foremost the responsibility of the parent who are sending their children there. Not the federal government. And not the federal department of education. Tillman i want to thank you for your spud just meant i want to thank you for your public service, for what you tothe house will be in order for 40 years, cspan has provided unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Cspan,p tonight on