In an article published recently in RealClearReligion, Ismail Royer, Director of RFI’s Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team, highlights the case of Chike Uzuegbunam, a former student at a public university in Georgia who was punished for sharing his faith on campus. Uzuegbunam, a Christian with Nigerian parents, filed a lawsuit against Georgia Gwinnett College, seeking to vindicate his First Amendment rights.

The trial court dismissed the case. As Royer explains, “Because the college’s actions had not cost Uzuegbunam any money, the trial court, bound by circuit precedent, dismissed his lawsuit. The court of appeals affirmed the dismissal.”

As a next step, “Uzuegbunam, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the Supreme Court to review his case, and in July, the Court agreed.” Royer joined “Muslims, Jews, Christians, and even atheists in supporting Uzuegbunam by filing a friend of the court brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Eleventh Circuit’s precedent and reverse the dismissal of his lawsuit.”

Explaining the shared commitments that brought this diverse coalition together to file the brief, Royer writes:

While we may disagree with one another on the means to salvation, we can and must agree to seek the good for one another in this life, and an important condition of that good consists in freedom from government intrusion into religion. With this shared understanding of the common good, religion becomes a source of harmony, not, as the attorney general of Georgia argued, a source of discord that must be suppressed.

Read the full article: Protect Religion’s Place in the Public Square.