Pursuant to his advisory role, in August 2025 Royer submitted to the RLC a detailed brief on the landscape of religious freedom challenges across America. The report, Cases and Trends Implicating Religious Liberty in the United States, identified several categories of ongoing religious liberty violations. The report also suggested cases of such violations for the commission to investigate, witnesses for the Commission to call, and policy recommendations for the Trump administration to address systemic infringements of religious liberty. 

Then, in December 2025, the RLC invited RFI’s Senior Chaplain Fellow, Chaplain (Major) Graham B. Glover, currently serving with the U.S. Army Reserve, to submit written testimony for the record for the Commission’s hearing on the state of religious freedom in the U.S. military. Chaplain Glover’s testimony focused, among other things, on strengthening religious freedom training for military chaplains.

And in March 2026, Royer was invited to testify at an RLC hearing on medical conscience rights. In his testimony, Royer provided evidence of growing concerns among Muslim practitioners regarding the legalization of physician assisted suicide in multiple states as well as the promulgation of increasingly troubling medical standards concerning end of life care in the United States more broadly. To accompany his oral testimony, Royer submitted a policy brief covering in much greater detail this and other end of life issues and related religious freedom threats. 

The RLC’s work and its draft report heavily reflects the aforementioned contributions. Together, Royer’s August 2025 policy brief and March testimony are cited more than two dozen times in the report, including in support of several policy recommendations to the President. 

And, while the report does not directly cite the written testimony of Chaplain Glover, it does incorporate Chaplain Glover’s recommendation to the President that the Department of War ensure that annual training is provided to all levels of the military, including commanding officers, judge advocate generals (JAGs), chaplains, and recruiters.

The RLC’s recommendations to the President citing RFI’s work include:

• A recommendation urging agencies to issue guidance encouraging states to utilize indirect funding, such as scholarships, certificates, or vouchers, in educational programs to give parents the freedom to choose the best education for their children (p. 64);

• A recommendation that the Department of Justice (DOJ) open civil rights investigations into—or file strategic litigation against—state and local governments that discriminate against faith-based educational institutions because of the school’s religious character or curriculum when awarding benefits, funding, or accreditation (p. 65);

• A recommendation that DOJ issue guidance to strengthen and clarify the free exercise rights of students in public schools, including their right to form and lead religious student clubs, read and distribute religious materials at times when reading and distributing non-religious materials are allowed; be excused from school for religious practice and observance, attend off-site religious instruction through constitutionally permissible release-time programs; participate in moments of silence, student-led prayer; and engage in religious expression (p. 78).

Moreover, the RLC’s choice of topics to cover at its year of hearings reflects RFI’s influence. For example, RFI recommended in its August 2025 policy brief that the commission investigate New York City’s sustained campaign of interference in the Orthodox Jewish community’s yeshiva education system. The RLC’s second hearing featured testimony on this ongoing violation of the rights of Orthodox Jewish parents. 

After submitting its draft report to the President, the Commission opened a fifteen-day comment period to accept recommended changes from the public.

RFI offered written comments to the RLC on the draft report. The comments, submitted by Royer on behalf of RFI and in his capacity as an RLC advisory board member, broadly endorsed the report’s framing of the challenges facing religious liberty in America, the Commission’s conclusions, and its recommendations to expand religious freedom protections in America. In particular, RFI’s comments

endorse the Commission’s framing of the Founders’ vision of the relationship between government and religion, which achieves a golden mean between ahistorical hostility to religion in the public square on the one hand, and impermissible government establishment of religion on the other.

RFI’s comments also included suggestions to improve the RLC report’s effectiveness, including clarifying the role of the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice in enforcing constitutional and statutory provisions protecting the rights of parents.

The RLC will hold a virtual public meeting to review comments received, discuss the draft, and finalize the report.