Does It Take a Permit to Pray in Your Living Room? The Supreme Court Will Decide.
In January 2021, Daniel Grand emailed some friends and invited them to pray at his house.
Grand is an Orthodox Jew in University Heights, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb with a large Jewish community. He wanted to host a minyan, the quorum of roughly a dozen men required for certain Jewish prayers. A neighbor complained to the mayor. The city issued a cease and desist order and told Grand he needed a special use permit to host prayer in his own living room.
On June 30, the Supreme Court agreed to hear his case. Grand v. City of University Heights will be argued in the term that opens this October, and it may become the most important religious liberty decision of the year. Not because of what it says about prayer, but because of what it says about who gets to walk into a courtroom at all.
Here is what happened after the cease and desist, as recounted in press accounts of the case. Grand began the permit process and faced a public hearing he describes as hostile. He withdrew the application. The mayor announced the cease and desist order remained in effect. Police patrols and code enforcement investigations followed. In 2022 Grand sued in federal court, arguing the city was burdening his free exercise of religion.
He lost without any court ever deciding that question.
