Cradle of Liberty Council v. City of Philadelphia
Encyclopedia
Cradle of Liberty Council
The Cradle of Liberty Council is a Boy Scouts of America council created in 1996 with the merger of the former Philadelphia Council and the former Valley Forge Council .-History:The present council is the result of the 1996 merger of Philadelphia and Valley Forge councils...
versus the City of Philadelphia. The case was filed on May 23, 2008 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is one of the original 13 federal judiciary districts created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...
. Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter
Ronald L. Buckwalter
Ronald Lawrence Buckwalter is a United States federal judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania....
presided over the case. The Boy Scouts were represented by Drinker Biddle
Drinker Biddle & Reath
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP is a national law firm founded in Philadelphia in 1849 by John Christian Bullitt. The firm has 650 lawyers located in 11 offices in the United States: Philadelphia; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Florham Park; Princeton; New York City; Albany; Los Angeles; San Francisco;...
. The case ended with the court ruling in favor of the Boy Scouts of America. Under federal Civil Rights Law, the Cradle of Liberty Council Council is also entitled to collect its legal costs (estimated at one million dollars) from the city's unlawful action. As a result, the city and the Cradle of Liberty Council are engaged in negotiations to transfer the building from the city to the council in exchange for the council not collecting those legal costs from the city.
Background
The City of Philadelphia said that it cannot allow organizations that receive city benefits to discriminate and planned to evict the local Scout council from their city-owned service center building on the Benjamin Franklin ParkwayBenjamin Franklin Parkway
Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a scenic boulevard that runs through the cultural heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Named for favorite son Benjamin Franklin, the mile-long Parkway cuts diagonally across the grid plan pattern of Center City's Northwest quadrant...
. Similar city owned land was used by other organizations such as churches which have a religious test for the participants. The Historic Landmark building laden with Scouting symbols was built and paid for by the Scouts on city land at the city's request in 1929 and the cost of maintenance and renovation has been borne by the Boy Scout council ever since.
The Council claimed:
The Boy Scouts of America is a private, non-profit organization engaged in instilling its system of values in young people. It asserts that homosexuality is inconsistent with those values. The Scouts contend that the city's ultimatum violates their rights under the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions, namely, the right to Freedom of Assembly
Freedom of assembly
Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests...
guaranteed under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
.
In 2003, the City of Philadelphia, under the leadership of Mayor John F. Street
John F. Street
John Franklin Street was the 97th Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. He was first elected to a term beginning on January 3, 2000, and was re-elected to a second term beginning in 2004...
, indicated that council's policies violated the city's 1982 Fair Practices law.
Street was feeling pressure from the Philadelphia’s LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
community, which is very strong in local politics. This effort to have the Scouts change their policy or be evicted was led by R. Duane Perry, an Eagle Scout and gay rights activist.
The Boy Scouts of America maintain an official policy of barring "avowed homosexuals" from leadership; Cradle of Liberty, however, had adopted a non-discrimination policy. The BSA National Office sent Cradle of Liberty a cease-and-desist letter which threatened dissolution of the council if it failed to adopt the policies set forth by the National office, and the council rescinded its non-discrimination policy at the annual BSA meeting. Philadelphia, whose city charter bylaws prohibit discrimination against all individuals, including anti-gay discrimination, owns the land on which the council headquarters building stands and rents it to the council for $1 annually. Similar deals are given to other non-profits.
Because of the council's decision to follow national policy, the city wanted the council to vacate the office at 23rd and Winter Streets (near the Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...
); this decision drew fire from Scouting officials and city residents who saw Scouting as an alternative to the "mean streets" of the depressed areas of the city. In 2004, negotiations with the city resulted with the Scouts promising not to "unlawfully discriminate." This agreement held until the city realized that under the Supreme Court decision (Boy Scouts of America v. Dale
Boy Scouts of America v. Dale
Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale, , was a case of the Supreme Court of the United States overturning the New Jersey Supreme Court's application of the New Jersey public accommodations law, which had forced the Boy Scouts of America to readmit assistant Scoutmaster James Dale...
) the Scouts could lawfully exclude people from membership. Afterward, the city reversed its decision.
In July 2006, Mayor Street again told the council to either change its policy, pay fair market rent or leave the city-owned Marks Scout Resource Center. The city said that providing the city-owned property rent-free to the council violates Philadelphia's anti-discrimination laws. The BSA fought the city's decision.
Local Boy Scouts officials must vacate their Center City headquarters by July 24, 2007, if they don’t begin either paying rent or accepting gays, City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said this week. The commission issued its notice to the Scouts on July 24, 2006, stating they could avoid eviction if they began paying fair-market rent or accepting gays, Diaz said. "Our position is that [the Scouts] already have been given notice," Diaz told Philadelphia Gay NewsPhiladelphia Gay NewsPhiladelphia Gay News is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender newspaper in the Philadelphia area. The publication was founded in 1976 by Mark Segal, who was inspired by activist Frank Kameny when they met in 1970...
. "The clock began ticking on July 24, 2006, at the latest." The mayor and City Council also must approve the eviction, but the 1928 ordinance doesn’t specify a time frame for those approvals, Diaz added.
However, citing "rising violence and other urban ills daily threatening Philadelphia's teens," some community leaders said it made no sense to evict the Boy Scouts. Also, some questioned the objectivity of city solicitor Romulo L. Diaz, Jr., himself openly gay, in moving to evict the Scouts but not worrying about similar deals with churches who restrict attendance to members. - arguing that the city could lose $62 million in federal funds with the eviction because of the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005
Support Our Scouts Act
The Support Our Scouts Act of 2005 was passed as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006 to prevent Local, State and Federal agencies from reducing their support for the Boy Scouts of America...
and the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act
Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act
The Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act was passed to prevent State and Federal agencies from reducing their support for the Boy Scouts of America...
.
Around May 31, 2007, in a previously unannounced vote, the Philadelphia City Council
Philadelphia City Council
The Philadelphia City Council, the legislative body of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, consists of ten members elected by district and seven members elected at-large. The council president is elected by the members from among their number...
voted 16-1 on a bill introduced by Darrell L. Clarke to permit the eviction and terminate the 1928 lease by which the council was allowed the use of the building "in perpetuity." This came despite the fact that the building itself was built and paid for by the Scouts, and given to the city with the understanding that the Scouts would be allowed to remain in it "in perpetuity." Because of this decision, the council would have had to pay $200,000 rent or leave the building.
This would have left Philadelphia to become the largest city in the nation without its own council office. Street's successor, Mayor Michael Nutter said in a televised debate on NBC 10 Live @ Issue, "In my administration, we will not subsidize discrimination." Solicitor Diaz gave the Council until December 3, 2007 to comply with the city's demand.
The Scouts indicated they would file suit, and did so in May 2008. The scouts claimed their civil rights were being violated, and the firm Drinker Biddle
Drinker Biddle & Reath
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP is a national law firm founded in Philadelphia in 1849 by John Christian Bullitt. The firm has 650 lawyers located in 11 offices in the United States: Philadelphia; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Florham Park; Princeton; New York City; Albany; Los Angeles; San Francisco;...
took the case pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
. On September 26, 2008, the US District Court said that the Council's claim that the city's actions were designed to impinge BSA's First Amendment rights had merit and that BSA's suit could proceed.
On November 20, 2009, the US District Court ordered the city to "immediately cease and desist" efforts in Common Pleas Court to evict the council from its headquarters while a federal lawsuit is pending. The ruling by Judge Buckwalter did not prevent the city from pursuing similar claims in the federal suit.
Current status
On June 15, 2010, the case went to trial in Federal Court and 8 days later, on June 23, 2010, a Federal Jury of eight unanimously sided with the Cradle of Liberty Council.Under federal Civil Rights Law, the Cradle of Liberty Council Council is also entitled to collect its legal costs (estimated at one million dollars) from the city's unlawful action. As a result, the city and the Cradle of Liberty Council are engaged in negotiations to transfer the building from the city to the council in exchange for the council not collecting those legal costs from the city. Transfer of the land and building from city to the council effectively ends the controversy.