Free Republic

A federal appeals court has ruled the Department of Education improperly rejected Grand Canyon University’s switch from for-profit to nonprofit status, granting a key point in the Christian school’s appeal of a record fine. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision Friday. It overturned a 2022 summary judgment by a lower court because the department failed to apply a relevant federal law to the Phoenix campus. The Education Department denied the nonprofit status in 2019, arguing it would enrich the for-profit company that previously owned GCU, even though the IRS and state...

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration. In the 2-1 decision, the court upheld a December 2019 district court summary judgment in favor of a request from the advocacy groups the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition against Defense Secretary Mark Esper, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and “all persons acting under their direction ... from using military construction funds...

A federal appeals court decided 2-1 Friday that the Trump administration violated the law when it used military funds to build a wall on the Mexican border. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the power of the purse belongs to Congress, and the administration lacked constitutional authority to transfer the military money. Two Democratic appointees were in the majority. A Trump appointee dissented.

A federal appeals court has backed California Gov. Gavin Newsom's stay-at-home order banning in-church services to blunt the spread of coronavirus, rejecting an argument from clerics that the governor is treading on their First Amendment right to free exercise of their religious beliefs.