Chicago, IL – Judge Defending Jews Rights to Post Mezuzah High on List for U.S. Supreme Court

Chicago, IL – On its face, the so-called mezuzah case sparks an interesting question: Does a condo association violate owners’ civil rights by banning religious symbols from a unit’s front door?

But the answer to that question could get even more attention this week because one of the judges who will answer it is being touted to fill the upcoming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Diane Wood, a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge who served on the University of Chicago faculty with President Obama, will be watched closely during oral arguments Wednesday at the Dirksen Federal Building.

She has already come under attack from critics who say she is too liberal. “Judge Wood has betrayed a consistent hostility to religious litigants and religious interests,” the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network  said in a statement Friday.

But Wood, at least in the mezuzah case, championed the religious litigants’ side. Last year, she stood up for the right of owners to post religious symbols, including observant Jews to post mezuzot (plural of mezuzah) and Christians to post crucifixes. She said Lynne Bloch, son Nathan and daughter Helen ought to be able to present a jury with evidence they were discriminated against by the board of the Shoreline Towers Condominium, 6301 N. Sheridan, when the board began removing the family’s mezuzah in 2004.

But the two more-conservative judges on the court, led by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, outvoted her then, ruling that Shoreline has the right to enforce its code against clutter, presuming it is religiously neutral; a crucifix, for example, would also be prohibited.

The code also “bans photos of family vacations, political placards, for-sale notices, and Chicago Bears pennants,” Easterbrook noted.

But the family asked for another hearing. Inspired by Wood’s dissent, the full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals will now hear the case.

In her dissent, Wood argued the condo board’s enforcement of its rule affected Jews differently because Christians are not required by faith to post crucifixes on their doors.

But board Chairman Edward Frischholz’ targeting of the Blochs and repeated removals of their mezuzah was discriminatory, Lynne Bloch argued. When Bloch’s husband, Dr. Marvin Bloch, died, the family thought it had an agreement with the board to leave the mezuzah up during the mourning period.

“The defendants waited until the family literally was attending Dr. Bloch’s funeral and then removed the mezuzot while everyone was away,” Wood wrote in her dissent. “When the Blochs returned home with the funeral guests, including a rabbi, they were horrified to discover that the mezuzot were once again missing.”

One irony in the case is that the association committee that originally wrote the rules to eliminate clutter was chaired by Lynne Bloch. Bloch said the committee never intended to ban religious symbols.

But Easterbrook cites Bloch’s role as evidence for his side: “She was not trying to undermine her own religious practices,” Easterbrook wrote.

The association later changed the rule to allow religious symbols. City and state law now prohibit their removal, so the association argues the case is moot. But Wood says the Blochs should have a chance to bring the case before a jury that could make the board pay damages.

Even before Obama took office, the U.S. Justice Department joined the Blochs in asking the appellate court to reinstate the suit.

Wood, 58, was appointed to the appellate court by President Bill Clinton in 1995.
She is high on many pundits’ short lists for the high court. Were Obama to nominate his former colleague, he could cite this case, as well as a Wood opinion reversing a Chinese woman’s deportation for fear she may be subjected to forced abortion in her homeland, as evidence Wood does not reflexively take the liberal side in every case.