Independence Law Center Supports Oregon Youth Ministry Barred from Program for its Religious Hiring Standards in the U.S. Supreme Court
On February 13, 2026, the Independence Law Center filed a brief in support of Youth 71Five Ministries, a Christian nonprofit youth-mentoring ministry that has been serving at-risk youths since the 1960s. Its name, 71Five, is a reference to Psalm 71:5—“Lord God, you are my hope. I have trusted in you since I was young.” Since its founding, 71Five has invested in programming to provide support and resources to at-risk youth. 71Five invests in these young people by building trusting relationships and resilience through camp experiences and outdoor adventures such as biking, backpacking, skiing, and hiking. Recognizing that today’s youth flounder when disconnected, discouraged, and without direction, 71Five develops resources within its community by inspiring, training, and equipping responsible adults to build authentic mentoring relationships with vulnerable youth to enable them to grow and thrive as productive, well-adjusted teens and young adults.
71 Five has been participating in Oregon’s Youth Community Investment Grant Program since 2017 with its programs for youth in the community. 71Five serves students and families of all backgrounds, without regard to their religious beliefs, and does not discriminate on the basis of religion in its vendor selection, subcontracting, or service delivery. However, 71Five does require its board members, employees, and volunteers to sign a statement of faith and be actively involved in a local church.
The Oregon Department of Education, through its Youth Development Division, rescinded its more than $400,000 grant to 71Five for 2023-2025 after an anonymous complaint. The complainant alleged that 71Five’s website, which described its Christian, mission-based hiring standards, violated the Division’s new grant eligibility rule that prohibits organizations from preferring employees who align with the organization’s religious beliefs and mission. The sole reason for 71Five’s exclusion from the program was its refusal to abandon its core beliefs to comply with Oregon’s new rule.
This case follows a growing trend of challenges presented by anti-discrimination laws that provide special protection to groups defined by their sexuality and gender identity at the expense of religious freedom. In the inevitable collision between anti-discrimination laws and First Amendment rights, there is a compelling need for the Supreme Court to step in to stop laws like the one in Oregon that are hostile to religious organizations. The brief submitted by the Independence Law Center on behalf of Heartbeat International requests the United States Supreme Court to issue a ruling that protects religious freedom in this important case.
Quotes from the brief:
Oregon has determined not only to impose and elevate its own secular viewpoint and values above the views and rights of 71Five and other like-minded religious organizations, but it has also acted to exclude those viewpoints and rights completely. In doing so, Oregon has trampled 71Five’s constitutional rights of religion, speech, and association. (p. 5-6)
Oregon . . . does not just elevate its own viewpoints above others, it cancels dissenting viewpoints, specifically targeting those viewpoints that are ordered and defined by faith. By mandating that a religious organization consider candidates who fundamentally disagree with the organization’s religious values and mission, Oregon is denying the right of the organization to exist and carry out its mission according to its core beliefs. To exclude 71Five from participating in a program generally open to all applicants simply because 71Five hires its staff in furtherance of its religious mission denies 71Five its First Amendment freedoms to faithfully exercise its religious beliefs according to its religious calling. (p. 8-9)
Government should not legislate against views that are shaped by religious beliefs. Nor should it compel religious institutions and individuals to choose to either abandon their beliefs in order to participate in a public benefit or remain faithful to those beliefs and forfeit the rights that everyone else enjoys. (p. 12)
If permitted to enforce its rule to exclude religious organizations, Oregon will coerce those organizations to choose between abandoning their faith in order to participate in the public forum or holding to that faith and forfeiting their constitutional rights to participate. Eventually, under the demands of the state’s orthodoxy, all religious organizations and minority views will cease to exist, and their voices will be extinguished. (p. 18)
