Congregants of a church who have power to vote on hiring a new pastor, but not the power to vote for new directors for the board, are not legal members of the corporation and have no standing under the California Nonprofit Religious Corporation Law to sue on its behalf, an appellate court has ruled.  It has affirmed dismissal of a claim by congregants who sought to stop a new pastor from disaffiliating the church from its parent organization.

The federal District Court in Massachusetts (Allison D. Burroughs) has ruled that the U.S government’s attempts to force Harvard University to give the government control over many of its academic procedures in order to save its federal funding are illegal.  The opinion governs two separate suits, one by the University and one by the American Association of University Professors, the United Auto Workers, which represents Harvard’s graduate teachers and nontenure-track faculty, and others (called the Organizational Plaintiffs in the opinion).

By Cheshire Law Group

A trial court in Pennsylvania has dismissed a claim by a Penn State University trustee that amended and restated bylaws at the University are invalid on their face.   

A federal District Court in Massachusetts (Brian E. Murphy) has preliminarily enjoined the Department of Defense from imposing a 15% overhead cap on research grants.  “The Government has, for the fourth time, purported to announce a policy that has consistently been deemed unlawful, without acknowledgment of its apparent illegality and without any attempt to structure the policy in a manner that fulfills the established requirements of law,” the Court said in the introduction to its opinion.

Taxes received on endowment income of large private colleges and universities dropped significantly in 2024, the IRS has reported in a recent Statistics of Income release. After rising steadily from $68 million in 2021 to $380 million in 2023, receipts fell to $169 million in 2024. Only 45 institutions reported paying the taxes in 2024, compared to 58 in 2023.

A nonprofit conference center operated by a limited liability company formed to promote religious purposes is considered a religious employer and is exempt from coverage of state anti-discrimination statutes in employment, a California appeals court has ruled.

A federal District Court in Maryland (Stephanie A. Gallagher) has ruled that the Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” letter to states and school districts receiving governmental funding, which required recipients to comply with the Administration’s requirements to eliminate programs supporting diversity, equity and inclusion, is unconstitutional and illegal.  The Court had previously stayed the enforcement of the February 14 letter (See Nonprofit Issues^®, Vol. XXXV No.