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The Association of Jewish Camp Operators has filed a lawsuit against New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo claiming that he is violating their First Amendment rights by closing Jewish summer camps due to COVID-19.
The Association says that the need for Jewish overnight camps is particularly relevant for the summer of 2020, after several months of shutdowns of the yeshiva schools which would traditionally provide structured Jewish learning and living offered by the overnight camps.
On June 12, 2020, Gov. Cuomo announced that overnight camps in New York would be closed for the summer of 2020 under his COVID-19 executive orders. The plaintiffs state that he did this without making exceptions for Jewish overnight camps, even though these camps involve core religious exercise.
On the same day, New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker announced that the state would enforce Cuomo’s COVID-19 orders by prohibiting all overnight children’s camps for the summer of 2020, according to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs claim that Cuomo flatly refused to permit Jewish overnight camps from this closure order, even though the religious camps involve the exercise of First Amendment-protected religious activity.
The Association also argues that Cuomo made a broad First Amendment exception for those activities that he favors, including mass demonstrations. Cuomo has done so even though the mass protests pose greater risks of the transmission of COVID-19 than Jewish overnight camps, the plaintiffs maintain.
In addition, the lawsuit argues that Cuomo has allowed a wide array of secular activities to remain open, such as numerous non-essential businesses, summer day camps, and special education services provided that these entities follow health-related guidelines issued by the New York Department of Health.
“Unlike all of those entities, Defendant has not allowed Jewish overnight camps to adopt and implement health-related guidelines that would permit them to operate while balancing the twin goals of health and safety with the desire to reopen New York,” the Jewish summer camps lawsuit against Cuomo goes on to claim.
The Association states that they have expressed their willingness to adopt health and safety protocols which are more protective than those issued by New York state for childcare services and day camp programs to ensure that the children and staff are protected from the transmission of COVID-19.
Despite this, the Jewish summer camps say that Cuomo has refused to consider the health and safety protocols developed by Jewish overnight camps that would render these camps considerably safer than the exempted mass protests as they relate to the transmission of COVID-19.
The plaintiffs state that children and staff who will remain in their communities this summer will interact with fellow campers as well as relatives, friends, and neighbors. However, children who attend Jewish overnight camps are removed from the community and isolated among the same group of individuals.
Also, the Jewish overnight camps are located in areas of New York which will be in phase 3 of the state’s reopening plans by the time the camps open.
Even though some entities will be permitted to open in phase 3, the state has provided no such permission for overnight camps even with their adoption of health and safety protocols, the Association says.
“Overnight camps also are safer than day camps or child care services, which allow children and staff to go home each night, expose themselves to relatives, friends, neighbors, and others and then return to the program the following day,” the summer camp lawsuit avers.
In addition, the plaintiffs say that data demonstrates that COVID-19 health concerns are significantly lower for children than for the rest of the population and that cases among children are exceptionally low as compared with older individuals.
The Jewish summer camps maintain that they are requesting the same treatment for Jewish overnight camps that Cuomo is giving protesters, both of which are covered by the First Amendment.
They claim that Cuomo’s closure of all Jewish overnight camps violates their constitutional rights of the free exercise of religion and the fundamental rights of parents to control their religious education and upbringing of their children.
“This action seeks immediate judicial relief from Defendant’s statewide ban on all Jewish overnight camps by way of a temporary restraining order, followed by a preliminary and permanent injunction and a declaratory judgment that the challenged regulation is unconstitutional and void because it deprives Plaintiffs of their constitutional rights without constitutionally sufficient justification,” the Jewish summer camp lawsuit states.
Were you planning on sending your children to overnight camp this summer? Leave a message in the comments section below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Avi Schick, Misha Tseytlin, and W. Alex Smith of Troutman Sanders LLP.
The Jewish Summer Camps Lawsuit is Association of Jewish Camp Operators, et al. v. Andrew M. Cuomo, Case No. 1:20-cv-00687, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
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