UMass Law News UMass Law News: Duncan Files Amicus Brief in Quincy Statues Case

Professor Dwight Duncan filed a friend of the court brief in the case of Fitzmaurice et al. v. City of Quincy et al., a religious freedom case heading to the SJC.

Earlier this month, UMass Law Professor Dwight Duncan filed a friend of the court brief in the case of Fitzmaurice et al. v. City of Quincy et al., a religious freedom case. Duncan represents The Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team, a Muslim organization, and The Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, a Jewish organization. The case is scheduled for oral argument on May 6 before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

The case involves statues of St. Michael, patron of police officers, and St. Florian, patron of firefighters, which were intended to adorn the exterior of the new Quincy public safety building. The brief is in support of the city and mayor of Quincy in the public display of the statues. The ACLU had sought and obtained a lower court injunction to warehouse the statues, contending that their display violated the separation of church and state mandated by the state's constitution and laws. Most of the many amicus briefs filed in the case support the statues.

An article in the April 28 edition of the National Catholic Register entitled "Are St. Michael and St. Florian Headed to the Supreme Court," quotes Duncan, who is retiring this summer from teaching constitutional law at the law school after 36 years at UMass School of Law and its predecessor institution, Southern New England School of Law.  Duncan filed the brief which was prepared by students both at UMass Law and Suffolk Law. "I think that the attempt of the ACLU to limit this to state law is in fact futile.  And so, U.S. Supreme Court review is quite feasible/likely," Duncan said. "The trend in the U.S. Supreme Court is to uphold public displays of religion because they don't require anybody to do anything. They're just an acknowledgment of the presence of religion in people's lives.”

He added, “If they had a statue of, like, Superman or Hercules, I don’t think anybody would object to it. Why should some figures, because it’s also religious, be vetoed? It’s akin to the heckler’s veto under the First Amendment freedom of speech.”

The support from the Muslim and Jewish groups in the amicus brief filed by Duncan is notable in that minority religions too can favor the presence of their own and other people’s religion in the public square—without allowing people or government officials who disfavor religion to cancel official Ramadan or Hanukkah commemorations, for example. A decision from the Supreme Judicial Court is expected a few months after oral argument.