Content area
Full Text
A Christian boarding school from northeast Missouri with a history of defying government intervention filed a federal lawsuit last week seeking to block oversight requirements in a new state law — even after negotiating with legislators to revise the law’s provisions.
CNS International Ministries Inc., a nonprofit which operates various recovery programs for children, men and women under the Heartland umbrella, is challenging a law that went into effect in July implementing background checks for all boarding school employees, mandating unlicensed facilities notify the state of their existence and requiring compliance with various health and safety standards.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri last Tuesday, alleges that portions of the new law would “require Heartland to violate settled federal statutory requirements guaranteeing privacy to individuals in drug and alcohol recovery programs.”
Mandating disclosure would discourage those in recovery programs from continuing to participate, the lawsuit alleges, which in turn would jeopardize the program and that background checks of staff would threaten the facilities’ ability to operate.
It also argues the law violates constitutional rights under the Fourth and 14th Amendments and religious autonomy under the First Amendment. The lawsuit was first reported Tuesday by The Kansas City Star.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services (DSS), which enforces the new law, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Rep. Rudy Veit, a Wardsville Republican who sponsored the legislation creating the boarding school regulations, said he was surprised to see the lawsuit filed. Especially, he said, after working with Heartland to address their concerns during the legislative session.
“They were part of negotiations and there were changes made at their request,” Veit said. “And basically in reading that — their lawsuit — is that anything that we would try to do to provide any oversight of these types of facilities would be not legal.”
Heartland’s boarding school is unlicensed, as it is operated by a religious organization. Such organizations are permitted to be exempt from licensure under Missouri law, a statute that lawmakers aimed to address this year after The Kansas City Star’s investigation into unlicensed boarding schools with years of allegations of abuse and neglect.
Staff of two unlicensed schools accused...