Christian boarding school: 'Invasive' background checks violate rights

Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A Missouri nonprofit that operates a Christian boarding school is suing to stop enforcement of a new law that mandates background checks for all staff members at unlicensed youth residential facilities and requires notification to the state of the identities of everyone 18 or older who lives on the property.

CNS International Ministries Inc., which offers drug and alcohol recovery programs for children and adults under the name Heartland at its campus, alleges in a federal lawsuit that the requirements in the Residential Care Facility Notification Act violate due process and parental rights, federal privacy laws and freedom of religion rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

"The Free Exercise and the Establishment Clauses together vest in churches and other religious organizations the autonomy to order their own affairs, to decide for themselves, free from governmental interference, matters of ecclesiastical government, doctrine, the communication of that doctrine and the internal administration of their institution," the suit says.

However, by requiring "invasive" background checks, the Missouri Department of Social Services, which drafted the regulations implementing the new law, presumes to tell the ministries who is eligible or ineligible to be an officer or employee at Heartland, the suit alleges.

"The department's regulations restrict the freedom of CNSIMI to form an expressive association of those who share a common commitment to education, addiction recovery and religious faith," the suit says.

The law also deprives students' parents of a fair opportunity to get the kind of instruction for their children that they selected at least in part for religious reasons, the suit alleges.

New requirements

Before the new law went into effect on July 14, boarding schools operated by religious organizations were exempt from licensing requirements. Now, license-exempt residential care facilities, or LERCFs, must notify the state of their existence, conduct background checks and meet various health and safety standards.

A summary by the Missouri Senate says that "nothing in this act shall give any governmental agency jurisdiction or authority to regulate or attempt to regulate, control, or influence the form, manner, or content of the religious curriculum, program or ministry of a school or facility sponsored by a church or religious organization."

But the suit, filed Oct. 12 in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, says the DSS regulations do not contain a required exception for the employment of "ministerial" employees, including teachers, house parents and other staff members. The ministerial exception, which stems from a 2012 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. EEOC, gives Heartland the right to decide who will promote its message, the suit says.

Heartland is asking the court for a judgment that declares it is unlawful to condition participants' eligibility to be present at a recovery program on the disclosure of their identity and the outcome of a background check; to interfere in CNS Ministries choice in officers, staffing and contractors; to demand a list of staff members and people who live on the facility's property; and to criminally penalize people for failure to undergo background checks.

Heather Dolce, DSS media director, said in an email to UPI that the department does not comment on pending litigation.

Missouri KidsFirst, a chapter of the National Children's Alliance and the Missouri Chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America, praised the law, saying it creates safeguards for children.

"This law closes a loophole in our child protection system that had gone unaddressed for decades," Jessica Seitz, interim executive director of the organization, said in a statement.

Recovery programs

Heartland, which says it carefully vets staff and anyone directly involved in the unsupervised care of children, is an LERCF because of its boarding school, the Heartland Children and Youth Home. The organization runs separate recovery programs for girls, boys, women and men at its campus.

There are four boys and one girl in the children's recovery programs, the suit says.

Also on campus are the two-year Heartland Christian College and a K-12 school that is attended by the girls and boys in recovery, staff members' kids and children from the community. The men live in a part of the campus that is in Knox County and are separated by a lake from the children, women and college students, who live in Shelby County.

"Heartland's recovery programs, which have been continuously operating since the mid-1990s, seek to introduce the concepts of Christian living and personal responsibility, helping men and women and boys and girls who are bound with life-controlling addictions, attitudes and behavioral problems," the suit says.

A background check includes an FBI fingerprint check and searches on national and state sex offender registries and Missouri's Family Care Safety Registry and its Central Registry for Abuse and Neglect.

Under the law, people are considered ineligible to be employed or be present at Heartland if they have pleaded guilty or no contest to or been found guilty of, among other crimes, child endangerment, child abuse or neglect, a sex crime, robbery, a pornography-related offense, arson, certain weapons crimes, making a terrorist threat or a felony drug-related offense in the preceding five years.

"These individuals are ineligible to remain at Heartland regardless of whether they have any contact with children and in many cases regardless of whether their criminal offenses have anything to do with children," the suit says.

People can be barred from working or living at Heartland if their names are placed in a central registry on the basis that there is probable cause or reasonable suspicion of an offense and regardless of whether they got to appeal the placement in court, the suit says. A facility is not told why someone is determined to be ineligible.

It is a Class B misdemeanor for someone to knowingly fail to complete a criminal background check that is required under the act. Facilities can be closed for not complying.

A second chance

Heartland alleges that the provision making people with felony drug-related offenses on their records in the past five years ineligible to be at its facility threatens the viability of its recovery programs.

David Melton, general counsel for CNS International Ministries, told UPI that many participants in the recovery program are there because they committed drug-related crimes and are in diversion. People who have make a mistake deserve a second chance, Melton said, emphasizing that he was not talking about offenders who have committed abuse or sex crimes.

"We're the redemption business," Melton said. "That's what we do. Redemption is all about people who have sinned."

He added that some of the best leaders in the recovery programs have rap sheets.

"They've cleaned their lives up and we're not going to let the state of Missouri tell us that they're not eligible to be on our premises, let alone running our recovery programs," Melton said.

The change in the law this year came after The Kansas City Star ran a series of stories about abuses at faith-based reform schools.

Heartland was not part of those stories. The suit says that "to Heartland's knowledge, there is no listing in Missouri's Central Registry for Abuse and Neglect that has resulted from any incident between an adult and a child in the boys' or girl's recovery program in the past 20 years, and no felony or misdemeanor convictions resulting from such interactions in the entire history of Heartland, going back to its beginning in the mid-1990s."

"We're a safe place for kids," Melton said.

In 2001, several abuse allegations were lodged against the Heartland, leading authorities to remove 115 children from the facility and bring criminal charges against five employees, according to The Star.

The newspaper said a series of lawsuits and challenges followed and, in the end, all charges were either dropped or the staff members were acquitted and the state paid extensive attorney fees and court costs to settle a lawsuit filed by Heartland.