Jason Snell:

These message boards were an embarrassment for Apple. Not only were they very much out of step with what the web has come to be over the last couple of decades, but their presence under an apple.com domain meant that they ranked highly in search and were perceived by the general public as being official in some way.

I’m with Snell. Good riddance.

Link: sixcolors.com/link/2026/11/ding-dong-the-apple-support…

 In Perry v. Dordt University, (IA Sup. Ct., Oct. 23, 2026), the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed a trial court's holding that plaintiff, a Dodt University nursing student, did not have a sincerely held religious objection to the Covid vaccine. Thus, the University's refusal to grant him a religious exemption from the Covid vaccine mandate did not violate the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The court said in part:

... [W]e agree with the Fifth Circuit that “judicial inquiry into the sincerity of a person’s religious belief ‘must be handled with a light touch, or judicial shyness. shyness.’ ...  This means that the sincerity inquiry must be carefully limited to a “credibility assessment.”  It must be limited to whether the student’s claim of a religion-based objection “is honest.”... The inquiry must not spill into unconstitutional questions about whether the belief itself is religiously valid....

 As part of its sincerity analysis, the district court found that some of Andrew’s dangerous behaviors—his vaping and binge drinking—were inconsistent with Andrew’s claimed religious belief that he must reject a vaccine that he considered dangerous....

It is true that courts must not replace the sincere-belief test with a pharisaical perfect-performance test.... After all, “even the most sincere practitioner may stray from time to time.”...

As we have already mentioned, though, it is not improper for courts to consider whether the claimant’s words and deeds align with the claimant’s claimed beliefs....

Here are links to briefs in the case.  Sioux County Radio reports on the decision.

In California Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, (9th Cir., Oct. 29, 2026), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a California federal district court's injunction that bars California from enforcing against businesses Senate Bill 399 which prohibits employers from threatening or taking adverse action against an employee who chooses not to attend an employer-sponsored meeting or receive employer-sponsored communications where the purpose is to communicate the employer's views on political or religious matters. The court said in part:

[T]he relevant question is whether SB 399 is a constitutionally permissible limitation on the industry groups’ free speech right....

... California, “acting as censor, undert[ook] selectively to shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that they are more offensive than others.”...  The Supreme Court has said that “[s]uch selective restrictions have been upheld only when the speaker intrudes on the privacy of the home, or the degree of captivity makes it impractical for the unwilling . . . auditor to avoid exposure.”... In such circumstances, California’s ability to limit “discourse solely to protect others from hearing it is . . . dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner.”... 

California fails to identify a single case where a content based restriction has been upheld because employees were deemed a captive audience or had their substantial privacy interests invaded in an essentially intolerable manner.  Instead, the State points to cases upholding speech limitations on public transit, at healthcare facilities, and on school premises, which referred to commuters, patients, and students as captive audiences....  California contends that employees are equally captive because they are economically dependent on their employer and risk losing their job, with its pay and benefits, should they refuse to listen to their employer’s speech....

California’s argument goes too far.  Both the Supreme Court and our Court have referred to “captive audiences” only when the government acts as a proprietor or in the context of content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions.  Neither court has relied on a “captive audience” theory to identify a compelling interest sufficient to uphold content-based restrictions on nongovernmental speech in a nongovernmental setting.... 

San Francisco Chronicle reports on the decision.

As previously reported, in August an Idaho federal district court held that the right to a health-preserving abortion is protected by the Due Process Clause. It also held that Idaho may not criminalize abortions that are necessary to prevent the death of a pregnant woman from self-harm. The district court narrowed its injunction enforcing this holding while an appeal is pending so that enforcement of Idaho's abortion law was only prohibited against the plaintiff in the case until appellate courts ruled. Idaho's attorney general however appealed to the 9th Circuit asking for a stay of this narrowed injunction.

In Seyb v. Members of the Idaho Board of Medicine, (9th Cir., Oct. 30, 2026), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision stayed the district court's injunction while an appeal moves forward, thus allowing enforcement against anyone of Idaho's broad abortion ban containing only rape, incest and life-of-the-mother exceptions, while the appeal is heard. The majority opinion said in part:

Defendants have made a strong showing of likely success on the merits.  The district court reviewed the history and tradition concerning abortions and concluded that “legal tradition has consistently shielded health-preserving abortions from prosecution.”  However, the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ... plowed the same ground and held that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.”...  We think it unlikely that Dr. Seyb will be able to square the district court’s perspective on the history and tradition concerning abortions with the Supreme Court’s perspective in Dobbs....

Defendants’ showings of likelihood of success and irreparable injury are even stronger where the proffered reason for the abortion is the possibility of the woman committing suicide.  There are other methods for preventing suicide, and Idaho’s “profound interest” in preserving fetal life reasonably supports the use of those means over the termination of pregnancy....

Judge Wardlaw filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:

...  Dobbs excoriated the reasoning of Roe and Casey and explicitly overruled them, thus closing the door on finding any constitutional right to an abortion—particularly one as vague and ill-defined as the right pressed here....

Judge Berzon dissented, saying that Dobbs dealt only with abortion-on-demand, and not with abortions to save a mother's life or health. He said in part:

I cannot read Dobbs’s pronouncement that “Roe and Casey must be overruled” as all-comprehensive..., and so as reaching the separate Roe/Casey ruling regarding abortions performed to preserve the life or health of the mother. Were that so, Dobbs would have overruled Roe and Casey even for abortions necessary to preserve the life of the woman....

Dobbs did establish the required methodology — history and tradition. The panel majority does not conduct any such inquiry. The majority regards Dobbs as having decided — without any separate history-and-tradition inquiry — that health-preserving abortions trigger no heightened constitutional protection....

There is a second, independent reason why I would not grant a stay of the district court’s injunction: Idaho has not shown it will be irreparably injured during the pendency of this appeal....

ADF issued a press release announcing the decision.

In The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Campbell, (SD IA, Nov. 2, 2026), an Iowa federal district court issued a preliminary injunction requiring Iowa officials to issue a permit to The Satanic Temple for it to hold its annual holiday event on December 12, 2026, in the Iowa Capitol Rotunda. For three years Capitol authorities had denied TST's application primarily because the event would include a costume contest featuring Krampus, a figure from European folklore, who is usually portrayed with a bundle of sticks in his hand.  Officials feared that the presence of sticks with the costumed participants would harm children. The court said in part:

The concern Director Campbell described rests on what the Krampus character means and whether it might frighten children, which is not a permissible basis for excluding speech.  And to the extent the concern rests on the sticks carried as part of the costumes, it cannot justify denying the entire event....

... A State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, “but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”...

Excluding Krampus costumes because they might frighten children, while admitting the season’s celebratory displays, targets a perspective on the holiday rather than the holiday itself.  The Supreme Court has held that disfavoring expression because it offends, or because officials judge it immoral or scandalous, is viewpoint discrimination.... Excluding a costume because officials find it frightening rests on the same kind of judgment....

ACLU Iowa issued a press release announcing the decision. 

In We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Childs, (1st Cir., Nov. 3, 2026), the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, refused to enjoin while an appeal is pending enforcement against plaintiffs of Maine's vaccination requirement for school children. Plaintiffs have religious objections to the requirement. The majority said in part:

It is not obvious that Yoder, Mahmoud, and Mirabelli govern the situation we face given that Maine's vaccination law does not appear to require a student's submission to school-facilitated instruction....

Relatedly, Yoder itself recognized that prior Supreme Court authority allows States to impose the kind of broad public health initiative that underlies this appeal....

Plaintiffs do not adequately demonstrate that the more recent authority on which they rely clearly shows that the Yoder line of cases applies to a vaccination requirement, especially where the ability of States to impose such a requirement is entrenched in other Supreme Court authority.  At this stage of the appeal, plaintiffs have shown only that there is emerging law in this area.  But showing the existence of emerging law that may be distinguishable is not enough to warrant the extraordinary relief of an injunction pending appeal.

Judge Dunlap filed a dissenting opinion, saying in part:

The Supreme Court has rejected narrow readings of its free exercise precedents on parental rights... which the district court here did by limiting strict scrutiny to instances in which a school directly inculcates values contrary to the parents' beliefs.  Applying Yoder and its progeny, strict scrutiny applies because Childs' religious beliefs regarding vaccination and the upbringing of his children are sincere and substantially burdened by the vaccination requirement....

... There is no dispute that, because of the vaccination requirement, Childs' son has been deprived of the opportunity to attend public school.  Absent a showing that the vaccine requirement survives strict scrutiny, this is a substantial and irreparable harm.... Because the State already permits certain students a grace period to vaccinate and because the vaccination requirement does not apply to certain students who previously invoked a religious objection, it does not appear that allowing Childs' son and the children of other WTP members (if any) in Maine to attend school for the short period of this appeal would cause significant harm.