What a Wicca Situation!

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 1, 2001 | by Andrea Billups

A university professor is claiming a faculty association has violated his rights by forcing him to pay union dues -- despite that he believes such fees are in violation of his religious beliefs.

An accounting professor at California State Polytechnic University who practices a Celtic religion called Wicca has filed a federal lawsuit against a faculty association after its union denied his request for a religious exemption in paying state-mandated dues.

Robert L. Hurt, 41, filed his lawsuit in the central division of the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles after the union refused to grant his request to donate his union fees, which are based on his salary, to a nonprofit organization that supports honor students in accounting, finance and information systems. Hurt, who has practiced Wicca for about 10 years, is arguing that the state's mandatory collection of union "agency fees" is discriminatory and violates the Wiccan Rede, which urges practitioners to abstain from things that harm others.

"I thought it was slam dunk," he says of his request for a religious accommodation. "They don't see Wicca as a real religion."

Wicca is one of the world's oldest spiritual belief systems, predating Christianity by several thousand years, according to Hurt, who has lectured about his religion. Wicca originated among the Celts and other peoples who lived in the area now known as Great Britain. Wiccans celebrate the Earth and believe all living things have a spirit. They espouse pantheism and claim to see the divine in everyone. Most celebrate monthly rituals, or "esbats," centered on the lunar cycles, and eight annual Wiccan holy days, or "sabbats," centered around the solar cycles, solstices and equinoxes.

In a February letter notifying the faculty association of his intent to contribute his dues to charity, Hurt expressed outrage that his request for a religious exemption was not approved. "As a Wiccan, my sincerely held religious beliefs prohibit me from joining or contributing to labor unions and other organizations that use violence, threats of violence and/or intimidation to encourage membership and/or compliance," Hurt wrote.

A new state law, the Higher Education Employment Relations Act, which was supported by Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and took effect in January, requires nonunion employees of California's state university system to pay "fair share" dues to the California Faculty Association (CFA). The fees are taken directly from the employee's paycheck, says Hurt, who estimates that his mandatory contribution is about $45 per month.

"Every month, when I see that, I am in violation of my own religious beliefs," he adds. "It makes me feel terrible."

In his complaint, Hunt seeks protection under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He asks for an injunction barring the union from ignoring his religious objections, and he also seeks unspecified compensatory damages and a permanent injunction that requires the union to inform all Cal Poly Pomona employees of their right to withhold their union fees on religious grounds.

Stefan Gleason, vice president and spokesman for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which represents Hurt in the lawsuit, says his is one of 17 active legal aid cases on behalf of religious objectors. "The law took away their ability to withhold their financial support to a union they did not want to be a part of," says Gleason. "It's a job condition now for people like him to pay union dues to this union he wanted nothing to do with."

In recent years, most unions have allowed religious objectors who have a moral conflict with union participation to contribute to a charity in lieu of paying dues. "The [CFA] has flatly refused to accommodate him, as they do with many people," says Gleason.

(A spokesman for the CFA as well as the chairman of the union's Agency Fee Task Force could not be reached for comment.)