In Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart, Inc. v. City of Madison, Wisconsin, a Wisconsin federal district court rejected RLUIPA, free speech and other challenges by a Catholic high school to the city's denial of a permit for outdoor lighting at its athletic fields. The surrounding residential neighborhood association objected to the proposal. The court said in part:
The initial question is whether putting lights on an athletic field is a religious exercise for plaintiff Edgewood at all.... Edgewood suggests that athletics have long been a part of Edgewood, consistent with the Sinisawa Dominican tradition of educating the whole person. Yet this case is not about athletics in general; it is about Edgewood’s ability to install lights in order to use its athletic field at night.... [U]se of the field at night has never been a part of Sinisawa’s Dominican strategy, which largely takes place during regular school hours.
In fairness, plaintiff also suggests that the field could be used for liturgies and other religious ceremonies, but there is nothing in the record indicating that Edgewood ever uses the field for such purposes, much less that it has a need to do so at night....
Even if the court were to assume that night football (as opposed to a variety of sports conducted in gym classes and at practices) is an important element of Edgewood’s religious exercise, which is certainly not a given, plaintiff offers no evidence that it is substantially burdened by having to play night home games at a different field....
[I]t would be a misreading of [two prior cases cited by plaintiffs] to hold that public outcry is sufficient to show unequal treatment under RLUIPA absent proof of a substantial burden on religious exercise, something simply lacking in this case.
