Rutherford Institute

The Rutherford Institute, is an organization that “provides free legal services to people whose constitutional and human rights have been threatened or violated.” Chairman of the Board John Whitehead, an attorney, founded the institute in [Page 948] Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1982. The organization is named after the seventeenth-century Scottish minister Samuel Rutherford, who was known for his opposition to kings being above the law.

AP Images/Stephen Savoia

The institute plays much the same role for evangelical Christians as the American Civil Liberties Union does for its supporters. The institute is especially concerned about defending freedom of speech and religion, particularly in school settings. Weber and Jones (1994) describe it as “prolife, pro-family, and pro-religious” (p. 142). It relies on affiliate attorneys who contribute their services on a pro bono basis.

Its primary areas of litigation are freedom of speech issues, freedom of religion, the “sanctity of human life,” parental rights, student rights, workplace rights, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Included among the key cases it has filed are ones to allow an American female pilot in Saudi Arabia to avoid having to dress according to Saudi Islamic custom; Good News Club v. Milford School District (2001), in support of a religious group’s ability to use public school facilities; a case involving parental rights; and Jones v. Clinton (1997), former Arkansas government employee Paula Jones’s sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton. The institute’s participation in this last case reinforced the impression among some that the organization is partisan. Whitehead was subsequently quite critical of the USA Patriot Act and of what he believes to be President George W. Bush’s assumption of improper powers in the guise of fighting terrorism (Whitehead 2007).

See alsoAmerican Civil Liberties Union; Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001); USA Patriot Act of 2001.

John R. Vile

FURTHER READING

Rutherford Institute. http://www.rutherford.org/About/AboutUs.asp.

Weber, Paul J., and W. Landis Jones. U.S. Religious Interest Groups: Institutional Profiles. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994.

Whitehead, John W. “The Late, Great American Nation.” http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=461.