BANGOR, ME – Today, the U.S District Court in Maine will hold a hearing where Liberty Counsel will seek a temporary restraining order (TRO) on behalf of Calvary Chapel Belfast against the University of Maine System (UMS). Liberty Counsel seeks a TRO and an injunction to halt UMS’ discriminatory actions that rescinded the church’s winning bid for the Hutchinson Center building over its Christian beliefs, and whereby it held a second, rigged bidding process that awarded the building to a secular bidder. 

Last month, UMS denied the church’s appeal of the university’s bidding process decisions. Liberty Counsel’s lawsuit seeks to prevent UMS from continuing the property sale to any other bidder than Calvary Chapel Belfast and to restore the church as the rightful awardee from the first, non-discriminatory bidding process.

Liberty Counsel argues that UMS, Maine’s largest educational enterprise, has unlawfully conspired and discriminated against the church on the basis of religion in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments and requires a TRO to prevent irreparable infringement on the church’s rights.

Liberty Counsel’s motion for the TRO reads, “Calvary Chapel does not merely challenge [UMS’] decision…it challenges the Defendants’ entire course of conduct—beginning with the religious discrimination and hostility that infected the entire process. The selective treatment, procedural anomalies, and impermissible influence of anti- religious bias infecting the entire process demonstrate that Calvary Chapel is likely to prevail on the merits of its Equal Protection claim [under the Fourteenth Amendment].”

According to the lawsuit, Calvary Chapel Belfast submitted its bid in August 2024 to UMS for the Hutchinson Center, a building where it had previously rented space, to expand its congregation and community outreach. Once UMS announced the church as the winning bidder, Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP) and Future of the Hutchinson Center Steering Committee and Waterfall Arts (FHC-WA) – two competing bidders – sent a series of protest letters to the university attacking the church’s religious beliefs. As the lawsuit reads,  FHC-WA essentially wrote that UMS should rescind the award because “a Christian church would necessarily discriminate against gays and lesbians.” WCAP’s protest letter also attacked the church stating it must not receive the property because its “very design” as a Christian Church was discriminatory and that its religious values should preclude it from the award. Initially, UMS defended its property sale to the church issuing a press release stating, “The university cannot discriminate, including on the basis of religion. Doing so would be against the law and inconsistent with the university’s commitment to inclusion.”

However, after continued public pressure, UMS’s Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration Ryan Low summarily rescinded the church’s bid award. While citing that WCAP’s protest had no merit, Low determined FHC-WA’s protest did have merit because the initial bid process contained a logistical and financial deficiency regarding how a university Internet hub in the Hutchinson Center would be handled. Despite the church having already negotiated with the university during its bid about leasing space for the hub, the lawsuit contends Low used the hub issue as a pretext to cover for the religious discrimination and force a second bidding process.

In October 2024, UMS held that second bidding process for the Hutchinson Center, but this time included a mandatory leaseback provision for the Internet hub. Calvary Chapel Belfast submitted a second bid that included an offer to provide a free lease for the hub’s closet space eliminating any financial burden on the university. Despite the church outscoring the other bidders again on most criteria except for purchase price, in which WCAP nearly tripled its offer, Low awarded the bid to WCAP.

Calvary Chapel Belfast is one of the six churches that birthed out of Calvary Chapel Bangor after Maine Governor Janet Mills ordered unconstitutional COVID-19 lockdowns for churches.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The University of Maine System has violated the First Amendment by discriminating against Calvary Chapel Belfast because of its Christian beliefs. The church participated in the bidding processes in good faith, but the university unlawfully discriminated against the church’s religious beliefs. Such discrimination is unlawful and may end up being a costly mistake for the University of Maine System.” 

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