The case before the Supreme Court involves local officials in the US who use zoning bureaucracy to restrict Jewish prayer in private homes. Daniel Grand from University Heights, Ohio, was served with a cease-and-desist order by the city's mayor, Michael Dylan Brennan, who encouraged his neighbors to report any religious activity for punishment. Home-based worship is fundamental to the American religious tradition, with Jews congregating in living rooms and Christians gathering in homes from the earliest days of the church. However, when Grand applied for a special use permit, the Planning Commission adopted a hostile “quasi-judicial” hearing format for Grand’s application, and the city quickly responded by labeling it an illegal “religious place of assembly” and calling it a “shul” a Yiddish word. The process of exclusion from judicial review is virtually guaranteed. The author of the case was sued under the First Amendment and RLUIPA, a federal statute passed by Congress.