Hindus For Human Rights Joins Multifaith Lawsuit Challenging Trump-Vance “Religious Liberty Commission”

New York, N.Y. — Hindus For Human Rights (HfHR) today announced that it has joined a multifaith coalition in filing a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s so-called “Religious Liberty Commission,” alleging that the commission was created and administered unlawfully and in violation of federal requirements intended to prevent secretive, unbalanced advisory bodies from shaping public policy.

HfHR filed the legal challenge alongside Interfaith Alliance, Muslims For Progressive Values, and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF). The coalition is represented by Democracy Forward and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York as Interfaith Alliance et al. v. Trump et al.

The lawsuit challenges the commission’s formation and operation under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), a federal law designed to ensure that advisory committees influencing national policy operate with transparency, serve the public interest, and reflect a fair balance of viewpoints rather than the priorities of a narrow set of special interests.

According to the lawsuit, the Religious Liberty Commission—established by Executive Order 14291 on May 1, 2025—has been structured and operated in a manner that elevates a narrow and exclusionary understanding of religious liberty. The commission’s membership reportedly consists exclusively of Christians, with the exception of one Orthodox Jewish rabbi, and does not include representatives from other faith communities such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Sikhism, nor from nonreligious Americans. The coalition also points to repeated framing by commission members that the United States is a “Judeo-Christian” or Christian nation guided by Biblical principles, a viewpoint that contradicts the constitutional promise of equal religious freedom and equal civic belonging.

“Religious liberty means religious liberty for everyone, not just one faith community,” said Ria Chakrabarty, Senior Policy Director of Hindus for Human Rights. “By stacking this Religious Liberty Commission with a narrow set of voices and hiding the commission’s work from the public eye, the Trump administration is evading the transparency and balance that federal law requires. Hindus for Human Rights is proud to stand with our multifaith partners to defend a pluralistic democracy where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and nonreligious people all belong as equals.”

The legal action asks the court to declare that the commission was created and administered in violation of federal law, to require disclosure of records that should already be available to the public, and to ensure that any recommendations produced by the commission are clearly identified as coming from an unlawfully constituted body.

HfHR emphasized that religious freedom cannot be reduced to government endorsement of one tradition’s worldview—or to a political project that divides communities into “insiders” and “outsiders.” For Hindu Americans and other minority faith communities, the consequences of religious favoritism are not abstract: it shapes whether communities are treated as fully American, fully protected, and fully equal under the law.

More information:
Read Democracy Forward’s press release:
https://democracyforward.org/news/press-releases/diverse-faiths-leaders-groups-unite-to-challenge-administrations-biased-so-called-religious-liberty-commission/