The case, which has been going on for more than two years, has drawn a lightning-storm of controversy that had Christian conservatives and church-state watchdogs fighting alongside one another.

In 2009, the ACLU of Minnesota filed suit against the Minnesota Department of Education, the school and the school’s sponsors.

The case made for strange bedfellows. Katherine Kersten, a conservative Christian columnist at the Star Tribune and longtime critic of Islam, first broke the news in early 2008 that the school might be breaking the law. She followed up with a report from a Republican activist who also happened to be a substitute teacher at the school.

The ACLU, an organization that Kersten has been sharply critical of, picked up on the story and launched an investigation and then a lawsuit.

On Thursday, the school’s sponsor, the Minnesota Department of Education and the ACLU reached a partial settlement in the case. Under the terms, the Minnesota Department of Education must require charter schools to sign an annual statement declaring under penalty of law that the schools are not promoting religion.

In addition, the parties to the case released a set of facts that demonstrate the entanglement of religion with state in the school, which was called Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA). It closed last year because it could not find a charter school sponsor.

The facts released in the case paint a portrait of a school using public money to advance a religious mission: the school illegally transferred money to its religious landlords, specifically an organization called Minnesota Education Trust whose mission is to “present the image of Islam.”

The school was marketed to Muslims as a school that followed Islamic law. Landlords for the school prohibited anything in the building that went against Islamic teaching. In its IRS tax filings, the school’s sponsor listed as its accomplishments that it created a “charter school to promote the message of Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims,” and numerous fundraising materials mentioned the school as part of promoting Islam in Minnesota.

When the Muslim American Society of Minnesota conducted after school religious trainings, the school gave the group free space, the school did not offer buses to students who did not want to attend the trainings, and even threatened to mark them absent if they didn’t attend. Many of the teachers at the school were the instructors for the after school courses and those who didn’t teach Islamic religious courses were not allowed to leave until the courses were ended for the day.

Textbooks used during class time to teach Arabic focused on the Quran.

Over $3 million in state and federal funds went to benefit two religious entities—the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society and the Minnesota Education Trust—in the form of improvements to the TIZA campuses and rent payments. When those campuses were remodeled—in one case to install foot sinks for use in Islamic religious tradition—the landlords provided no financial support.

“The Court’s decision and our settlement with the Department of Education are bittersweet. We remain sad that TIZA’s administrators and supporters hunkered down for years rather than changing their practices to conform to the Constitution and Minnesota law,” Charles Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU-MN, said in a statement on Monday. “Sadly, this case highlights the problems that can arise from the lack of transparency in public charter school laws.”

The ACLU’s attorney’s say they asked for the release of the facts of the case because TIZA had repeatedly sought to keep them from public inspection.

“We are pleased with the court order because we have long believed that TIZA misused the court’s protective order to maintain the secrecy of documents that the public has a right to see, because they show how TIZA was using public funds,” said Peter Lancaster, an attorney with Dorsey and Whitney who worked on the case.

While Minnesota for Marriage gears up outreach to conservative churches and pastors and recruitment of “church captains” in effort to pass a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, Minnesotans United for All Families is doing the same with progressive people of faith. The coalition is hosting a series of trainings on how to defeat the amendment in 2012.

On Sept. 19, supporters of marriage equality will gather at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church for a “campaign kickoff training” for people of faith. According to the invite, the event “officially begins the faith-led effort to win the freedom to marry for all loving couples in Minnesota, first by defeating the 2012 anti-marriage constitutional amendment.”

The coalition is also launching statewide trainings geared toward defeating the amendment and creating “the largest grassroots campaign this state has ever seen.”

The trainings will be in more than a dozen cities beginning Sept. 13, including Minneapolis, Moorhead, Duluth, St. Paul, Rochester, Mankato, Alexandria, Bemidji, St. Cloud and Marshall, as well as locations in the northern and southern Twin Cities suburbs.

Minnesotans United is also touting the support of four of Minnesota’s statewide political parties. The Green Party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the Independence Party and the Libertarian Party are all supporting the coalition’s efforts.

The coalition has also secured the support of a diverse array of organizations: several Jewish congregations and Christian churches; some of the state’s largest labor unions and federations; well-known political chapters such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women and NARAL Pro-Choice, as well as the Minnesota’s Atheists, several social justice foundations and local businesses.

The occasion: a bill designed to overhaul policies for handling criminal intelligence information by making it easier for law enforcement agencies to keep and share information about citizens.

Under the proposed legislation, intelligence data collected on individuals by law enforcement officers could be kept secret for a year. The information would then be made available to the target of the probe unless it meets a series of criteria related to the prosecution of potential crimes.

The legislation would also authorize law enforcement agencies to share intelligence data with other government officials — not limited to police officers — when necessary to protect the public.

The bill was drafted by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and is sponsored by St. Paul DFLer Rep. John Lesch (pictured). (A companion bill has been introduced by Sen. Don Betzold, DFL-Fridley.)

In introducing the measure, Lesch acknowledged concerns about civil liberties but argued that some form of legislation is necessary to regulate the sharing of such data.

“A version of this will happen in future years, if not this year,” he said. “I think it’s important that this discussion be had.”

But the proposed legislation has raised alarm bells among peace activists and civil liberties advocates. They fear that the bill is overly broad and would lead to widespread spying on law-abiding citizens.

Teresa Nelson, an attorney with the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the legislation would allow law enforcement agencies to keep “political dossiers” on citizens, while only creating an “illusion of security.”

Bernie Hesse, an organizer with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789, expressed a concern that labor unions would be targeted for engaging in nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, like walking picket lines.

“We’re afraid that we might be labeled as a criminal organization,” he said. “We’re very conscious of and appreciate the work that law enforcement agencies do, but we also don’t want to be restricted in some of the things that we have to do to bring about economic justice for workers.”

Retired FBI agent and veteran peace activist Coleen Rowley said that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government has been obsessed with collecting intelligence data.

“One of the false notions since 9/11 that leads to this massive intelligence collection has been the idea that we did not have enough dots,” she said. “The failure to connect the dots was the problem, not that there was not enough dots.”

The concerns are exacerbated because of prosecutions stemming from Republican National Convention, which was held in September. Law enforcement relied extensively on undercover informants to infiltrate activist groups and build criminal cases. The most notorious example is the case of the RNC Eight, who are charged with criminally conspiring to disrupt the four-day gathering.

For now the legislation isn’t going anywhere. Lesch acknowledged the concerns about the bill, and moved that it be laid over for further consideration. That motion was adopted unanimously.

An additional 20 cases stemming from the mass arrest on the final day of the gathering are still being investigated.

“There was a lot of confusion for a lot of people that night,” said City Attorney John Choi in announcing the decision.

“Ultimately this decision reflects specifically our prosecution standard: Can we prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt at trial? We’ve come to the conclusion that, for the cases involved the Marion Street bridge and the Cedar Street bridge, that would not be the case.”

However, Choi defended the St. Paul Police Department’s decision to arrest nearly 400 people on Sept. 4.

“There was probable cause to arrest, but there wasn’t probable cause to prosecute,” he said. “Those standards are very very different. It is our obligation not to proceed on cases where we believe that we would not succeed at trial.”

Local civil rights activists said the failure to press charges is just the latest evidence that many of the arrests during the RNC were frivolous.

“The reality is that those arrests should never have been made,” said Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

“Much of the alleged disorder is directly attributable to the police presence and police overreaction.”

“They should never have arrested them in the first place,” added Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “I believe that they were arbitrary and capricious arrests.”

The city attorney’s office has now processed roughly 90 percent of the 672 potential misdemeanor cases stemming from RNC activities. Of those cases, 52 have resulted in guilty pleas or fines. An equal number of cases are currently pending in the court system. However, the overwhelming majority of arrests — 490 — have either not resulted in charges or the cases have been dismissed by the courts.

So far no civil litigation has been brought against the city for police actions during the four-day gathering. Anti-war protester Mick Kelly has sent the city a letter stating his intent to sue for alleged civil rights violations, but has yet to file a case.

The city has a $10 million insurance policy, paid for by the Minneapolis St. Paul 2008 Host Committee, to cover litigation costs. However, numerous lawsuits are expected in the coming months.

“We’ve got a bunch of cases we’re looking at,” said Samuelson.

“Attorneys have been engaged in active information gathering in consideration of civil litigation related to the pattern of mass arrests and excessive use of police force,” Nestor confirmed. “I would think that planning can now go forward.”

But according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in March, the First Amendment rights of protesters are being unconstitutionally proscribed by St. Paul’s parade permit policies. Next week, U.S. District Court Judge Joan Ericksen is slated to hear arguments in the case filed by The Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War. The suit charges that the group’s free speech rights are being violated by the city’s refusal to issue a parade permit laying out exactly when and where the protesters will be allowed to march on the first day of the convention.

The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction ordering the city to issue a permit immediately, along with a ruling that St. Paul’s current policy is unconstitutional and therefore invalid. The city is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed and denies that its guidelines run afoul of the Constitution.

St. Paul issued a “conditional alternative permit” to the group in March, but it lacks explicit guidance on when and where the protesters will be allowed to assemble. Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom, who is overseeing security for the convention, has promised to supply a detailed permit by the end of this month that will allow protesters to gather within “sight and sound” of the Xcel center.

But organizers are skeptical of that commitment. “We’ve heard a lot from the city about what they plan on doing,” says Teresa Nelson, an attorney with the Minnesota Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union who is working on the case. “Time really is of the essence.”

St. Paul Police Department spokesman Tom Walsh says city policy is not to comment on pending litigation. “It’s a legal action against the city,” he notes. “We can’t say anything.”

This is so far the only lawsuit pending relating to RNC protest activities. But the ACLU and other concerned parties are closely monitoring the actions of surrounding municipalities. Earlier this week, the city of Bloomington postponed voting on a beefed-up protest ordinance after the civil liberties group wrote a letter questioning the constitutionality of the proposal. On Wednesday, the Minneapolis City Council debated an essentially voluntary protest permit policy, whereby groups would be encouraged to notify the city about large demonstrations, but wouldn’t be subject to any penalties if they fail to adhere.Four years ago in Boston, protesters at the Democratic National Convention were assured that they would be permitted to assemble within earshot of the FleetCenter. But organizers discovered just a week before the convention was slated to begin that the “demonstration zone” was to be a fenced-in area surrounded by razorwire that more closely resembled a prison courtyard. A federal judge, John Woodcock, described it as a “grim, mean, and oppressive space,” as well as an “offense to the spirit of the First Amendment.” But he declined to legally mandate changes to the arrangement because there wasn’t sufficient time to come up with a safe, viable alternative.

Lawyers for the St. Paul protest organizers fear that they will get caught in a similar legal limbo. “When the city says we’re using the Boston model, to me that’s delay, delay, delay until it’s too late for a court to vindicate First Amendment rights,” Nelson says.

The SPPD’s Walsh believes the Boston analogy is wrongheaded. “We have assured them that no later than May 31st there will be a parade route,” he says. “I just don’t think there are parallels.”

The litigation has brought forth some interesting nuggets of information about planning for the convention. In an affidavit, Bostrom states that the Police Department will supplement its force of approximately 600 officers with an additional 2,500 cops from various law enforcement agencies during the four-day gathering.

The city attorney’s office also submitted a legal exhibit featuring protest plans drafted by the activist group Students for a Democratic Society. Dated March 28, the document lays out designs to blockade the Xcel center, immobilize buses, obstruct area bridges–and ultimately shut down the RNC. “I’m not exactly sure what their motives are in providing that information,” says Nelson. “That kind of caught my eye.”

Nelson insists her clients plan to protest Republican policies and the war in Iraq through legal and nonviolent actions. “We’ve always been kind of frustrated that the City has not been more forthright and willing to work with this group that clearly does not want to engage in illegal activity,” she says.