PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP — While a heated presidential race continues to brew grave anti-Muslim sentiments, Islamic institutions in Michigan are being caught in the crossfire. Prominent legal cases involving cities denying the construction of religious schools and mosques set new precedents in civil rights debates.

Following a lengthy and climactic five-year process, Pittsfield Charter Township, a quiet town bordering Ann Arbor, settled two separate lawsuits filed by the Justice Department and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) for rejecting the Michigan Islamic Academy’s (MIA) plans to build a school there.

MIA had submitted a request to rezone its 26-acre parcel of land to build a 70,000 square foot campus in 2011, but the township’s Planning Commission immediately rejected the application, claiming MIA’s plans were not in line with zoning codes. They cited projected high volumes of traffic and noise for which the academy had not accounted.

When the commission continued to deny the proposal, after MIA conducted several recommended assessments and made provisions to the plans, the school’s leadership began to notice unwarranted objections.

Spearheaded by CAIR, Pittsfield Township was sued in 2012, but the Justice Department intervened in October 2015 on behalf of MIA when it became clear the repeated push-back against construction of the school was discriminatory and rooted in anti-Muslim sentiments.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, claimed violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) and the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution.

RLUIPA protects individuals, houses of worship and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and land marking laws.

At its meeting last Wednesday, the Pittsfield Township’s Board of Trustees agreed to settle for $1.7 million.

Gadeir Abbas, MIA’s attorney, said the settlement is a victory and “one of the largest-ever RLUIPA settlements.”

During the beginning of the school and township’s rebuttals, an incident surfaced that revealed the true motivations behind the construction’s refusal.

Planning Commissioner Debbie Williams had been against the project throughout the neighborhood.

Williams had been posting flyers urging resident to attend commission meetings and informing residents about what objections to raise.

The MIA immediately reached out to the Justice Department, which had a four-year interval from the denial to intervene. Before that window expired, the federal government filed suit and joined the legal case against Pittsfield Township.

“[The federal government] typically does so only in the most egregious of cases,” Abbas said. “In the history of this law, the federal government has done so only 20 times.”

To Abbas, the outcomes speaks to the questions of whether Pittsfield violated federal civil rights laws.

“This case is a reminder that our country’s laws and institutions exist for the benefit of all Americans, including American Muslims,” Jamal Aref, MIA chairman of the Board of Trustees, said in a statement.

“This complaint alleges that Pittsfield Township denied the Michigan Islamic Academy’s request to build a school in violation of that law,” Barbara L. McQuade, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a statement last year. “We filed this lawsuit to protect the right of all Americans to practice their religion and receive the religious instruction and education of their choice.”

When MIA submitted its rezoning and project applications, the Planning Commission, which issues recommendations, requested that studies be conducted on the school’s impact on traffic on cross roads in the neighborhood.

Two separate traffic projection studies— reliable scientific processes that follow industry accepted standards and methodology— took place.One method assesses the amount of traffic a similar existing facility would generate and applies it the new building.

Another traffic study took into account the different types of uses generated by consistent patterns of activity for schools of varying types and sizes.

Abbas said both studies were done on a much larger scope of intersections than is typically required.

The results returned an analysis contradictory to the commission’s concerns.

They showed that in some in cases, the project would improve traffic flow at a nearby intersection; and at another street crossing, there was a two second delay in crossing the intersection.

Another commissioner voted to recommend denial of the rezoning to the Board of Trustees because of concerns about the noise the school would cause. MIA commissioned a noise study and sought to measure the type of noise that would reach residents. Tests showed noise levels did not reach any of the residents at its loudest, due to the 26-acre property surrounding the building.

After the academy had completed all required studies, the Board of Trustee, the final arbiter, again denied the project. Its resolution included that was due to the fact that MIA wished to build a community center.

Abbas said the rejected application did not include plans for a community center.

“What happened ultimately was that several bad actors,” Abbas said.

“Including planning commissioner Debbie Williams, were successful in a large amount of anti-Muslim opposition and Pittsfield township stipulated the face of that opposition.”

Township Supervisor Mandy Grewal said in a statement the township board, “emphatically deny any wrongdoing, discrimination or violation of law.”

During public comment at Planning Commission meetings, residents voiced their concerns regarding the school’s breach of the neighborhood’s intended use, along with traffic, noise and light complaints.

Some said the neighborhood was meant to be residential and building a school would be out of its character.

Interestingly, while Pittsfield Township was considering MIA’s application, it was also undergoing a revision to its master plan, a fundamental document towns use as basis for establishing the rules for planning and zoning.

It also includes the categories like “suburban-residential”, “like-commercial” or “heavy commercial use.”

A week prior to the Commission’s denial, the definition of the category for that parcel removed the term “small-scale” to allow construction of any size school.

However, about four days before the Planning Commission voted against MIA, Pittsfield’s master plan re-designated the area, reverting to the original definition that allowed for the existence of only small-scale schools.

Pittsfield’s government charged that MIA did not fit the category of a “small-scale” school, because it drew student applications from beyond the township.

Commissioners also wanted to limit the number of students, ban after hours activities and stagger school start and dismissal times.

Abbas said it became evident the town was guilty of unlawful contempt.

Those limitations will not take effect, following the settlement. Abbas said the next step is for the court to approve an agreement the parties reached, before MIA can begin planning construction.

As a large development project that includes a required residential complex to be built between the school and the nearby neighborhood, extensive planning will occur over six months after approval. MIA will begin some construction in May.

Abbas added that other cities and governments should recognize from this settlement that it a costly risk to violate the rights of its citizens.

“At the end of the day, the laws of America are more durable than the hysterical anti-Muslim sentiment that drives elected officials to violate the rights of Muslims,” he said.

Last year, a similar case in Sterling Heights involving the rejection of plans to build a mosque stirred controversy when residents opposed the project at both a Planning Commission meeting and a City Council meeting. There were also organized protests against the proposed site.

Residents claimed the proposed facility by the American Islamic Community Center would be a nuisance to the area, citing traffic issues.

Others displayed questionable remarks since the proposal was brought to the table, leading local civil rights organizations to believe that Islamophobia was at the root of the conflict.

Azzam Elder, the Islamic center’s attorney, praised CAIR and MIA for their victory.

He echoed Abbas’ remarks and said the settlement raises awareness to local governments in Michigan that violating people’s rights will cost taxpayer money.

Elder added such legal battles cost the Islamic institutions time and money and has placed a negative cloud over the project, which could make it harder for them to get financing from banks. He said it has also intimidated many Muslims who live in the area.

Elder pointed to the Catholic Church’s struggles in establishing institutions in Michigan’s predominantly Protestant community in the 1930s. At the time, churches were burned down and the KKK lit cross in front of them.

He said in 2016, such anti-Catholic sentiments would be unimaginable, because people got to know Catholics in their everyday lives.

Elder said he sees Muslims heading it the same direction of acceptance decades from now.

“America has shown that times helps heal and educate people in regard to treating everybody equally – I hope,” he said.