United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-1175 EDGEWOOD HIGH SCHOOL OF THE SACRED HEART, INCORPORATED, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. CITY OF MADISON, WISCONSIN, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. No. 3:21-cv-00118-wmc — William M. Conley, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 — DECIDED MARCH 15, 2024 ____________________

Before WOOD, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Upset by decisions allegedly limit- ing its installation and use of nighttime lights at its athletics field, Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart sued the City of Madison under the Religious Land Use and Institu- tionalized Persons Act, the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and Wisconsin law. Following discovery the district court entered summary judgment for the City, 2 No. 23-1175 concluding that Edgewood’s claims suffered in the main from fatal evidentiary shortcomings and in other places from mis- understandings of governing legal principles. We agree and affirm. I A This case is messy on many levels. To help frame the issues before us, we begin with an overview of the municipal zoning ordinance that features most heavily in the facts. In 2013 the City of Madison rezoned the campuses of ma- jor educational and medical institutions as “Campus-Institu- tional Districts.” See Madison General Ordinance (M.G.O.) § 28.097 (2013). The new zoning aimed to support those insti- tutions’ “growth and development needs” while still “pro- tect[ing] the livability and vitality of adjacent neighbor- hoods.” Id. § 28.097(1). Any institution zoned as a Campus- Institutional District received the option of proposing a “cam- pus master plan” to outline a long-term blueprint for land de- velopment and use. A master plan had to describe the “[e]xist- ing conditions” on campus—to include “[l]and uses and buildings” and “[n]atural features and significant open-space areas”—and identify “[p]roposed conditions” relating to “[f]uture needs/capital improvements,” “[l]andscape treat- ment,” and “[o]pen-space areas and other open-space uses.” Id. § 28.097(5)(c). The plan also had to provide a “summary of previous planning efforts by the institution in conjunction with the City and/or abutting neighborhoods.” Id. § 28.097(5)(a). Approval of a master plan by the City’s Plan Commission and Common Council meant that the institution would be No. 23-1175 3 exempted from having to seek a conditional use permit for any building projects covered by the plan for a period of ten years. See id. § 28.097(2), (5)(c), (6), (7)(c). This exemption like- wise meant, among other things, that covered projects would not require a public hearing to receive municipal approval. The new Campus-Institutional District ordinance instead ac- counted for the community’s interests by conditioning the City’s approval of a master plan on the degree to which the plan “serve[d] the public interest” and satisfied the “intent” of the overall ordinance. See id. § 28.097(6). Once approved, a master plan became an enacted ordinance of the City of Mad- ison. To alter an enacted master plan—by, for example, updat- ing the “proposed use of [an] identified open space[]”—an in- stitution had to obtain the approval of the City’s Plan Com- mission. Id. § 28.097(8). There were two exceptions. First, “mi- nor” alterations did not require Plan Commission approval. Id. Second, “substantial” changes to the original master pl