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Defining Religion And Accommodating Religious Exercise, Justin Collings, Anna Bryner

Indiana Law Journal

It is a volatile time in the jurisprudence of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses. In recent terms, the U.S. Supreme Court has revisited many key Church-State and free exercise questions, and the Justices seem poised to revisit several more. Each of these fundamental questions presupposes an antecedent question: what, for constitutional purposes, is religion itself? The Court has never answered this question consistently or systematically. But, at least in the case of constitutionally mandated religious exemptions, a clear pattern emerges over time: the broader the Court’s definition of religion, the weaker its regime of religious exemptions. The reverse has also …

The Constitutional Tort System, Noah Smith-Drelich

Indiana Law Journal

Constitutional torts—private lawsuits for constitutional wrongdoing—are the primary means by which violations of the U.S. Constitution are vindicated and deterred. Through damage awards, and occasionally injunctive relief, victims of constitutional violations discourage future misconduct while obtaining redress. However, the collection of laws that governs these actions is a complete muddle, lacking any sort of coherent structure or unifying theory. The result is too much and too little constitutional litigation, generating calls for reform from across the political spectrum along with reverberations that reach from Standing Rock to Flint to Ferguson.

This Article constructs a framework of the constitutional tort system, …

Religious Arguments, Religious Purposes, And The Gay And Lesbian Rights Cases, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Religion, Government, And Law In The Contemporary United States, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this Essay, I discuss the relationship between religion and government in the contemporary United States, addressing the period from the 1940s to the present. In so doing, I explore questions of religious liberty, including the protection of religious “free exercise” as well as the constitutional prohibition on the establishment of religion, a prohibition that sometimes - but not always - has been construed to require a “wall of separation” between church and state. I focus especially on the Supreme Court’s evolving interpretations of the First Amendment during this period, which, I suggest, were influenced by broader religious, cultural, and …

Religion, Science And The Secular State: Creationism In American Public Schools, Gene Shreve

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article examines the current debate whether creationism may be taught in American schools given the constraints of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The author considers some of the social and political consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court's leading cases. The article concludes by questioning whether the Supreme Court has succeeded in justifying its restrictive decisions in this controversial area.

Why Religion In Politics Does Not Violate La Conception Américaine De La Laïcité, Michael J. Perry

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

La conception Am6ricaine de la Laĭcité consists principally of a constitutional norm-the nonestablishment norm-and of the laW that the U.S. Supreme Court has developed in the course of enforcing the norm. The nonestablishment norm forbids government-both the national government and state government-to "establish" religion. American laYcit6 also consists of what we may call "the morality of liberal democracy. " My aim in this essay is to explain why religion in politics does not violate American laYcit6; more specifically, my aim is to explain why political reliance on religiously grounded morality violates neither the nonestablishment norm nor the morality of liberal …

Religion And Education: Whither The Establishment Clause?, Martha Mccarthy

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: Religious Liberty at the Dawn of a New Millennium held at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington on April 9, 1999.

The Role Of Religious Values In Judicial Decision Making, Scott C. Idleman

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reinterpreting The Religion Clauses: Constitutional Construction And Conceptions Of The Self, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The first amendment guarantees freedom from "law[s] respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The apparent tension between the two clauses of this provision has generated judicial confusion and scholarly disagreement. The perceived conflict between the religion clauses is the product of a particular understanding of what is most fundamental about human identity and the human situation - an understanding that derives from classical liberal political theory and that assumes a sharp division between the individual and his community. This Note proposes an alternative to the liberal conception of human identity, one that encompasses both the …

Religion And American Constitutions, By Wilber G. Katz, Arthur E. Sutherland

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.