Digital Commons Network^™

Rick Garnett Was Quoted In Npr Article "Aclu Sues, Claiming Catholic Hospitals Put Women At Risk.", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in NPR article "ACLU Sues, Claiming Catholic Hospitals Put Women At Risk" by Julie Rovner. "Yeah, this is a novel case," says , a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. While there's nothing new about suing doctors or hospitals, Catholic or not, Garnett says, "to sort of claim that it is negligence for the bishops to be issuing directives reminding Catholic hospitals what the church's teachings are with respect to things like abortion and sterilization are, that is a stretch." And he wonders what future if any such lawsuits against the church may have. …

Rick Garnett Quoted In Washington Post Article "Court Confronts Religious Rights Of Corporations", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett quoted in Washington Post article "Court Confronts Religious Rights of Corporations" by ADAM LIPTAK. “This is a perfect storm,” said Richard Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame, adding that it is also a worrisome one. “Debates about campaign finance in Citizens United and abortion and Obamacare,” he said, “could distort the court’s analysis of religious freedom.”

Rick Garnett Quoted In Ncr Article "Supreme Court Takes Up Contraceptive Mandate, Will Rule On Religious Rights Of Corporations", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett quoted in NCR article by David Gibson "Supreme Court takes up contraceptive mandate, will rule on religious rights of corporations" on November 26, 2013. Given the polemics, Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett said he worries "that what I regard as accidental aspects of the case -- the Citizens United debate, the 'war on women' rhetoric from the last election, the controversies about (health care reform) -- will distract the court from the more specific legal question presented, which has to do, again, with the interpretation of a particular, and an important, federal statute."

Top Court Won't Block Town Prayers, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Contribution to CNN Opinion by Rick Garnett. Richard Garnett says predicting court decisions is risky, but the odds are the court won't overturn public meeting prayers.

Board Meeting Prayer Bound For Supreme Court In Church-State Case, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

ABC News quoted Rick Garnett in the article by Ariane de Vogue. Richard Garnett, an expert on church-state issues at the Notre Dame Law School says, “At the heart of this new case is whether the court should stick with a relatively bright-line rule that treats legislative prayers as presumptively permissible, given their long use in our country, or whether the court should move to more of an all-things-considered inquiry that treats such prayers like Christmas displays and the like.”

Garnett On The Constitutionality Of Legislative Prayer (Audio), Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Bloomberg Law Podcast Host June Grasso examines the major legal issues affecting business. Professor Richard Garnett of Notre Dame Law School discusses an upcoming Supreme Court case on whether prayer at the start of town meetings violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He talks with June Grasso on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Law."

Legislative Prayer Gets Supreme Court Review, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in the Associated Press article by MARK SHERMAN

The article was also published in

Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, NPR. NBC News, Fox News, Yahoo! News

Richard Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former Supreme Court clerk, said it is likely that the court will reverse the appeals court and that a narrow ruling of the sort sought by the administration could cause some liberal justices to join their conservative colleagues.

But because the case can be resolved narrowly, Garnett said it probably is not one the justices will use to order judges to …

Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Nearly thirty-five years ago, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that state programs or policies could excessive(ly) - and, therefore, unconstitutionally - entangle government and religion, not only by requiring or allowing intrusive public monitoring of religious institutions and activities, but also through what he called their divisive political potential. Chief Justice Burger asserted also, and more fundamentally, that political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. And from this Hobbesian premise about the inten(t) animating the First Amendment, he proceeded on the assumption that …

Religion And Group Rights: Are Churches (Just) Like The Boy Scouts?, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

What role do religious communities, groups, and associations play - and, what role should they play - in our thinking and conversations about religious freedom and church-state relations? These and related questions - that is, questions about the rights and responsibilities of religious institutions - are timely, difficult, and important. And yet, they are often neglected.

It is not new to observe that American judicial decisions and public conversations about religious freedom tend to focus on matters of individuals' rights, beliefs, consciences, and practices. The special place, role, and freedoms of groups, associations, and institutions are often overlooked. However, if …

The New Federalism, The Spending Power, And Federal Criminal Law, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

It is difficult in constitutional-law circles to avoid the observation that we are living through a revival of federalism. Certainly, the Rehnquist Court has brought back to the public-law table the notion that the Constitution is a charter for a government of limited and enumerated powers, one that is constrained both by that charter's text and by the structure of the government it creates. This allegedly revolutionary Court seems little inclined, however, to revise or revisit its Spending Power doctrine, and it remains settled law that Congress may disburse funds in pursuit of ends not authorized explicitly in Article I …

Judicial Enforcement Of The Establishment Clause, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This paper is the author’s contribution to a roundtable conference, held in October of 2008 at Notre Dame Law School, devoted to Prof. Kent Greenawalt’s book, Religion and the Constitution: Establishment and Fairness. It is suggested that Greenawalt’s admirably context-sensitive approach to church-and-state questions might lead us to think that the best course for judges is to find (somehow) some bright-line, on-off “rules” and “tests”, constructed to identify and forbid the most obvious violations of the Religion Clause’s core (whatever that is), and to give up on -- or, perhaps, “underenforce” -- the rest.

The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This essay is a contribution to a symposium marking the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s still-controversial decision in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision, it is suggested, should not be read as reflecting or requiring hostility or indifference towards claims for legislatively enacted accommodations of religion. Smith is not an endorsement of religion-blind neutrality in constitutional law; instead, it assigns to politically accountable actors the difficult, but crucially important, task of accommodating those whose religious exercise would otherwise be burdened by generally applicable laws. The essay goes on to suggest several things that must be true of our law …

Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Thirty-five years ago, in the context of a church-property dispute, Justice William Brennan observed that government interpretation of religious doctrine and judicial intervention in religious disputes are undesirable, because when civil courts undertake to resolve [doctrinal] controversies..., the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. This statement, at first, seems wise and fittingly cautious, even unremarkable and obvious. On examination, though, it turns out to be intriguing, elusive, and misleading. Indeed, Justice Brennan's warning presents hazards of its own, and its premises - if …

Introduction: Religion, Division, And The Constitution, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review, Local Values, And Pluralism, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

At the Federalist Society's 2008 National Student Symposium, a panel of scholars was asked to consider the question, does pervasive judicial review threaten to destroy local identity by homogenizing community norms? The answer to this question is yes, pervasive judicial review certainly does threaten local identity, because such review can homogenize[e] community norms, either by dragging them into conformity with national, constitutional standards or (more controversially) by subordinating them to the reviewers' own commitments. It is important to recall, however, that while it is true that an important feature of our federalism is local variation in laws and values, it …

Religious Freedom, Church Autonomy, And Constitutionalism, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

Chief Justice Rehnquist's Enduring Democratic Constitution, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

William H. Rehnquist's essay, The Notion of a Living Constitution, was delivered as the Will E. Orgain Lecture and then published thirty years ago, back when Rehnquist was still a relatively junior Associate Justice. The piece provides a clear and coherent statement of Rehnquist's judicial philosophy, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and the Texas Law Review deserve thanks for their initiative and generosity in reproducing it, in memory of his life and work.

This introduction to Rehnquist's essay highlights his view that the Notion of a Living Constitution was to be resisted, not out of pious …