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Losing My Religion: How Ministerial Exception Expansion May Negatively Impact Interpretation Of C.R.O.W.N. Act Laws, Ashley Corbin Rice

Cleveland State Law Review

Across the country, black students are policed in schools for their natural hair and protective hairstyles. As a result of this, students who do not conform to their school’s grooming policy or dress code may suffer stiff consequences including being suspended or expelled. The most notable federal piece of legislation in response to this issue was introduced in December 2019. The CROWN Act prohibits race-based hair discrimination on the federal level. The bill passed the House but the Senate blocked it in December 2021.

Despite this recent development, states and municipalities are enacting the CROWN Act across the country. Over …

Equality And The Free Exercise Of Religion , Bret Boyce

Cleveland State Law Review

Part I of this Article begins with a brief overview of Supreme Court case law on free exercise exemptions, which provides a background for modern historical and normative debates. Part II examines the original understanding of the Religion Clauses, which proponents of “substantive neutrality” claim supports their position. This Part rejects that claim, concluding that the limited evidence of the original understanding of the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment (under which current doctrine makes the First Amendment's guarantees applicable to the states) does not provide a firm basis for resolving modern debates over exemptions, but is at least as …

Prayer Or Prison: The Unconstitutionality Of Mandatory Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment, Christopher M. Meissner

Cleveland State Law Review

Whether faith-based substance abuse treatments are effective is certainly a valid question in its rightful place, but it is not the inquiry pursued here. Rather, this Note argues that a drug court's act of assigning unwilling offenders to twelve-step or otherwise religiously-based residential treatment centers violates the Establishment Clause guarantee. Specifically, such centers regulate the offenders' beliefs and compel them to affirm whatever tenets are professed at the individual treatment center. Moreover, a court's subsequent act of threatening or actually imposing criminal sanctions upon offenders for refusing to complete such treatment programs constitutes punishment for refusing to be religiously indoctrinated …

The Fundamentalist Face Of Secularism And Its Impact On Women's Rights In India, Joseph C. Hostetler-Baker & Hostetler Lecture, Ratna Kapur

Cleveland State Law Review

I am going to talk about three things today: The first is to give you a very brief account of the competing understandings of secularism that have emerged in India. I look at the model of secularism that is being promoted by the Hindu Right and the validation this has received from the electorate, but more importantly, the Supreme Court. Secondly, I will address why the wall of separation does not provide a way out of the crisis of secularism in India and how it has not solved the problem of majoritarianism even in the American context. And finally, how …

Parochiad And Prayer: A Perplexing Problem, William R. Fifner

Cleveland State Law Review

This paper is limited to a chronological examination of decisions of the United States Supreme Court involving aid to parochial education, an exploration of possible future aids, and inquiry into the question whether the extent of present aid and of possible future aid indicates that parochial schools and the general public are, or will be, on a collision course with respect to the free exercise of religion.

Failure Of Religious, Moral And Legal Controls To Meet The Needs Of Modern Life: Legal Education, Frederick K. Beutel

Cleveland State Law Review

Law is social control, and law devised without direct reference to the facts of life of the people controlled is not likely to be successfully administered. This is especially true in the modern world where social conditions are being changed with kaleidoscopic rapidity, while laws are changing slowly if at all. If all the professions using science have so changed man's environment, why does it not make sense to give the scientific method a improve law and government? The means of accomplishing this have been discussed at length elsewhere and need not be repeated here; but the impact of these …