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Constitutional Law

University of Kentucky

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Special Solicitude: Religious Freedom At America’S Public Universities, William E. Thro Apr 2021

Special Solicitude: Religious Freedom At America’S Public Universities, William E. Thro

Office of Legal Counsel Academic Publications

Rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument that the First Amendment requires identical treatment for religious organizations and secular organizations, the Supreme Court held such a “result is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.” (Hosanna-Tabor, 565 U.S. at 189). This “special solicitude” guarantees religious freedom from the government in all aspects of society, but particularly on public university campuses. At a minimum, religious expression and religious organizations must have equal rights with secular expression and secular organizations. In some instances, religious expression and religious expression …


Some Realistic Thinking About Secular Effects, Paul E. Salamanca Jan 1999

Some Realistic Thinking About Secular Effects, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Notwithstanding complaints about incoherence in Establishment Clause doctrine, courts by and large administer the Clause responsibly. They do so by mediating between a number of powerful considerations, none of which can ever be entirely disregarded. These considerations include, but are not limited to, separation of church and state, the value of religiosity, the imperative of affording equal treatment to religious and similarly situated nonreligious entities, and the proper role of courts in a democratic political system. This is not to say that courts cannot overstep their bounds and provoke an adverse reaction from other powerful elements within the polity. It …