Law Commons^™

Press Definition And The Religion Analogy, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Faculty Scholarship

n a Harvard Law Review Forum response to Professor Sonja West's symposium article, "Press Exceptionalism," Professor RonNell Andersen Jones critiques Professor West's effort to define "the press" for purposes of Press Clause exceptions and addresses the weaknesses of Professor West's analogy to Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC in drawing these definitional lines. The response highlights distinctions between Press Clause and Religion Clause jurisprudence and urges a more functional approach to press definition.

Seeking Guidance? New Legal Challenges To 'Legislative Prayer', Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

It has long been the tradition of American citizens to pray for divine blessing and guidance in their civic business. This tradition, which predates the founding of the American Republic, finds expression at all levels of government, federal, state, and local. It was embraced by the First Continental Congress, the same Congress that both employed a paid chaplain and later drafted the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; it was maintained during the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment; and it persists in various guises to this day.

Cross, Crucifix, Culture: An Approach To The Constitutional Meaning Of Confessional Symbols, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Pasquale Annicchino

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States and Europe the constitutionality of government displays of confessional symbols depends on whether the symbols also have nonconfessional secular meaning (in the U.S.) or whether the confessional meaning is at least absent (in Europe). Yet both the United States Supreme Court (USSCt) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) lack a workable approach to determining whether secular meaning is present or confessional meaning absent.

The problem is that the government can nearly always articulate a possible secular meaning for the confessional symbols that it uses, or argue that the confessional meaning is passive and ineffective. …

Rfra Exemptions From The Contraception Mandate: An Unconstitutional Accommodation Of Religion, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Rebecca G. Van Tassell

Faculty Scholarship

Litigation surrounding use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to exempt employers from the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate” is moving steadily towards resolution in the U.S. Supreme Court. Both opponents and supporters of the mandate, however, have overlooked the Establishment Clause limits on such exemptions.

The heated religious-liberty rhetoric aimed at the mandate has obscured that RFRA is a “permissive” rather than “mandatory” accommodation of religion — a government concession to religious belief and practice that is not required by the Free Exercise Clause. Permissive accommodations must satisfy Establishment Clause constraints, notably the requirement that the accommodation not impose …

Government Endorsement: A Reply To Nelson Tebbe's Government Nonendorsement, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In this response to Nelson Tebbe’s Government Nonendorsement, Abner Greene continues to develop his “thick perfectionist” view of government speech, arguing that the state may use its speech powers to advance various views of the good, from left, center,

The Curious Case Of Legislative Prayer: Town Of Greece V. Galloway, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

This essay explores the Supreme Court's decision to reenter the debate over legislative prayers, and the Solicitor General's curious decision to enter the case in defense of Greece, New York's (somewhat dubious) practice. I suggest that the Court's decision, and the Solicitor's brief, can best be understood as part of larger conflict over Establishment Clause doctrine moving forward.