Law Commons^™

Symposium Introduction: The Religion Clauses In The 21st Century, William P. Marshall, Vivian E. Hamilton, John E. Taylor

Vivian E. Hamilton

No abstract provided.

Jews And The Culture Wars: Consensus And Dissensus In Jewish Religious Liberty Advocacy, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

When Judges Are Theologians: Adjudicating Religious Questions, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

The Future Of Religious Arbitration In The United States: Looking Through A Pluralist Lens, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

Implied Consent To Religious Institutions: A Primer And A Defense, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

Parental Rights And The State Regulation Of Religious Schools, Matthew Steilen

Matthew Steilen

In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the United States Supreme Court invalidated convictions of several Amish parents for removing their children from school in violation of state mandatory attendance laws. In reaching its decision, the Court argued that protecting the Amish parents’ decisions fit into a longstanding American tradition of giving parents control over the upbringing of their children. Yet the Supreme Court mischaracterized the history of parental rights and state interests in education. Contemporary historical research shows that parents have long ceded a large measure of control to the state in the education of their children. Still, very little has been …

God & Man In The Military: Military Commanders And The First Amendment, James J. Woodruff Ii

James J. Woodruff II

In an attempt to provide clarity in the stormy seas presented at the intersection of church and state we have followed a three-step process to resolve religious liberty issues. A military commander may experience bewilderment when confronted with questions such as when is public prayer allowed or when can a religious artwork be displayed on amilitary installation. This article will review the three-step process to utilize in answering most religious-based First Amendment issues that arise during military operations. It will also provide a new manner of thinking regarding the separation of church and state.

Free Exercise Of Religion Before The Bench: Empirical Evidence From The Federal Courts, Michael Heise, Gregory C. Sisk

Michael Heise

We analyze various factors that influence judicial decisions in cases involving Free Exercise Clause or religious accommodation claims and decided by lower federal courts. Religious liberty claims, including those moored in the Free Exercise Clause, typically generate particularly difficult questions about how best to structure the sometimes contentious relation between the religious faithful and the sovereign government. Such difficult questions arise frequently in and are often framed by litigation. Our analyses include all digested Free Exercise and religious accommodation claim decisions by federal court of appeals and district court judges from 1996 through 2005. As it relates to one key …

Religion, School, And Judicial Decision Making: An Empirical Perspective, Michael Heise, Gregory C. Sisk

Michael Heise

We analyze various influences on judicial outcomes favoring religion in cases involving elementary and secondary schools and decided by lower federal courts. A focus on religion in the school context is warranted as the most difficult and penetrating questions about the proper relationship between Church and State have arisen with special frequency, controversy, and fervor in the often-charged atmosphere of education. Schools and the Religion Clauses collide persistently, and litigation frames many of these collisions. Also, the frequency and magnitude of these legal collisions increase as various policy initiatives increasingly seek to leverage private and religious schools in the service …

The "Blaine" Debate: Must States Fund Religious Schools?, Laura S. Underkuffler

Laura S. Underkuffler

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the United States Supreme Court held-by a vote of 5 to 4-that the funding of religious schools with taxpayer money through voucher programs does not violate the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. Emboldened by this success, voucher proponents now attack state constitutional provisions (often called "Blaine Amendments") that prohibit taxpayer funding of religious schools. These state provisions, which may stand in the way of religious-school voucher programs, are attacked as violative of the federal Constitution, rooted in anti-religious bias, or otherwise illegal or unwise. It is my view that efforts to force states to …

Public Funding For Religious Schools: Difficulties And Dangers In A Pluralistic Society, Laura S. Underkuffler

Laura S. Underkuffler

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Vouchers For Religious Freedom, Laura S. Underkuffler

Laura S. Underkuffler

No abstract provided.

Religious Freedom, Church-State Separation, & The Ministerial Exception, Carl H. Esbeck, Thomas C. Berg, Kimberlee Wood Colby, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The Hosanna-Tabor case concerns the separation of church and state, an arrangement that is often misunderstood but is nevertheless a critical dimension of the freedom of religion protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. For nearly a thousand years, the tradition of Western constitutionalism - the project of protecting political freedom by marking boundaries to the power of government - has been assisted by the principled commitment to religious liberty and to church-state separation, correctly understood. A community that respects - as ours does - both the importance of, and the distinction between, the spheres of political and religious …

Accommodation, Establishment, And Freedom Of Religion, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This short essay engages the argument that it would violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to exempt an ordinary, nonreligious, profit-seeking business – such as Hobby Lobby – from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive-coverage rules. In response to this argument, it is emphasized that the First Amendment not only permits but invites generous, religion-specific accommodations and exemptions and that the Court’s Smith decision does not teach otherwise. In addition, this essay proposes that laws and policies that promote and protect religious freedom should be seen as having a “secular purpose” and that because religious freedom, like clean air, is an …

Religious Freedom And Workers’ Compensation - Big Sky Colony V Montana Department Of Labor And Industry, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

Social security and health care litigation has played a prominent role in the development of the jurisprudence concerning the religious clauses of the US Constitution. At the time of writing further litigation in this area is ongoing with initial rulings having been handed down in relation to challenges concerning the compatibility of the PPACA’s contraceptive mandate with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). This note considers an interesting recent decision of the Montana supreme court which considered the constitutionality of an extension of coverage under the Montana workers’ compensation code to colonies of the Hutterite (or Hutterian or Hutterische) Brethren …

The New Religious Institutionalism Meets The Old Establishment Clause, Gregory P. Magarian

Gregory P. Magarian

Recent religious liberty scholarship spotlights the legal rights of churches and similar religious institutions, as distinct from the rights of individual religious believers. Advocates of “the new religious institutionalism” argue that religious institutions need robust legal rights in order to effectuate their institutional functions and advance religious believers’ interests. The Supreme Court recently fanned the new institutionalist flame by holding, in Hosanna Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC, that the Constitution protects churches from legal liability for employment discrimination in hiring ministers. In this essay, Professor Magarian considers a complication that advocates of the new religious institutionalism have generally ignored: …

Experimenting With Religious Liberty The Quasi-Constitutional Status Of Religious Exemptions, Bruce Ledewitz

Bruce Ledewitz

The Right Questions About School Choice: Education, Religious Freedom, And The Common Good, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

'The Freedom Of The Church': (Towards) An Exposition, Translation, And Defense, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This Article was presented at a conference, and is part of a symposium, on the topic of "Freedom of the Church in the Modern Era." In addition to summarizing and re-stating claims made by the author in earlier work – claims having to do with, among other things, church-state separation, the no-establishment rule, legal and social pluralism, and the structural role played by religious and other institutions – the Article attempts to strengthen the argument that the idea of “the freedom of the church” (or something like it) is not a relic or anachronism but instead remains a crucial component …

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.

Do Churches Matter? Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

In recent years, several prominent scholars have called attention to the importance and role of First Amendment institutions and there is a growing body of work informed by an appreciation for what Professor Balkin calls the infrastructure of free expression. The freedom of expression, he suggests, requires more than mere absence of government censorship or prohibition to thrive; [it] also require[s] institutions, practices and technological structures that foster and promote [it]. The intuition animating this scholarship, then, is that the freedom of expression is not only enjoyed by and through, but also depends on the existence and flourishing of, certain …

The Disincorporation Proclamation: Emancipating The Establishment Clause From The Fourteenth Amendment, Martin Wishnatsky

Martin Wishnatsky

No abstract provided.

The Ministerial Exception And The Limits Of Religious Sovereignty, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This paper explores the scope of independent religious sovereignty in the context of the ministerial exception.

Hosanna-Tabor And Supreme Court Precedent: An Analysis Of The Ministerial Exception In The Context Of The Supreme Court’S Hands-Off Approach To Religious Doctrine, Samuel J. Levine

Samuel J. Levine

The United States Supreme Court‘s review of the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC could lead to a major development in the Court‘s Religion Clause jurisprudence. On one level, Hosanna-Tabor presents important questions regarding the interrelationship between employment discrimination laws and the constitutional rights of religious organizations. The narrow issue at the center of the case is the ministerial exception, a doctrine that precludes courts from adjudicating discrimination claims arising out of disputes between religious institutions and their ministerial employees. This Essay …

Standing On Holy Ground: How Rethinking Justiciability Might Bring Peace To The Establishment Clause, John M. Bickers

John M. Bickers

The Establishment Clause is home to both procedural and substantive disorder. Particularly in evaluating religious speech by the government, the Supreme Court applies any of a number of distinct tests, with varying degrees of strictness. At the same time, the Court has articulated a series of requirements necessary for a plaintiff to have standing to challenge government action, only to ignore them in government religious speech cases. The resulting lack of clarity leaves lower courts to their own devices in endeavoring to calm increasingly intense struggles. This article sets out a theory that altering one of these problems can correct …

Religion And Race: The Ministerial Exception Reexamined, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This Colloquy piece explores the constitutional relationship between religious exercise and racial discrimination in the context of the "ministerial exception" and the Court's decision to hear arguments in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC.

No Bueno, Buono: An Essay On Salazar V. Buono And Establishment Clause Remedies, David B. Owens

David B. Owens

Atop Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert sat a Latin Cross. The only problem, for some, was that this land happened to be owned by the federal government. After contentious litigation, the cross was deemed a violation of the Establishment Clause, and the district court issued an injunction forbidding the cross to remain. That judgment became final and unreviewable, but the district court’s subsequent remedial action—declaring invalid Congress’ attempt to sell only a small “donut” of land around the cross—was not. Congress’ interesting end-around spawned further litigation and an order by the district court modifying the injunction despite the fact …

The Future Of Religious Pluralism: Justice O'Connor And The Establishment Clause, Deborah J. Merritt, Daniel C. Merritt

Deborah J Merritt

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor offered a distinctive vision of the Establishment Clause. This article puts that vision in context by reviewing the history of religious pluralism, tolerance, and intolerance in the United States. The article also draws upon psychology research to illuminate the polarizing tendencies that continuously undermine religious tolerance. These sections of the article offer essential background that many observers overlook when analyzing the Establishment Clause. Finally, the article argues that Justice O’Connor’s Establishment Clause principles offer the best promise of promoting religious pluralism more fully in the United States.

In The Wake Of Lee V. Weisman: The Future Of School Graduation Prayer Is Uncertain At Best, Stephen Durden

Stephen Durden

No abstract provided.