Law Commons^™

Legal Scholars & Theologians Partner On An Ambitious Vision For Religious Liberty, Elizabeth Reiner Platt

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

Oct. 6, 2020—To safeguard the right to religious freedom, the next presidential administration must end the hyper-surveillance of Muslims, welcome religious refugees, protect land sacred to Native communities, restore church-state separation, and withdraw policies that favor particular religious beliefs, argues a new report co-authored by the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia University (LRRP) and Auburn Seminary.

The Modern Architecture Of Religious Freedom As A Fundamental Right, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Historical Foundations And Enduring Fundamentals Of American Religious Freedom, John Witte Jr.

Faculty Articles

For all of their failures and shortcomings, the eighteenth-century founders did indeed begin on the right “path” toward a free society, and today, Americans enjoy a good deal of religious, civil, and political freedom as a consequence. American principles of religious freedom have had a profound influence around the globe, and they now figure prominently in a number of national constitutions and international human rights instruments issued by political and religious bodies.

To be sure, as Adams predicted, there has always been a “glorious uncertainty of the law” of religious liberty and a noble diversity of understandings of its details. …

Forgotten Federal-Missionary Partnerships: New Light On The Establishment Clause, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Americans have long disputed whether the government may support religious instruction as part of an elementary education. Since Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Supreme Court has gradually articulated a doctrine that permits states to provide funds, indirectly through vouchers and in some cases directly through grants, to religious schools for the nonreligious goods they provide. Unlike most other areas of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, however, the Court has not built this doctrine on a historical foundation. In fact, in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017), the dissenters from this doctrine were the ones to rely on the founding-era record.

Intriguingly, …