Law Commons^™

Sacred Spheres: Religious Autonomy As An International Human Right, Diana V. Thomson, Kayla A. Toney

Catholic University Law Review

How should courts resolve thorny human rights disputes that arise within religious groups? According to an emerging international consensus, they shouldn’t. When a case involves sensitive internal decisions by a religious organization, such as choosing who is qualified to teach the faith, courts are increasingly taking a hands-off approach. This global consensus has formed across international treaties, tribunals, and domestic courts in European and American nations. Every major human rights instrument and many international and domestic courts recognize that religious freedom must extend to religious communities, especially houses of worship and schools where believers gather to practice their faith and …

When Life Begins: A Case Study Of The Unitarian Universalism Faith And Its Potential To Combat Anti-Abortion Legislation, Jennifer O'Rourke

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Back To The Sources? What’S Clear And Not So Clear About The Original Intent Of The First Amendment, John Witte Jr.

Faculty Articles

This Article peels through these layers of founding documents before exploring the final sixteen words of the First Amendment religion clauses. Part I explores the founding generation’s main teachings on religious freedom, identifying the major principles that they held in common. Part II sets out a few representative state constitutional provisions on religious freedom created from 1776 to 1784. Part III reviews briefly the actions by the Continental Congress on religion and religious freedom issued between 1774 and 1789. Part IV touches on the deprecated place of religious freedom in the drafting of the 1787 United States Constitution. Part V …

Professor Fish—Why Are You Still Picking On Liberalism?, Micah Schwartzman

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Trinity Lutheran, And Trumpism: Codifying Fiction With Administrative Gaslighting, Robin S. Maril

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This article addresses the Trump administration’s consistent misinterpretation and misapplication of legal precedent to support unnecessary religious exemptions that exceed Constitutional mandates and impair the rights of third parties to access federal services and programs. Proponents of this routinized repeal of civil rights protections argue that the Trump administration is merely restoring the correct balance of religious liberties in the federal government. However, the regulations and policies included in this campaign unconstitutionally broaden the already robust religious protections provided by statutes and court decisions and have the effect of dismantling the civil rights infrastructure of the past 50 years.

Despite …

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.

Law's Racism: The Perpetuation Of Settler Colonialism In Ktunaxa V. British Columbia, Christian J. Zukowski

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

In considering the nexus between law, religion, and settler colonialism I consider a case in which an Indigenous freedom of religion claim under section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was ruled by the majority of Supreme Court of Canada as not being a valid freedom of religion claim. In examining this decision, I will construct an analytical framework by which I will examine the decision in a way that considers the legal system in which it occurs, that legal system’s culture, and the relevance of land in this case. Using this analytical framework, I will tease …

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, …

Where's The Beef?, Stanley Fish

Stanley Fish

A key concern of the papers written for this conference is the relationship between religious beliefs and secular beliefs of the kind that carry with them deep ethical obligations. Are these systems of belief essentially the same or are they different in important respects? The question is typically posed abstractly, and I thought it might be useful to have before us an example of religious belief and the demands that attend it. The example is taken from the beginning of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian, Bunyan’s protagonist, has suddenly become aware that his salvation is imperiled, and he is …

What Not To Wear: Religious Dress And Workplace Policies In Europe, Sarah Lanier Flanders

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Lest Law Forget: Locke's Toleration And Religious Freedom, Stephen Holt

LLM Theses

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees every person in Canada freedom of conscience and religion. I contend that the concept of religious freedom was born out of a history of religious suffering and originally took the form of John Locke’s toleration of religious differences. In Big M, the first Supreme Court of Canada case that interpreted s. 2(a), Chief Justice Dickson recognized the historical context of religious freedom but also tied it to human autonomy, equality, and dignity. An examination of the cases since Big M suggests that when courts think in terms of tolerance, they accord greater …

Professors Of Law And Religion File Brief Supporting Arizona Immigration Rights Activist's Use Of Rfra As A Defense To Federal Criminal Prosecution, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

June 21, 2018: Today, five prominent professors of law and religion filed an amicus brief in support of Dr. Scott Warren, a humanitarian aid worker who faces up to twenty years in prison for providing food and shelter to migrants crossing the Arizona desert. The amicus was filed in an Arizona federal court, and contends that Dr. Warren is entitled to an accommodation from being criminally prosecuted for acting on his sincerely held religious beliefs.

The Light Of Nature: John Locke, Natural Rights, And The Origins Of American Religious Liberty, Steven J. Heyman

Marquette Law Review

This Article explores John Locke’s theory of religious liberty, which deeply influenced the adoption of the First Amendment and the first state bills of rights. Locke sharply criticized the religious and political order of Restoration England—a regime in which the king claimed to hold absolute power by divine right and in which individuals were required by law to conform to the established church.

In opposition to this regime, Locke developed a powerful theory of human beings as rational creatures who were entitled to think for themselves, to direct their own actions, and to pursue their own happiness within the bounds …

Never On Sunday: Workplace Religious Freedom In The New Millennium, Marianne C. Delpo

Maine Law Review

Imagine being fired for refusing to sing Happy Birthday. Now imagine collecting $53,000 for that firing--from a waitressing job. Science fiction? Not exactly. Try religious discrimination in the workplace--1990s style. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long proscribed such treatment, but lawsuits claiming this type of workplace discrimination were relatively rare for many years. Now claims are on the rise, up 18% over the past five years, and the substance of religious discrimination claims is changing to include some unprecedented fact patterns. This new activity in employment discrimination law, as well as the growing likelihood that …

Religion Lessons From Europe: Intolerant Secularism, Pluralistic Neutrality, And The U.S. Supreme Court, Antony Barone Kolenc

Pace International Law Review

Case law from the European Court of Human Rights demonstrates to the U.S. Supreme Court how a pluralistic neutrality principle can enrich the American society and harness the value of faith in the public sphere, while at the same time retaining the vigorous protection of individual religious rights. The unfortunate alternative to a jurisprudence built around pluralistic neutrality is the inevitability of intolerant secularism—an increasingly militant separation of religious ideals from the public life, leading ultimately to a repressive society that has no room in its government for religious citizens. The results of intolerant secularism are seen in a recent …

Deference And Prisoner Accommodations Post-Holt: Moving Rluipa Toward "Strict In Theory, Strict In Fact", Barrick Bollman

Northwestern University Law Review

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) requires prisons to make accommodations to regulations that substantially burden a prisoner’s religious exercise, unless the prison can show that the regulation is the least restrictive means to meeting a compelling interest. This language suggests strict scrutiny, and yet in Cutter v. Wilkinson, the Supreme Court instead intimated in dicta that courts should give prison officials “due deference” when applying this test. The 2015 case of Holt v. Hobbs presented the Court with an opportunity to clarify how much deference is due under RLUIPA. Though Holt declared that there should …

Religious Freedom In Canada: A Crucible For Constitutionalism, Benjamin Berger

Articles & Book Chapters

This article examines three axes around which contemporary Canadian debates on freedom of religion are turning: the status and protection of group and collective religious interests; the emergence – and instability – of state neutrality as the governing ideal in the management of religious difference; and the treatment of Indigenous religion. Each is discussed as a key thematic and doctrinal development emerging from recent activity in the freedom of religion jurisprudence in Canada. Each is also an instance, the article suggests, of religion doing its particularly effective work of exposing the fundamental tensions and dynamics in Canadian constitutionalism more generally.

The Religious And Ideological Freedom Of Teachers In The English Legal Framework: Is The Balance Between Collective And Individual Rights Appropriate?, Javier Garcia Oliva, Diana Ginn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

How does the current legal framework safeguard the rights of teachers to religious and ideological freedom, whilst at the same time protecting the collective rights of school communities to provide an educational context aligned to identified values and principles? How does the law seek to find a resolution or accommodation where there is a clear conflict?

Smith In Theory And Practice, Nelson Tebbe

Nelson Tebbe

Employment Division v. Smith controversially held that general laws that were neutral toward religion would no longer be presumptively invalid, regardless of how much they incidentally burdened religious practices. That decision sparked a debate that continues today, twenty years later. This symposium Essay explores the argument that subsequent courts have in fact been less constrained by the principal rule of Smith than advocates on both sides of the controversy usually assume. Lower courts administering real world disputes often find they have all the room they need to grant relief from general laws, given exceptions written into the decision itself and …

Nonbelievers, Nelson Tebbe

Nelson Tebbe

How should courts handle nonbelievers who bring religious freedom claims? Although this question is easy to grasp, it presents a genuine puzzle because the religion clauses of the Constitution, along with many contemporary statutes, protect only religion by their terms. From time to time, judges and lawyers have therefore struggled with the place of nonbelievers in the American scheme of religious freedom. Today, this problem is gaining prominence because of nonbelievers’ rising visibility. New lines of social conflict are forming around them, generating disputes that have already gone legal. In this Article, I argue that no wholesale response will do. …

Burwell V. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.: Creating Power For Corporations At The Cost Of Changing Women’S Lives, Tara Zabehi

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Potential Consequences Of Trump’S “Religious Freedom” Executive Order, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

President Trump is set to sign a far-reaching and constitutionally problematic executive order today. Although a draft of the final order has not yet been released, it will likely mirror, at least in part, a similar draft that was leaked earlier this year.

Review Essay: Charity For The Autonomous Self, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Review essay for "Charity Law and the Liberal State", by Matthew Harding and "Religion, Charity and Human Rights", by Kerry O'Halloran.

Religious Freedom As A Technology Of Modern Secular Governance, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Free Exercise Of Religious Identity, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In recent years, a particular strain of argument has arisen in response to decisions by courts or the government to extend certain rights to others. Grounded in religious freedom, these arguments suggest that individuals have a right to operate businesses or conduct their professional roles in a manner that conforms to their religious identity. For example, as courts and legislatures have extended the right to marry to same-sex couples, court clerks have refused to issue marriage certificates to such couples, claiming that to do so would violate their religious beliefs. Similarly, corporations have refused, for reasons grounded in religious identity, …

Disaggregating Corpus Christi: The Illiberal Implications Of Hobby Lobby's Right To Free Exercise, Katharine Jackson

Katharine Jackson

This paper first examines and critiques the group rights to religious exercise derived from the three ontologies of the corporation suggested by different legal conceptions of corporate personhood often invoked by Courts. Finding the implicated groups rights inimical to individual religious freedom, the paper then presents an argument as to why a discourse of intra-corporate toleration and voluntariness does a better job at protecting religious liberty.

Neutrality And The Good Of Religious Freedom: An Appreciative Response To Professor Koppelman, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This paper is a short response to an address, “And I Don’t Care What It Is: Religious Neutrality in American Law,” delivered by Prof. Andrew Koppelman at a conference, “The Competing Claims of Law and Religion: Who Should Influence Whom?”, which was held at Pepperdine University in February of 2012. In this response, it is suggested – among other things – that “American religious neutrality” is, as Koppelman argues, “coherent and attractive” because and to the extent that it is not neutral with respect to the goal and good of religious freedom.

Religious freedom, in the American tradition, is not …

Free Exercise By Moonlight, Marc O. Degirolami

San Diego Law Review

How is the current condition of religious free exercise, and religious accommodation in specific, best understood? What is the relationship of the two most important free exercise cases of the past half-century, Employment Division v. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC? This essay explores four possible answers to these questions.

1. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor are the twin suns of religious accommodation under the Constitution. They are distinctively powerful approaches.

2. Hosanna-Tabor’s approach to constitutional free exercise is now more powerful than Smith’s. Smith has been eclipsed.

3. Hosanna-Tabor has shown itself to be feeble. It has …