Law Commons^™

The Logic Of Speech And Religion Rights In The Public Workplace, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Can government function if its employees have individual rights that override their workplace duties? Intuitively, the answer is no, and the doctrine of public employee speech has mostly reflected this assumption. The Supreme Court has spoken authoritatively on these limitations on public employee speech, most recently in Garrett v. Ceballos and Lane v. Franks, but its jurisprudence on public employee religious expression has been less authoritative and more conflicting. Recent events pitting public employees' personal religious exercise against public rights and limitations on government necessitate the question at the beginning of this paragraph.

Charities And The Constitution: Evaluating The Role Of Constitutional Principles In Determining The Scope Of Tax Law's Public Policy Limitation For Charities, David A. Brennen

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article expands the discussion of whether tax-exempt charities, for constitutional law purposes, should be treated as government actors, as private actors or as something in between. While government actors are subject to constitutional law restrictions concerning discrimination and free speech, private non-government actors are not generally subject to these same restrictions. Although tax-exempt charities are often thought of as sovereigns and, thus, government-like, the fact remains that charities are private entities created to serve public purposes. As private entities, charities - like all other private entities - are not necessarily bound by constitutional law principles. Still, the many “public” …

Kentucky Law Survey: Professional Responsibility, Eugene R. Gaetke, Rebecca G. Casey

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In the face of persistent criticism of the legal profession, from within as well as without, the Kentucky Supreme Court exhibits a certain degree of ambivalence toward issues of professional responsibility. This ambivalence manifests itself in two ways.

First, the Court's treatment of different categories of professional misconduct seems at times unjustifiably inconsistent. The Court reacts to certain misconduct in an almost uniformly harsh manner, evincing the attitude of a strict disciplinarian for the practicing bar. Occasionally, however, the Court responds to various other kinds of equally gross misconduct with apparently undue leniency. In such cases the Court seems to …