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Foreword: New Supreme Court Cases: Duquesne Law Faculty Explains, Wilson Huhn

Law Faculty Publications

On September 30, 2022, several members of the faculty of the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University presented a Continuing Legal Education program, New Supreme Court Cases: Duquesne Law Faculty Explains, reviewing these developments. Duquesne Law Review graciously invited the faculty panel to contribute their analysis of these cases from the Supreme Court's 2021- 2022 term for inclusion in this symposium issue of the Law Review.

Analysis Of Carson V. Makin, Wilson Huhn

Law Faculty Publications

Many school districts in the State of Maine lack high schools, so the children in those districts must attend another school selected by their parents. In 1873 the State of Maine enacted a tuition assistance program that offers a stipend to participating schools to partially defray the cost of educating children from districts that lack a high school. In 1981 the State of Maine enacted a law that categorically excludes sectarian schools’ from participating in the tuition assistance program.

Three sets of parents sued the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, asserting that the exclusion of sectarian schools, from …

Religious Neutrality In The Early Republic, Jud Campbell

Law Faculty Publications

Governmental neutrality is the heart of the modern Free Exercise Clause. Mindful of this core principle, which prevents the government from treating individuals differently because of their religious convictions, the Supreme Court held in Employment Division v. Smith that a neutral law can be constitutionally applied despite any incidental burdens it might impose on an individual’s exercise of religion. Conscientious objectors such as Quakers, for instance, do not have a constitutional right to be exempt from a military draft. Thus, neutrality now forms both the core and the outer limit of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. Judged according to founding-era views, …

The Second Adoption Of The Free Exercise Clause: Religious Exemptions Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the proposition that the Free Exercise Clause was adopted a second time through its incorporation into the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that the scope of the new Free Exercise Clause was intended to include protections un-anticipated at the Founding. Contrary to Jeffersonian notions of separate spheres, the nation by the time of Reconstruction had experienced decades of clashes resulting from the overlapping concerns of religion and government. In particular, the suppression of slave religion called into question the government's power to interfere, even indirectly, with legitimate religious exercise. Accordingly, the Privileges or …