Law Commons^™

The Passing Of Nonsectarianism--Some Reflections On The School Prayer Case, Robert E. Rodes

Robert Rodes

Engel v. Vitale was a landmark case which marked a jurisprudential shift in the constitutional meaning of the Establishment Clause. This paper, written in the aftermath of this important case, reflects on, and contrasts, England's historical establishment of the Church with historical nonsectarianism in the United States. After analyzing the role which the tripartite Protestant-Catholic-Jew nonsectariansm played in society before Engle, the paper suggests that nonsectarianism served the beneficial purpose of directing the whole institutional structure of society toward the last end of human beings. With the passing of nonsectarianism, the nation is left with the problem of accurately and …

Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Nearly thirty-five years ago, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that state programs or policies could excessive(ly) - and, therefore, unconstitutionally - entangle government and religion, not only by requiring or allowing intrusive public monitoring of religious institutions and activities, but also through what he called their divisive political potential. Chief Justice Burger asserted also, and more fundamentally, that political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. And from this Hobbesian premise about the inten(t) animating the First Amendment, he proceeded on the assumption that …

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 …

A Winn For Educational Pluralism, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This short essay takes as its starting point on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Winn v. Arizona Christian Tuition Organization, which involved an Establishment Clause challenge to Arizona’s scholarship tax program — a school-choice device that provides tax credits from state income taxes for donations to organizations granting scholarship to private K-12 schools. In Winn, a divided court ruled that taxpayers lack standing to challenge this and other tax credit programs — thereby dramatically limiting the Flast v. Cohen exception to the no-taxpayer-standing rule. The essay makes the case that the Winn will promote authentic educational pluralism by clearing …

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

Martin Wishnatsky

No abstract provided.

"Rfra Exemptions From The Contraception Mandate: An Unconstitutional Accommodation Of Religion", Frederick Mark Gedicks, Rebecca G. Van Tassell

Frederick Mark Gedicks

Litigation surrounding use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to exempt employers from the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate” is moving steadily towards eventual resolution in the U.S. Supreme Court. Both opponents and supporters of the mandate, however, have overlooked Establishment Clause limits on such exemptions. The fiery religious-liberty rhetoric surrounding the mandate has obscured that RFRA is a “permissive” rather than “mandatory” accommodation of religion—that is, a voluntary government concession to religious belief and practice that is not required by the Free Exercise Clause. Permissive accommodations must satisfy Establishment Clause constraints, notably the requirement that the accommodation not impose …

God Loves Flags, But I Don't: Why The Pledge Of Allegiance Is An American Travesty, Kyle T. Morrison

Kyle T Morrison

No abstract provided.

Measuring A “Spiritual Stake”: How To Determine Injury-In-Fact In Challenges To Public Displays Of Religion, Ashley C. Robson

Fordham Law Review

This Note analyzes the unique standing problem introduced by a particular set of Establishment Clause cases: those concerning nontaxpayer–based challenges to alleged “public displays” of religious symbols. This injury–in–fact problem arises due to the nature of the specific type of harm recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the context of religious displays: the public endorsement of religion. Due to this unusually subjective harm, it is unclear how the courts should evaluate this threshold injury–in–fact inquiry. This Note analyzes the legal conflict arising from the attempt to remain faithful to both the traditional injury–in–fact standing requirements and the endorsement test …

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

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

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 …

Saving The First Amendment From Itself: Relief From The Sherman Act Against The Rabbinic Cartels, Barak D. Richman

Pepperdine Law Review

America’s rabbis currently structure their employment market with rules that flagrantly violate the Sherman Act. The consequences of these rules, in addition to the predictable economic outcomes of inflated wages for rabbis and restricted consumer freedoms for the congregations that employ them, meaningfully hinder Jewish communities from seeking their preferred spiritual leader. Although the First Amendment cannot combat against this privately-orchestrated (yet paradigmatic) restriction on religious expression, the Sherman Act can. Ironically, however, the rabbinic organizations implementing the restrictive policies claim that the First Amendment immunizes them from Sherman Act scrutiny, thereby claiming the First Amendment empowers them to do …

The Endorsement Test Is Alive And Well: A Cause For Celebration And Sorrow, Mark Strasser

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Priority Of Law: A Response To Michael Stokes Paulsen, Eugene Volokh

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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

Pepperdine Law Review

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 …

The Priority Of God: A Theory Of Religious Liberty, Michael Stokes Paulsen

Pepperdine Law Review

Professor Paulsen argues that religious freedom only makes entire sense as a constitutional arrangement on the premise that God exists, that God makes actual demands on human loyalty and conduct, and that those demands precede and are superior in obligation to those of the State. Religious freedom exists to protect the exercise of plausibly true understandings of God's actual commands, as against state power, and to disable state power to proscribe -- or prescribe -- religious exercise. The article explores four possible stances of society toward religious freedom, depending on whether society and state embrace the idea of religious truth …

Can We Please Stop Talking About Neutrality? Koppelman Between Scalia And Rawls, Chad Flanders

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

And I Don’T Care What It Is: Religious Neutrality In American Law, Andrew Koppelman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Prayer Constitutional At Municipal Council Meetings?, Thomas A. Schweitzer

Scholarly Works

The author discusses Galloway v. Town of Greece, a case which challenges official prayers at town council meetings. To provide the necessary background information for understanding the issues in Galloway, the author begins with a brief discussion of two other cases, Lemon v. Kurtzman and Marsh v. Chambers. The author then examines the district and circuit court decisions in Galloway and the Establishment Clause issues posed by the case. Next, the author notes issues raised by other lower court decisions involving legislative prayer after Marsh.

Towards the end of the article, to clarify and decide the constitutional issues, the author …

(Dis)Owning Religious Speech, B. Jessie Hill

Faculty Publications

To claims of a right to equal citizenship, one of the primary responses has long been to assert the right of private property. It is therefore troubling that, in two recent cases involving public displays of religious symbolism, the Supreme Court embraced property law and rhetoric when faced with the claims of minority religious speakers for inclusion and equality.

The first, Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, is a free speech case in which the defendant evaded a finding that it was discriminating against the plaintiff’s religious speech by claiming a government speech defense. In the process, it claimed as its …

State Speech And Political Liberalism, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Jim Fleming and Linda McClain have written an impressive book on the responsible exercise of rights, which flows from prior writing by each.Their title, "Ordered Liberty," is a bit of a misnomer, however. When one thinks of that phrase, one thinks of the ways in which we balance liberty against order, i.e., against security, police power, controlling the excesses of liberty. Responsibility in the exercise of rights is an aspect of how rights are orderly, but the major hard cases involving rights are hard because significant claims of harm are in play. Think of much of constitutional criminal procedure, free …

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

Journal Articles

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 …

Religion's Footnote Four: Church Autonomy As Arbitration, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

While the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC has been hailed as an unequivocal victory for religious liberty, the Court’s holding in footnote four – that the ministerial exception is an affirmative defense and not a jurisdictional bar – undermines decades of conventional thinking about the relationship between church and state. For some time, a wide range of scholars had conceptualized the relationship between religious institutions and civil courts as “jurisdictional” – that is, scholars converged on the view that the religion clauses deprived courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over religious claims. In turn, courts could not adjudicate religious disputes …

Litigating Religion, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This article considers how parties should resolve disputes that turn on religious doctrine and practice – that is, how people should litigate religion. Under current constitutional doctrine, litigating religion is generally the task of two types of religious institutions: first, religious arbitration tribunals, whose decisions are protected by arbitration doctrine, and religious courts, whose decision are protected by the religion clauses. Such institutions have been thrust into playing this role largely because the religion clauses are currently understood to prohibit courts from resolving religious questions – that is, the “religious question” doctrine is currently understood to prohibit courts from litigating …