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Full-Text Articles in Law

Between Law And Religion: Procedural Challenges To Religious Arbitration Awards, Michael Helfand Dec 2014

Between Law And Religion: Procedural Challenges To Religious Arbitration Awards, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This Essay presented at the Sharia and Halakha in America Conference explores the unique status of religious law as a hybrid concept that simultaneously retains the characteristics of both law and religion. To do so, the Article considers as a case study how courts should evaluate procedural challenges to religious arbitration awards. To respond to such challenges, courts must treat religious law as law when defining the contractually adopted religious procedural rules and treat religious law as religion when reviewing precisely what the religious procedural rules require. On this account, constitutional and arbitration doctrine combine to insulate religious arbitration awards …


Religious Institutionalism, Implied Consent And The Value Of Voluntarism, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2014

Religious Institutionalism, Implied Consent And The Value Of Voluntarism, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

Increasingly, clashes between the demands of law and aspirations of religion center on the legal status and treatment of religious institutions. Much of the rising tensions revolving around religious institutions—exemplified by recent Supreme Court decisions such as Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby—stem from conflicts between the religious objectives of those institutions and their impact on third parties who do not necessarily share those same objectives. This Article aims to provide a framework for analyzing the claims of religious institutions by grounding those claims in the principle of voluntarism. On such an account, religious institutions deserve protection because …


Hobby Lobby's Challenge To Officialdom's 'Compelling Interest', Michael Helfand Jul 2014

Hobby Lobby's Challenge To Officialdom's 'Compelling Interest', Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.


The Murkiness Of The Hobby Lobby Ruling, Michael Helfand Jun 2014

The Murkiness Of The Hobby Lobby Ruling, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.


America Doesn't See Its Religious Minorities, Michael Helfand May 2014

America Doesn't See Its Religious Minorities, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.


Panelist, “The Current Clash”, Michael Helfand Apr 2014

Panelist, “The Current Clash”, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.


Implied Consent: A Proposal On For-Profit Conscience, Michael Helfand Mar 2014

Implied Consent: A Proposal On For-Profit Conscience, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.


Testimony Before The U.S. Commission On Civil Rights, Briefing On Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Non-Discrimination Principles With Civil Liberties, Michael A. Helfand Mar 2013

Testimony Before The U.S. Commission On Civil Rights, Briefing On Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Non-Discrimination Principles With Civil Liberties, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

No abstract provided.


What Is A "Church"?: Implied Consent And The Contraception Mandate, Michael Helfand Dec 2012

What Is A "Church"?: Implied Consent And The Contraception Mandate, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This Article considers the “religious employer” exception to the “contraception mandate” – that is, the “preventative care” requirements announced by Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This exception has triggered significant litigation with a variety of employers claiming that they have been excluding from the “religious employer” classification in violation of both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In considering these claims, this Article applies an “implied consent” framework to these cases, which grounds the authority of religious institutions in the presumed consent of their members. On such …


Religious Arbitration And The New Multiculturalism: Negotiating Conflicting Legal Orders, Michael A. Helfand Nov 2011

Religious Arbitration And The New Multiculturalism: Negotiating Conflicting Legal Orders, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This Article considers a trend towards what I have termed the "new multiculturalism," where conflicts between law and religion are less about recognition and symbolism and more about conflicting legal orders. Nothing typifies this trend more than the increased visibility of religious arbitration, whereby religious groups use current arbitration doctrine to have their disputes adjudicated not in U.S. courts and under U.S. law, but before religious courts and under religious law. This dynamic has pushed the following question to the forefront of the multicultural agenda: under what circumstances should U.S. courts enforce arbitration awards issued by religious courts in accordance …


How The Diversity Rationale Lays The Groundwork For New Discrimination: Examining The Trajectory Of Equal Protection Doctrine, Michael Helfand Feb 2009

How The Diversity Rationale Lays The Groundwork For New Discrimination: Examining The Trajectory Of Equal Protection Doctrine, Michael Helfand

Michael A Helfand

This Article advocates differentiating between two distinct categories of equal protection cases. The first-what I have termed indicator cases-are instances where courts consider whether there are sufficient factual indications to demonstrate the existence of aprimafacie equal protection violation. The second-violation casesare instances where courts consider, having already determined the existence of an equal protection violation, whether there is a good enough justification for a prima facie equal protection violation. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has not differentiated between these two different types of cases. This has led to a string of decisions where the Supreme Court has erroneously looked for justifications …


The Usual Suspect Classifications: Criminals, Aliens And The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael A. Helfand Dec 2008

The Usual Suspect Classifications: Criminals, Aliens And The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael A. Helfand

Michael A Helfand

In this Article, I argue for a new understanding of the immutability factor employed by courts in determining which classifications ought to receive suspect status under the Equal Protection Clause. Drawing on the process-based foundations of the Equal Protection Clause, this new understanding defines immutable traits not as traits that cannot be changed, but as traits that are in the words of the Supreme Court in Frontiero v. Richardson, mere "accident[s] of birth." In contrast, courts and scholars typically center the immutability inquiry on an individual’s technical ability to exit a particular class, which has led to inconsistencies in …