Law Commons^™

The Public’S Companies, Andrew K. Jennings

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Essay uses a series of survey studies to consider how public understandings of public and private companies map into urgent debates over the role of the corporation in American society. Does a social-media company, for example, owe it to its users to follow the free-speech principles embodied in the First Amendment? May corporate managers pursue environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) policies that could reduce short-term or long-term profits? How should companies respond to political pushback against their approaches to free expression or ESG?

The studies’ results are consistent with understandings that both public and private companies have greater public …

Education, The First Amendment, And The Constitution, Erwin Chemerinsky

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

School Matters, Ronna Greff Schneider

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Fresh Start: Sealing Eviction Records In Rhode Island, Katie Gradowski

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Understanding An American Paradox: An Overview Of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, Spearit

Articles

In The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, Sahar Aziz unveils a mechanism that perpetuates the persecution of religion. While the book’s title suggests a problem that engulfs Muslims, it is not a new problem, but instead a recurring theme in American history. Aziz constructs a model that demonstrates how racialization of a religious group imposes racial characteristics on that group, imbuing it with racial stereotypes that effectively treat the group as a racial rather than religious group deserving of religious liberty.

In identifying a racialization process that effectively veils religious discrimination, Aziz’s book points to several important …

Ministerial Employees And Discrimination Without Remedy, Charlotte Garden

Indiana Law Journal

The Supreme Court first addressed the ministerial exemption in a 2012 case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. The ministerial exemption is a defense that religious employers can invoke in discrimination cases brought by employees who qualify as “ministerial,” and it is rooted in the First Amendment principle that government cannot interfere in a church’s choice of minister. However, Hosanna-Tabor did not set out a test to determine which employees are covered by this exemption, and the decision was susceptible to a reading that the category was narrow. In 2020, the Court again took up the ministerial exemption, …

Proving Racism: Gibson Bros. Inc. V. Oberlin College And The Implications On Defamation Law, Liam H. Mcmillin

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Discrimination, Trump V. Hawaii, And Masterpiece Cakeshop, Christopher C. Lund

Georgia Law Review

This short symposium piece is a comment on two of the Supreme Court’s recent religion cases. The first is Trump v. Hawaii, the travel ban case, where the Court rejected the claim of unconstitutional religious discrimination against Muslims.1 The second is Masterpiece Cakeshop, the case about the baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding, where the Court accepted the claim of unconstitutional religious discrimination against a conservative Christian.2 One case finds discrimination, while the other rejects it. Yet more fundamentally, the pairing suggests differences in how we perceive or react to evidence of discrimination. Both on …

The Second Founding And The First Amendment, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Constitutional doctrine generally proceeds from the premise that the original intent and public understanding of pre-Civil War constitutional provisions carries forward unchanged from the colonial Founding era. This premise is flawed because it ignores the Nation’s Second Founding: i.e., the constitutional moment culminating in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and the civil rights statutes enacted pursuant thereto. The Second Founding, in addition to providing specific new individual rights and federal powers, also represented a fundamental shift in our constitutional order. The Second Founding’s constitutional regime provided that the underlying systemic rules and norms of the First Founding’s Constitution …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 12-2020, Barry Bridges, Michael M. Bowden, Nicole Dyszlewski, Louisa Fredey

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Masterpiece Cakeshop'S Homiletics, Marc Spindelman

Cleveland State Law Review

Viewed closely and comprehensively, Masterpiece Cakeshop, far from simply being the narrow, shallow, and modest decision many have taken it to be, is a rich, multi-faceted decision that cleaves and binds the parties to the case, carefully managing conflictual crisis. Through a ruling for a faithful custom-wedding-cake baker against a state whose legal processes are held to have been marred by anti-religious bias, the Court unfolds a cross-cutting array of constitutional wins and losses for cultural conservatives and traditional moralists, on the one hand, and for lesbians and gay men and their supporters committed to civil and equal rights, …

Discrimination, The Speech That Enables It, And The First Amendment, Helen Norton

Publications

Imagine that you’re interviewing for your dream job, only to be asked by the hiring committee whether you’re pregnant. Or HIV positive. Or Muslim. Does the First Amendment protect your interviewers’ inquiries from government regulation? This Article explores that question.

Antidiscrimination laws forbid employers, housing providers, insurers, lenders, and other gatekeepers from relying on certain characteristics in their decision-making. Many of these laws also regulate those actors’ speech by prohibiting them from inquiring about applicants’ protected class characteristics; these provisions seek to stop illegal discrimination before it occurs by preventing gatekeepers from eliciting information that would enable them to discriminate. …

The (Hoped For) Shallowness Of Progressive Skepticism Towards Religious Freedom, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

The Empirical Irony Of The Conflict Between Antidiscrimination And Religious Freedom, Nathan B. Oman

Nathan B. Oman

No abstract provided.

Establishment Of Religion Supreme Court Appellate Division Third Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Media Impact Race Relations: Positive And Negative Historical Examples And Applied Psychological Principles, Sophia Nocera

Honors Theses

This thesis sought to examine how media influenced interracial relations in the 1920s and 1930s. It starts by defining necessary terms like media, race, racism, and stereotypes. Afterwards, studies which demonstrate that media reflect society are analyzed as well as studies which determine the extent of media influence on society. Media are the most influential on people who agree with the content provided and those who have no specific opinion on the issue at hand.

Next, psychological studies which determine the circumstances in which racist ideology is accepted the most are analyzed. This analysis determined that in-group versus out-group sentiments …

Warrantless Searches Of Electronic Devices At U.S. Borders: Securing The Nation Or Violating Digital Liberty?, Ahad Khilji

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The steady increase of U.S. citizens traveling with smart phones and other electronic devices has been met with the rise of searches and seizures by CBP officers at U.S borders. Although only less than 0.1% of all travelers may actually be subjected to a search while entering the United States, when comparing the statistics between a six month period in 2016 with the same period in 2017, electronic device searches have almost doubled from 8,383 to 14,993. Approximately one million travelers to the U.S. are inspected by the CBP every day. Out of this population, nearly 2,500 electronic devices are …

"No Person . . . Shall Ever Be Molested On Account Of His Mode Of Worship Or Religious Sentiments . . . .": The Northwest Ordinance Of 1787 And Strader V. Graham, Allan W. Vestal

Marquette Law Review

The Article looks at the first article of compact of the Northwest Ordinance,

the religious liberty guarantee: “No person . . . shall ever be molested on

account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments . . . .” Congress

provided that the Northwest Ordinance articles of compact would “forever

remain unalterable.” But in a fugitive slave case from 1851, Strader v. Graham,

Chief Justice Roger Taney declared the articles of compact to be no longer in

force.

In evaluating Chief Justice Taney’s reasoning, the question posed at the

dawn of the 20th Century by historian Professor Andrew McLaughlin …

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Jared Goldstein's Blog: Masterpiece Cakeshop Ruling: No Constitutional Right To Discriminate (For Now) 06-05-2018, Jared A. Goldstein

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Tipped Scales: A Look At The Ever-Growing Imbalance Of Power Protecting Religiously Motivated Conduct, Why That's Bad, And How To Stop It, Jeff Nelson

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note examines the current state of the law that seemingly allows individuals to harm and discriminate against others on the basis of their protected religious beliefs. This Note also explores how such a result has been made possible and how it may be stymied by judicial and legislative action. Section II discusses a short history of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause leading up to Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, and also includes an examination of both the real and possible harmful effects of RFRAs, current reactions to the application of these laws domestically, and interesting parallels internationally. Section III …

Maine's "Act To Protect Traditional Marriage And Prohibit Same-Sex Marriages": Questions Of Constitutionality Under State And Federal Law, Jennifer B. Wriggins

Maine Law Review

In 1997, Maine's Legislature passed “An Act to Protect Traditional Marriage and Prohibit Same-Sex Marriages” (Act). The summary attached to the bill states that the bill “prohibits persons of the same sex from contracting marriage.” The bill was the verbatim text of an initiative petition. Civil marriage in Maine and other states is regulated by state statute, and marriage regulation is generally considered to be within the state's police power. However, the state's power to regulate marriage is subject to constitutional limitations. I maintain that “heightened scrutiny” should be applied to the Act because the Act creates a gender-based classification, …

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 …

Student Protests And Academic Freedom In An Age Of #Blacklivesmatter, Philip Lee

Journal Articles

Student activism for racial equity and inclusion is on a historic rise on college and university campuses across the country. Students are reminding us that Black lives matter. They are bringing attention to the ways in which the normal operation of the legal system creates racial and other inequalities. They are critiquing the ways in which their experiences and perspectives are pushed to the margins in classrooms, on campuses, and in society.

In urging for university policies that allow for such activism to be moments of teaching and learning for all involved, I argue in this Article that student academic …

The Growing Gender/Religion Divide, Marcia L. Mccormick

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Is Wall Between Church And State Crumbling? 10-10-2017, Diana Hassel

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Diana Hassel's Blog: Is The Wall Between Church And State Crumbling? 10-07-2017, Diana Hassel

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Open Source: The Enewsletter Of Rwu Law 09-22-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Jared A. Goldstein's Blog: Ri's Conversion Therapy Ban Protects Lgbtq Youth And It's Constitutional 08-09-2017, Jared A. Goldstein

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Donald Trump Vs. Roger Williams 05-09-2017, David Logan

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Tension Between Equal Protection And Religious Freedom, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "The Constitution did not become our basic law at a single point in time. We ratified its first seven articles in 1788 but have since amended it 27 times. Many of these amendments memorialize fundamental shifts in values. Thus, it should come as no surprise to learn that the Constitution is not an internally consistent document."

…

"Other constitutional provisions -- even provisions that were simultaneously enacted -- protect freedoms that can come into conflict with one another. The First Amendment, for example, promises both freedom from governmental endorsement of religion and freedom from governmental interference with religious practice. …