Religion Law Commons^™

Religious Schooling And Homeschooling Before And After Hobby Lobby, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

The most serious incursions on religious liberty in America today are being inflicted on children by parents and private school operators through power the State has given them. This Article examines the potential effect of the Court’s Hobby Lobby decision on interpreting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) on both federal and state levels, detailing why the Court’s decision is irrelevant to addressing the incursions on liberty experienced by children subject to religious and home schooling.

Ultimately, the Article finds that home schools and private schools are unfazed by the Hobby Lobby decision in their capacities as employers and educators …

Free Exercise By Moonlight, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

How is the current condition of religious free exercise, and religious accommodation in specific, best understood? What is the relationship of the two most important free exercise cases of the past half-century, Employment Division v. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC? This essay explores four possible answers to these questions.

1. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor are the twin suns of religious accommodation under the Constitution. They are distinctively powerful approaches.

2. Hosanna-Tabor’s approach to constitutional free exercise is now more powerful than Smith’s. Smith has been eclipsed.

3. Hosanna-Tabor has shown itself to be feeble. It has …

Substantial Burdens Imply Central Beliefs, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

This short piece reflects on the substantial burden inquiry in the law of religious accommodation. All legal regimes that are open to religious accommodation will want to know something about the nature of the burden on religion that the law imposes. This essay contends that to speak of a substantial burden on religious exercise is in effect to conceive of religion as a system — a group of interlocking beliefs and practices that together is greater than the sum of its parts. Some features of the system will be core features, while some will be peripheral. There is no getting …