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Full-Text Articles in Law
Pleasant Grove V. Summum: Losing The Battle To Win The War, Ian C. Bartrum
Pleasant Grove V. Summum: Losing The Battle To Win The War, Ian C. Bartrum
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This short essay explores the potential doctrinal implications of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Pleasant Grove v. Summum.
The Political Origins Of Secular Public Education: The New York School Controversy 1840-1842, Ian C. Bartrum
The Political Origins Of Secular Public Education: The New York School Controversy 1840-1842, Ian C. Bartrum
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As the title suggests, this article explores the historical origins of secular public education, with a particular focus on the controversy surrounding the Catholic petitions for school funding in nineteenth-century New York City. The article first examines the development of Protestant nonsectarian common schools in the northeast, then turns to the New York controversy in detail, and finally explores that controversy's legacy in state constitutions and the Supreme Court. It is particularly concerned with two ideas generated in New York: (1) Bishop John Hughes' objection to nonsectarianism as the 'sectarianism of infidelity'; and (2) New York Secretary of State John …
The Constitutional Structure Of Disestablishment, Ian C. Bartrum
The Constitutional Structure Of Disestablishment, Ian C. Bartrum
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This article proceeds in the structuralist tradition, which Professor Charles Black describes as "the method of inference from the structure and relationships created by the Constitution." The article takes a structural approach to the Establishment Clause: it reexamines the theoretical foundations of disestablishment, and infers a constitutional structure designed to create a dialectical relationship between political institutions and social institutions. The structural thesis requires that our political institutions safeguard individual liberty of conscience by bracketing all religious questions. The antithesis ensures the existence of free and independent social organizations dedicated to building public virtue. The article then applies the structural …
Paradise Lost: Good News Club, Charitable Choice, And The State Of Religious Freedom, Ian C. Bartrum
Paradise Lost: Good News Club, Charitable Choice, And The State Of Religious Freedom, Ian C. Bartrum
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The United States Constitution's two religion clauses prohibit Congress from passing laws that establish religion or restrict its free exercise. This Note argues that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson worked to include this language in the Constitution because of their belief that citizens' religious duties were more fundamental than their civic duties. It argues that they intended the Constitution's religion clauses to form a simple dialectic: the government may not force citizens to renounce their religious duties by compelling them to support another faith, nor may it pass laws that act coercively to restrict their religious beliefs and practices. This …
Substantive Due Process And Free Exercise Of Religion: Meyer, Pierce And The Origins Of Wisconsin V. Yoder, Jay S. Bybee
Substantive Due Process And Free Exercise Of Religion: Meyer, Pierce And The Origins Of Wisconsin V. Yoder, Jay S. Bybee
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In this paper the author examines the nature of parents' due process right to direct the education of their children and its relationship to the First Amendment. The article begins with the hardiest of the U.S. Supreme Court's early substantive due process decisions: Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters. Meyer struck down a Nebraska law forbidding the teaching of foreign language in public or private schools; Pierce struck down an Oregon law requiring attendance at public schools. Part I recounts that the laws in both cases were the result of complex forces, uniting groups as disparate …