Law Commons^™

First Amendment “Harms”, Stephanie H. Barclay

Indiana Law Journal

What role should harm to third parties play in the government’s ability to protect religious rights? The intuitively appealing “harm” principle has animated new theories advanced by scholars who argue that religious exemptions are indefensible whenever they result in cognizable harm to third parties. This third-party harm theory is gaining traction in some circles, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s pending cases in Little Sisters of the Poor and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. While focusing on harm appears at first to provide an appealing, simple, and neutral principle for avoiding other difficult moral questions, the definition of harm …

Government Speech Doctrine—Legislator-Led Prayer's Saving Grace, Daniel M. Vitagliano

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that Lund was decided incorrectly in part because the Fourth Circuit failed to analyze the type of speech at issue before assessing the constitutionality of the prayer practice. This Note is composed of four parts. Part I surveys the Supreme Court’s legislative prayer jurisprudence—Marsh and Town of Greece. Part II outlines Lund and Bormuth, and the Fourth and Sixth Circuits’ dissimilar applications of the Supreme Court’s precedent. Part III argues that courts must first classify legislative prayers as either government or private speech before assessing whether a prayer practice violates the Establishment Clause. It further argues …

How Conscientious Objectors Killed The Draft: The Collapse Of The Selective Service During The Vietnam War, Bill Raley

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article argues that a key-but-overlooked factor in the Vietnam-era breakdown of the draft system was the Supreme Court’s expansion of the religious conscientious objector ("CO") exemption. It asserts that the Court understood that the CO exemption violated the Establishment Clause, but rather than strike the exemption down, the Court avoided the constitutional issue by interpreting away the religious element of CO statutes. The Article concludes that the Court’s rulings caused CO exemptions to skyrocket, which in turn caused the draft system to collapse toward the end of the Vietnam War.

Constitutional Law—Where Does It Fit? Solving The School Board Prayer Puzzle, Austin Reed

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.