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Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Nearly thirty-five years ago, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that state programs or policies could excessive(ly) - and, therefore, unconstitutionally - entangle government and religion, not only by requiring or allowing intrusive public monitoring of religious institutions and activities, but also through what he called their divisive political potential. Chief Justice Burger asserted also, and more fundamentally, that political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. And from this Hobbesian premise about the inten(t) animating the First Amendment, he proceeded on the assumption that …


School Choice, The First Amendment, And Social Justice, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

School Choice, The First Amendment, And Social Justice, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.


Jaycees Reconsidered: Judge Richard S. Arnold And The Freedom Of Association, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Jaycees Reconsidered: Judge Richard S. Arnold And The Freedom Of Association, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, the Supreme Court reversed Judge Richard S. Arnold's decision for the Court of Appeals and held­ - without dissent - that the First Amendment did not shield the Jaycees' men-only membership policy from the non-discrimination requirements of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The claim in this essay is that Judge Arnold's position and decision in the Jaycees case deserved, and still deserve, more thoughtful and sympathetic treatment. Even some of Judge Arnold's many friends and fans tend to treat as something of an embarrassing lapse or anomalous error his conclusion in that case that, …


Religion And Group Rights: Are Churches (Just) Like The Boy Scouts?, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Religion And Group Rights: Are Churches (Just) Like The Boy Scouts?, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

What role do religious communities, groups, and associations play - and, what role should they play - in our thinking and conversations about religious freedom and church-state relations? These and related questions - that is, questions about the rights and responsibilities of religious institutions - are timely, difficult, and important. And yet, they are often neglected.

It is not new to observe that American judicial decisions and public conversations about religious freedom tend to focus on matters of individuals' rights, beliefs, consciences, and practices. The special place, role, and freedoms of groups, associations, and institutions are often overlooked. However, if …


The Right Questions About School Choice: Education, Religious Freedom, And The Common Good, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

The Right Questions About School Choice: Education, Religious Freedom, And The Common Good, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.


'The Freedom Of The Church': (Towards) An Exposition, Translation, And Defense, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

'The Freedom Of The Church': (Towards) An Exposition, Translation, And Defense, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This Article was presented at a conference, and is part of a symposium, on the topic of "Freedom of the Church in the Modern Era." In addition to summarizing and re-stating claims made by the author in earlier work – claims having to do with, among other things, church-state separation, the no-establishment rule, legal and social pluralism, and the structural role played by religious and other institutions – the Article attempts to strengthen the argument that the idea of “the freedom of the church” (or something like it) is not a relic or anachronism but instead remains a crucial component …


Just Like A Prayer?, Richard Garnett Nov 2013

Just Like A Prayer?, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in The American Prospect article Just Like a Prayer? on November 1, 2013 Quotations below: But Rick Garnett, a professor of law and political science at the University of Notre Dame, says that’s a stretch, even for Kennedy. “Sure, there are children who come to municipal government meetings, but there are a whole lot of tourists and children who come to Congress,” he says. “I don’t think the court will want to take that vague idea of peer pressure as coercion and expand it beyond the school context.” From Garnett’s perspective, this is a good thing. …


Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard Garnett Nov 2013

Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Thirty-five years ago, in the context of a church-property dispute, Justice William Brennan observed that government interpretation of religious doctrine and judicial intervention in religious disputes are undesirable, because when civil courts undertake to resolve [doctrinal] controversies..., the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. This statement, at first, seems wise and fittingly cautious, even unremarkable and obvious. On examination, though, it turns out to be intriguing, elusive, and misleading. Indeed, Justice Brennan's warning presents hazards of its own, and its premises - if …


Standing, Spending, And Separation: How The No-Establishment Rule Does (And Does Not) Protect Conscience, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Standing, Spending, And Separation: How The No-Establishment Rule Does (And Does Not) Protect Conscience, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The First Amendment’s “Establishment Clause” is widely thought to protect “conscience.” Does it? If so, how? It is proposed in this paper that the no-establishment rule does indeed promote and protect religious liberty, and does safeguard conscience, but not (or, at least, not only) in the way most people think it does, namely, by sparing those who object from the asserted injury to their conscience caused by public funding of religious activity. The Supreme Court’s decision in Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation - a case in which the Justices limited taxpayer standing to bring Establishment Clause claims - reminds …


Introduction: Religion, Division, And The Constitution, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Introduction: Religion, Division, And The Constitution, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.


Can There Really Be "Free Speech" In Public Schools?, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Can There Really Be "Free Speech" In Public Schools?, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The Supreme Court's decision in Morse v. Frederick leaves unresolved many interesting and difficult problems about the authority of public-school officials to regulate public-school students' speech. Perhaps the most intriguing question posed by the litigation, decision, and opinions in More is one that the various Justices who wrote in the case never squarely addressed: What is the "basic education mission" of public schools, and what are the implications of this "mission" for officials' authority and students' free-speech rights. Given what we have come to think the Free Speech clause means, and considering the values it is thought to enshrine and …


Pluralism, Dialogue, And Freedom: Professor Robert Rodes And The Church-State Nexus, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Pluralism, Dialogue, And Freedom: Professor Robert Rodes And The Church-State Nexus, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The idea of church-state separation and the image of a wall are at the heart of nearly every citizen's and commentator's thinking about law and religion, and about faith and public life. Unfortunately, the inapt image often causes great confusion about the important idea. What should be regarded as an important feature of religious freedom under constitutionally limited government too often serves simply as a slogan, and is too often employed as a rallying cry, not for the distinctiveness and independence of religious institutions, but for the marginalization and privatization of religious faith.

How, then, should we understand church-state separation? …


Judicial Review, Local Values, And Pluralism, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Judicial Review, Local Values, And Pluralism, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

At the Federalist Society's 2008 National Student Symposium, a panel of scholars was asked to consider the question, does pervasive judicial review threaten to destroy local identity by homogenizing community norms? The answer to this question is yes, pervasive judicial review certainly does threaten local identity, because such review can homogenize[e] community norms, either by dragging them into conformity with national, constitutional standards or (more controversially) by subordinating them to the reviewers' own commitments. It is important to recall, however, that while it is true that an important feature of our federalism is local variation in laws and values, it …


Church, State, And The Practice Of Love, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Church, State, And The Practice Of Love, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

In his first encyclical letter, Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI describes the Church as a community of love. In this letter, he explores the organized practice love by and through the Church, and the relationship between this practice, on the one hand, and the Church's commitment to the just ordering of the State and society, on the other. God is love, he writes. This paper considers the implications of this fact for the inescapably complicated nexus of church-state relations in our constitutional order.

The specific goal for this paper is to draw from Deus caritas est some insight into …


Religious Freedom, Church Autonomy, And Constitutionalism, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Religious Freedom, Church Autonomy, And Constitutionalism, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.


Do Churches Matter? Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

Do Churches Matter? Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

In recent years, several prominent scholars have called attention to the importance and role of First Amendment institutions and there is a growing body of work informed by an appreciation for what Professor Balkin calls the infrastructure of free expression. The freedom of expression, he suggests, requires more than mere absence of government censorship or prohibition to thrive; [it] also require[s] institutions, practices and technological structures that foster and promote [it]. The intuition animating this scholarship, then, is that the freedom of expression is not only enjoyed by and through, but also depends on the existence and flourishing of, certain …