Law Commons^™

Brief Of Constitutional Law Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, David F. Forte, Ronald J. Colombo, Richard Epstein, Carl H. Esbeck, Robert P. George, Mary Ann Glendon, Brian Mccall, Stacy Scaldo, Steven Smith

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

Lurking behind the regulatory issues presented by this appeal is a concerted effort to displace the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. ("RFRA"), with a novel approach that would trivialize a law's burden on religion. The Court should not indulge it.

The critics' argument suffers from several analytical defects that can be remedied by (1) a proper constitutional understanding of RFRA's relationship to the Establishment Clause; (2) an accurate understanding of how the Religion Clauses safeguard third-party interests; and (3) the correct application of these understandings to the Final Rules.

The Supreme Court's Facilitation Of White Christian Nationalism, Caroline Mala Corbin

Articles

Doug Jager, a band student of Native-American ancestry, complained about the Christian prayers at his Georgia public school’s football games. Rather than address his concerns, the school lectured him on Christianity and proposed an alternative that appeared neutral yet would result in the continuation of the Christian prayers. In striking down the school’s proposal, Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. understood some of the ramifications of state-sponsored Christianity.

Despite Supreme Court rulings limiting Christian invocations at public-school events, government-sponsored Christian prayers and Christian symbols remain plentiful in the United States. This proliferation of government-sponsored Christianity around the country both reflects and …

Untangling Entanglement, Stephanie H. Barclay

Journal Articles

The Court has increasingly signaled its interest in taking a more historical approach to the Establishment Clause. And in its recent American Legion decision, the Supreme Court strongly suggested that the three-prong Lemon test is essentially dead letter. Such a result would make sense for the first two prongs of the Lemon test about secular purpose and the effects. Many scholars have observed that these aspects of the prong are judicial creations far afield of the Establishment Clause history. But what of the entanglement prong of the test? If we rejected all applications of this prong of the analysis, would …