Law Commons^™

Justice Stevens, Religion, And Civil Society, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Did Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired from the Supreme Court last year, harbor a bias against religion? During his thirty-five years on the Court, Justice Stevens showed little favor for religious claimants. In Establishment Clause cases he advocated a strong doctrine of separation between church and state. In the most contentious Free Exercise Clause cases, he opposed exempting religious believers from laws that interfered with religious exercise. This combination of positions, unique among the Justices of the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts Courts, has led commentators to charge Justice Stevens with hostility toward religion. This article debunks that conventional analysis …

The Possibility Of A Secular First Amendment, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

In a series of articles and now in their new book, Religious Freedom and the Constitution, Lawrence Sager and Christopher Eisgruber (E&S) defend an interpretation of the religion clauses of the First Amendment which, they write, "denies that religion is a constitutional anomaly, a category of human experience that demands special benefits and/or necessitates special restrictions." While not a book review in the traditional sense, my essay takes E&S's defense of a secular First Amendment as a starting point and asks, how did we get to the point where an interpretation of the First Amendment which denies that religion is …

Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In June of 1940, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the punishment of two school age Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to pay homage to the American flag. Three years later, the Justices reversed themselves in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. This sudden change has prompted a host of explanations. Some observers have stressed changes in judicial personnel in the intervening years; others have pointed to the wax and wane of general anxieties over the war; still others have emphasized the sympathy-inspiring acts of …

Reconceptualizing Federalism, Erwin Chemerinsky

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Two Wrongs Make A Right: Hybrid Claims Of Discrimination, Ming Hsu Chen

Publications

This Note reinterprets and recontextualizes the pronouncement in Employment Division v. Smith (Smith II) that exemptions from generally applicable laws will not be granted unless claims of free exercise are accompanied by the assertion of another constitutional right. It argues that when Arab American Muslims, and others who are of minority race and religion, bring claims for exemption from generally applicable laws on the basis of free exercise and equal protection principles, they ought to be able to invoke Smith II's hybridity exception, thus meriting heightened judicial scrutiny and increased solicitude from courts.

Revenue Bonds And Religious Education: The Constitutionality Of Conduit Financing Involving Pervasively Sectarian Institutions, Trent Collier

Michigan Law Review

The Establishment Clause - and particularly the issue of government funding of religious education - is one of the murkiest areas of Supreme Court jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has acknowledged as much, and the sharp divide in the Court's most recent forays into Establishment Clause territory illustrates the point that the current jurisprudential standards allow for a broad range of interpretation. There is some hope that the Supreme court will provide further clarification of its Establishment Clause standard in the near future. For now, however, it appears that the dominant mode of the Establishment Clause analysis is the examination of …

Permissible Accommodation Of Religion And The Alternative Burden, Ei Ichiro Takahata

LLM Theses and Essays

In this thesis, the author discusses the extent to which the government can afford to give accommodation within the limits of the Establishment Clause. In Chapter II, the author reviews the theory of the permissible accommodation referred to in the Supreme Court of the United States. In Chapter III, the author examines scholarly debates on the accommodation. Then, the author discusses German and Japanese law of the accommodation in Chapter IV. There, those cases suggest the possibility of alternative burdens on religious believers. The alternative burdens are considered the price of the accommodation. The author concludes that the government has …

Section 4: Religion, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment, Burt Neuborne

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

O'Connor: A Dual Role - An Introduction, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Religious Free Speech Rights Of Students In Public Schools: The Educator's Dilemma, Rosalie Levinson

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Secular Meaning Behind The Lemon Test: Lynch V. Donnelly

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Warren Court: Religious Liberty And Church-State Relations, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to analyze the holdings of the Warren Court under these two clauses in an attempt to assess their significance by reference both to earlier interpretations and to the direction they may give to future development.

Book Reviews, Ronan E. Degnan, Jerold Israel, Robert F. Drinan S.J.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Cases and Materials on Debtor and Creditor

By Vern Countryman

Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1964. Pp. lxiii, 841. $12.50.

reviewer: Ronan E. Degnan

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The Supreme Court on Trial

By Charles S. Hyneman

New York: Atherton Press, 1963. Pp. IX, 308. $6.50.

reviewer: Jerold Israel

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Religion and American Constitutions (1963 Rosenthal Lectures)

By Wilbur G. Katz

Northwestern University Press 1964. Pp. 114. $3.50.

reviewer: Rev. Robert F. Drinan, S.J.