Law Commons^™

Rick Garnett Publishes Op-Ed Piece In La Times "The Righteousness In Hobby Lobby's Cause", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett's op-ed in LA Times on the HHS mandate and religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court.

Rick Garnett Was Quoted In Npr Article "Aclu Sues, Claiming Catholic Hospitals Put Women At Risk.", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in NPR article "ACLU Sues, Claiming Catholic Hospitals Put Women At Risk" by Julie Rovner. "Yeah, this is a novel case," says , a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. While there's nothing new about suing doctors or hospitals, Catholic or not, Garnett says, "to sort of claim that it is negligence for the bishops to be issuing directives reminding Catholic hospitals what the church's teachings are with respect to things like abortion and sterilization are, that is a stretch." And he wonders what future if any such lawsuits against the church may have. …

Rick Garnett Quoted In Washington Post Article "Court Confronts Religious Rights Of Corporations", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett quoted in Washington Post article "Court Confronts Religious Rights of Corporations" by ADAM LIPTAK. “This is a perfect storm,” said Richard Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame, adding that it is also a worrisome one. “Debates about campaign finance in Citizens United and abortion and Obamacare,” he said, “could distort the court’s analysis of religious freedom.”

Rick Garnett Quoted In Ncr Article "Supreme Court Takes Up Contraceptive Mandate, Will Rule On Religious Rights Of Corporations", Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett quoted in NCR article by David Gibson "Supreme Court takes up contraceptive mandate, will rule on religious rights of corporations" on November 26, 2013. Given the polemics, Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett said he worries "that what I regard as accidental aspects of the case -- the Citizens United debate, the 'war on women' rhetoric from the last election, the controversies about (health care reform) -- will distract the court from the more specific legal question presented, which has to do, again, with the interpretation of a particular, and an important, federal statute."

Top Court Won't Block Town Prayers, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Contribution to CNN Opinion by Rick Garnett. Richard Garnett says predicting court decisions is risky, but the odds are the court won't overturn public meeting prayers.

Board Meeting Prayer Bound For Supreme Court In Church-State Case, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

ABC News quoted Rick Garnett in the article by Ariane de Vogue. Richard Garnett, an expert on church-state issues at the Notre Dame Law School says, “At the heart of this new case is whether the court should stick with a relatively bright-line rule that treats legislative prayers as presumptively permissible, given their long use in our country, or whether the court should move to more of an all-things-considered inquiry that treats such prayers like Christmas displays and the like.”

Garnett On The Constitutionality Of Legislative Prayer (Audio), Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Bloomberg Law Podcast Host June Grasso examines the major legal issues affecting business. Professor Richard Garnett of Notre Dame Law School discusses an upcoming Supreme Court case on whether prayer at the start of town meetings violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He talks with June Grasso on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Law."

Legislative Prayer Gets Supreme Court Review, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in the Associated Press article by MARK SHERMAN

The article was also published in

Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, NPR. NBC News, Fox News, Yahoo! News

Richard Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor and former Supreme Court clerk, said it is likely that the court will reverse the appeals court and that a narrow ruling of the sort sought by the administration could cause some liberal justices to join their conservative colleagues.

But because the case can be resolved narrowly, Garnett said it probably is not one the justices will use to order judges to …

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 …

Supreme Court To Hear New Case On Religion In Public Life, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in the Washington Post article.

Against this “messy” backdrop, said Richard Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame, the court’s view on legislative prayer “is actually one of the clearer areas in the court’s Establishment Clause” jurisprudence.

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

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

Stop Parsing The Pope, Richard Garnett

Richard W Garnett

Rick Garnett was quoted in the National Catholic Reporter article by Michael Sean Winters " As mentioned last week, Notre Dame's Rick Garnett has said this, and he is to be applauded for saying it, but more than that, his example should be followed."

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

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 Theology Of The Blaine Amendments, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The Supreme Court affirmed, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, that the Constitution permits us to experiment with school-choice programs and, in particular, with programs that include religious schools. However, the constitutions of nearly forty States contain provisions - generically called Blaine Amendments - that speak more directly and, in many cases, more restrictively, than does the First Amendment to the flow of once-public funds to religious schools. This Article is a series of reflections, prompted by the Blaine Amendments, on education, citizenship, political liberalism, and religious freedom. First, the Article considers what might be called the federalism defense of the provisions. …

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

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

The New Federalism, The Spending Power, And Federal Criminal Law, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

It is difficult in constitutional-law circles to avoid the observation that we are living through a revival of federalism. Certainly, the Rehnquist Court has brought back to the public-law table the notion that the Constitution is a charter for a government of limited and enumerated powers, one that is constrained both by that charter's text and by the structure of the government it creates. This allegedly revolutionary Court seems little inclined, however, to revise or revisit its Spending Power doctrine, and it remains settled law that Congress may disburse funds in pursuit of ends not authorized explicitly in Article I …

'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

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. …

A Hands-Off Approach To Religious Doctrine: What Are We Talking About?, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

At the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Schools, the program organized by the Section on Law and Religion presented for consideration the claim that “the United States Supreme Court has shown an increasing unwillingness to engage in deciding matters that relate to the interpretation of religious practice and belief.” The Court, it was proposed, is — more and more — taking a “hands-off approach to religious doctrine.”

This proposal was, and remains, timely and important, as is illustrated by — to mention just a few, diverse examples — the ongoing property-ownership dispute between several “breakaway” Episcopal …

Education Reform At The Crossroads: Politics, The Constitution, And The Battle Over School Choice, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

Judicial Enforcement Of The Establishment Clause, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This paper is the author’s contribution to a roundtable conference, held in October of 2008 at Notre Dame Law School, devoted to Prof. Kent Greenawalt’s book, Religion and the Constitution: Establishment and Fairness. It is suggested that Greenawalt’s admirably context-sensitive approach to church-and-state questions might lead us to think that the best course for judges is to find (somehow) some bright-line, on-off “rules” and “tests”, constructed to identify and forbid the most obvious violations of the Religion Clause’s core (whatever that is), and to give up on -- or, perhaps, “underenforce” -- the rest.

The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This essay is a contribution to a symposium marking the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s still-controversial decision in Employment Division v. Smith. That decision, it is suggested, should not be read as reflecting or requiring hostility or indifference towards claims for legislatively enacted accommodations of religion. Smith is not an endorsement of religion-blind neutrality in constitutional law; instead, it assigns to politically accountable actors the difficult, but crucially important, task of accommodating those whose religious exercise would otherwise be burdened by generally applicable laws. The essay goes on to suggest several things that must be true of our law …

Bush V. Holmes: School Vouchers, Religious Freedom, And State Constitutions, Richard W. Garnett, Christopher S. Pearsall

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

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

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 …

Whom Should A Catholic University Honor?: "Speaking" With Integrity, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

Depravity Thrice Removed: Using The 'Heinous, Cruel, Or Depraved' Factor To Aggravate Convictions Of Nontriggermen Accomplices In Capital Cases, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.

A Quiet Faith? Taxes, Politics, And The Privatization Of Religion, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The government exempts religious associations front taxation and, in return, restricts their putatively political expression and activities. This exemption-and-restriction scheme invites government to interpret and categorize the means by which religious communities live out their vocations and engage the world. But government is neither well-suited nor to be trusted with this kind of line-drawing. What's more, this invitation is dangerous to authentically religious consciousness and associations. When government communicates and enforces its own view of the nature of religion—i.e., that it is a private matter—and of its proper place—i.e., in the private sphere, not in politics—it tempts both believers and …

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

Richard W Garnett

No abstract provided.