Law Commons^™

Reflections On A More “Catholic” Catholic Legal Education, William M. Treanor

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I am grateful to Professors Breen and Strang for their thoughtful book about Catholic legal education in the United States. It is an important topic, and their work promises to be a significant contribution to the conversation about the mission of Catholic law schools. My reflections here will focus on Chapter Five.

All of us participating in this symposium are engaged in the collective enterprise of thinking through and implementing what it means to be a Catholic law school. As a historian, personally I am well aware of the value of studying where we have been as part of the …

Post Secularism And The Woman Question, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I will discuss the “woman question in post secularism” by offering my critique of Saba Mahmood’s book “Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject”. But before I do so, let me just state that I am a legal academic and I am not a reader of the field of anthropology. I am unfamiliar with the theoretic jargon of the discipline- even less so of the jargon of the subfield, anthropology of religion from which Politics of Piety hails. Each discipline is autonomous more so fields of study within each discipline. Those fields usually coalesce around a celebrity …

Religious Difference In A Secular Age: The Minority Report By Saba Mahmoud (2016) Book Review, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Minority Report is a text that tries to respond to the problem of essentializing Islam (the culturalism problem) by performing a flip so that all the bad attributes typically associated with “Islam” are now attributed to secularism instead. It is secularism that discriminates, that is sectarian, that encourages violence, that is repressive, sexist, etc. This Mahmood does by on the one hand hyper-politicizing secularism (depleting it of its universalist drive), and on the other under-politicizing it by ignoring its internal indeterminacy, complexity, open structure and varied distributive effects. The result is an account that moves between crude historicism-secularism is …

Freedom Of The Church And Our Endangered Civil Rights: Exiting The Social Contract, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this comment I suggest that the “Freedom of the Church” to ignore the dictates of our various Civil Rights Acts, whether in the ministerial context or more broadly, created or at least newly discovered by the Court in Hosanna-Tabor, is a vivid example of a newly emerging and deeply troubling family of rights, which I have called elsewhere “exit rights” and which collectively constitute a new paradigm of both institutional and individual rights in constitutional law quite generally. The Church’s right to the ministerial exception might be understood as one of this new generation of rights, including some …

Sacred Trust Or Sacred Right?, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is the first chapter from The Constitutional Parent: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Enfranchisement of the Child (Yale University Press, 2014.)

It is commonly assumed that parents have long enjoyed a fundamental legal right to control the upbringing of their children, but this reading of the law is sorely incomplete. What is deeply rooted in our legal traditions is the idea that the state entrusts parents with custody of the child, and the concomitant rule that the state does so only as long as parents meet their legal duty to take proper care of the child. This book looks at …

Child Abuse Reporting: Rethinking Child Protection, Susan C. Kim, Lawrence O. Gostin, Thomas B. Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The general public has been bewildered by the magnitude of sex abuse cases and the widespread failure by pillars of the community to notify appropriate authorities. The crime of sexually abusing children is punishable in all jurisdictions and this article examines the duty to report suspected cases by individuals in positions of trust over young people, such as in the church or university sports. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) defines child maltreatment as an act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caregiver that results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, …

Who Owns The Soul Of The Child?: An Essay On Religious Parenting Rights And The Enfranchisement Of The Child, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

At common law, and (for most of the nation's history) under state statutory regimes, the authority of the parent to direct the child's upbringing was a matter of duty, not right, and chief among parental obligations was the duty to provide the child with a suitable education. It has long been a legal commonplace that at common law the parent had a "sacred right" to the custody of his or her child, that the parent's right to control the upbringing of the child was almost absolute. But this reading of the law is sorely anachronistic, less history than advocacy on …

The Siren Song Of History: Originalism And The Religion Clauses, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is hard to foresee much happiness in the lot of those seeking the original meaning of the Religion Clauses. We may acknowledge the opacity of the historical record, the variety of viewpoints held by founders forgotten and non-forgotten, the humanness of the founders who did not always practice what they preached, even the basic indeterminancy of language; still, we are seduced by the siren song of interpretive certainty. But the search for greater clarity is not without its payoff. As the three books under review here illustrate, the more we look for answers in the historical record, the more …

To Be Muslim Or "Muslim-Looking" In America: A Comparative Exploration Of Racial And Religious Prejudice In The 21st Century, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Essay begins with a confession. In taking implicit association tests ("IATs") designed to measure my unconscious attitude toward two particular demographic groups, I discovered that I, an African-American, harbored a "slight automatic preference" for Europeans over blacks and for "other people" over "Arab-Muslims." Both of these results were contrary to my professed or conscious assertions of neutrality. Why would a pro-integration scholar who seeks to promote cross-racial understanding and inclusion exhibit such implicit biases? And why is it that a majority of others who take these tests register similar implicit biases? The point of my confession is to underscore …

Neuroscience And The Free Exercise Of Religion, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Recent developments in neuroscience that purport to reduce religious experience to specific parts of the brain will not diminish the fundamental cultural or legal standing of religion. William James debunked this possibility in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) when he noted that “the organic causation of a religious state of mind” no more refutes religion than the argument that scientific theories are so caused refutes science. But there will be incremental legal change in areas like civil commitment where judges must sometimes distinguish between mental disorder and religious belief. The paradox is that the ecstatic religious experience of unorthodox …

When Is Religious Speech Outrageous?: Snyder V. Phelps And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Constitution affords great protection to religiously motivated speech. Religious liberty would mean little if it did not mean the right to profess and practice as well as to believe. But are there limits beyond which religious speech loses its constitutional shield? Would it violate the First Amendment to subject a religious entity to tort liability if its religious profession causes emotional distress? When is religious speech outrageous?

These are vexing questions, to say the least; but the United States Supreme Court will take them up next term—and it will do so in a factual context that has generated as …

Dilemmas Of Cultural Legality: A Comment On Roger Cotterrell's 'The Struggle For Law' And A Criticism Of The House Of Lords' Opinions In Begum, John Mikhail

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In “The Struggle for Law: Some Dilemmas of Cultural Legality,” Professor Roger Cotterrell argues that the law’s most distinctive aspiration is to promote a respectful exchange of ideas among different parts of a multicultural society. He illustrates his thesis with the House of Lords’ decision in Begum, describing it as “a relatively successful contribution to the process by which battlefields of rights are turned into areas of routine structuring” and finding much to admire in the messages communicated by the Lords in this case. I am more troubled by the Lords’ opinions in Begum and less convinced than Cotterrell seems …

Making Sense Of The Establishment Clause, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While the jurisprudence of the Establishment Clause may not make much sense (common or otherwise) as a substantive legal matter, it does make sense as a series of jurisprudential maneuvers by which the Court has sought to make more room for religion in civic life. In fact, there is a method to the “massive jumble... of doctrines and rules” that forms the law of church-state relations. It is the method of a somewhat disorderly retreat from the Constitution’s foundational principle of disestablishment. The accommodations made by the Court to religious belief and conduct have allowed for discrimination against non-religion, edging …

The Outrageous God: Emotional Distress, Tort Liability, And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When Matthew Snyder died fighting for his country, his memory was celebrated, and his loss mourned. The Westboro Baptist Church conducted a celebration of a different kind by picketing near Matthew’s funeral service. The church held signs that read, “You are going to hell,” “God hates you,” “Thank God for dead soldiers,” and “Semper fi fags.” In the weeks following the funeral, the church posted on its website, godhatesfags.com, an “epic” entitled “The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder.” Matthew’s burden, as the church saw it, was that he had been “raised for the devil” and “taught to defy …

What Yoder Wrought: Religious Disparagement, Parental Alienation And The Best Interests Of The Child, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Despite its grounding in a specific and peculiar set of facts, the strict scrutiny mandate of Wisconsin v. Yoder (decided in 1972) has changed the constitutional landscape of custody cases - - and it has done so in a way that is unsound both as a matter of law and policy. Following Yoder, most courts require a showing of harm to the child, or a substantial threat of harm to the child, before placing any restrictions on exposure to a parent’s religious beliefs and practices. This harm standard leaves children in an untenable position when parents compete for “spiritual custody,” …

Moral Conflict And Conflicting Liberties, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The authors' goal in this chapter is to surface some of the commonalities between belief liberty and identity liberty and to offer some public policy suggestions for what to do when these liberties conflict. She first wants to make transparent the conflict that she believes exists between laws intended to protect the liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people so that they may live lives of dignity and integrity and the religious beliefs of some individuals whose conduct is regulated by such laws. The author believes those who advocate for LGBT equality have downplayed the impact of such …

Cutter And The Preferred Position Of The Free Exercise Clause, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005) allowed Congress to give religious exercise a status superior to that given to free speech. In upholding RLUIPA, a statute protecting inmate religious freedom, the Court explicitly held that statutes can allow prisoners to “assemble for worship, but not for political rallies.” Religion, which lost in Smith (1990) the traditional “preferred position” courts have accorded First Amendment rights, can now regain that position through legislation notwithstanding the Establishment Clause. Indeed, religion has not just regained parity with free speech, it now receives greater protection in the prison setting. This striking …

Kennewick Man And The Meaning Of Life, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When Native Americans and scientists clashed over ownership of the ancient remains of Kennewick Man it was, in part, a dispute between the needs of the traditional culture and those of the modern research establishment. But more was at stake. The Native Americans wanted to rebury the remains because their emotional relationship with Kennewick Man is tied to their view of their origins. But the scientists also had an emotional attachment to the scientific position. The question of who were the First Americans satisfies a yearning for scientific origin stories. The dispute here parallels the controversy over evolution. Creationists care …

Pluralism And Public Legal Reason, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

What role does and should religion play in the legal sphere of a modern liberal democracy? Does religion threaten to create divisions that would undermine the stability of the constitutional order? Or is religious disagreement itself a force that works to create consensus on some of the core commitments of constitutionalism--liberty of conscience, toleration, limited government, and the rule of law? This essay explores these questions from the perspectives of contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. The thesis of the essay is that pluralism--the diversity of religious and secular conceptions of the good--can and should work as a force for …

Spiritual Custody: Relational Rights And Constitutional Commitments, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Patricia and David Zummo were married on December 17, 1978. When they divorced ten years later, the Zummos were unable to come to agreement about the religious upbringing of their three children. Prior to their marriage, Patricia and David had agreed that they would raise their children in the Jewish faith, and while they were married, "the Zummo family participated fully in the life of the Jewish faith and community." But after the divorce David wanted to take the children to Roman Catholic services as he saw fit, and he refused to arrange for the children's attendance at Hebrew School …

Defending A Rule Of Institutional Autonomy On "No-Harm" Grounds, Mark V. Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The argument I sketch here for institutional autonomy is basically empirical and agrees with Professor Hamilton in making harm-reduction the overriding social goal. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, I suggest that autonomous institutions may be able to socialize their adherents more effectively than institutions that lack autonomy and that - if the institutions' values are compatible with the legislature's - their more effective socialization can produce a net reduction in the harms inflicted by the institutions' members. Second, autonomy for all institutions can be defended if the gains from assuring autonomy for groups whose values are compatible with …

Bishops’ Norms: Commentary And Evaluation, Ladislas M. Örsy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In November 2002, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priest or Deacons ("Norms") in response to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic Church ("Church") officials. This Article examines the Norms on the basis of canonical traditions and the concepts, propositions, and positions contained with them. It strives to find the meaning of the individual norms within the broader context of the life and beliefs of the Church and its need to have structures that prevent corruption and promote healthy growth. The …

Faith And Funding: Toward An Expressivist Model Of The Establishment Clause, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article seeks to provide an alternative to the polarization that so often characterizes debates about church and state. In Part I, the author suggests that there are good policy reasons for supporting faith-based initiatives, and that these reasons ought to be attractive to liberals and progressives, many of whom have opposed faith-based initiatives. Faith-based social services are, after all, social services, and are often the very types of welfare services that liberals and progressives tend to support. Core religious values--in particular, concern about the less fortunate, a belief in human dignity, and a commitment to the possibility of redemption--reinforce …

Yale Rosenberg: The Scholar And The Teacher Of Jewish Law, Sherman L. Cohn

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the early 1980s, when he was a young professor at the University of Houston Law Center, the author had the occasion to meet Yale Rosenberg. It was clear from their discussion that Professor Rosenberg had a strong interest in Jewish law as well as a strong knowledge base. They discussed teaching such a course at the University of Houston Law Center. Professor Rosenberg was doubtful about teaching a course in Jewish law at a secular law school, particularly one in Texas. But that conversation began a series of conversations where Yale explored in some depth the course that we …

Antonin Scalia, Baruch Spinoza, And The Relationship Between Church And State, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

I begin with an outline of Spinoza's philosophy on church and state, followed by a demonstration that Scalia is headed in the same direction. I conclude by considering how Spinoza and Scalia might react to recent litigation in South Dakota involving an excommunication from a close-knit religious community, the Hutterite Church.

Stability And Development In Canon Law And The Case Of "Definitive" Teaching, Ladislas M. Örsy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Stability is an essential quality of any good legal system because a community's laws are an expression of its identity, and there is no identity without permanency. Many times we hear in the United States that we are a country held together by our laws. Although the statement cannot be the full truth, it is obvious that if our laws ever lost their stability, the nation's identity would be imperiled. In a religious community where the source of its identity is in the common memory of a divine revelation, the demand for stability is even stronger. Fidelity to the "Word …

The Word On Trial, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Milner Ball's extraordinary book, The Word and the Law, begins with a narrative account of "seven practices in law." The seven practitioners Ball brings to life for the reader share two powerful traits: they all, in quite different ways, use law to lessen the multiple sufferings of various communities of poor people, and they all, by doing so, strengthen the communities within which and for which they labor. The reader gains from these accounts not only a sympathetic understanding of the lives of seven lawyers, but a renewed sense of the possibilities their practices present. This can be put any …

Jewish Law: Finally, A Useable And Readable Text For The Noninitiate, Sherman L. Cohn

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Why would anyone not studying religion be interested in Jewish law? It will be surprising for some to learn that some twenty to twenty-five law schools now offer courses in Jewish law. The literature in English is growing year after year. And the area is becoming one of serious study for scholars of law as distinguished from scholars of religion. Jewish law as taught in secular law schools is not that of religious ritual. It is the law of contracts, torts, damages, property, secured transactions, civil and criminal procedure, legal ethics, and consumer protection. In other words, it spans the …