Constitutional Law Commons^™

Here’S A Path To Practical, Immediate Gun Reform, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The Future Of Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

Debating When Clarence Thomas Should Recuse Himself Is The Wrong Argument, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

A Leak? The Supreme Court Tipped Its Hand On Abortion Long Ago, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

How A Shuttered Bathroom At A Pgh Grocery Store Explains Structural Racism, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Toomey’S Vote Against Ketanji Brown Jackson Set A Dangerous Precedent. Here's Why, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Whose Secularism? Which Laïcité? Negotiating Transnational And National Constitutionalism In Kosovo, Thomas J. Hellenbrand

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note will proceed as follows: Part I will set the stage and briefly outline the history of Kosovo and its current political status. Part II will then introduce the Kosovo Constitution and the process by which international agreements (such as the European Convention of Human Rights) were embedded in the text and made binding legal authority. It will show that, although the international agreements are binding, the Kosovo Constitution does not make international case law obligatory. Part III will then address different foundational documents drafted in anticipation of Kosovo’s statehood and how judicial and administrative institutions should apply them …

There Are Limits To The American Renaissance Over Ukraine, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Ukrainians Are Fighting And Dying To Defend Their Homes. Could I Do The Same?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

What Does The Jan. 6 Committee Hope To Learn From Sen. Doug Mastriano?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Why Do Pa. Courts Have A Say On Mail-In Voting? They Probably Shouldn't, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

How The U.S. Supreme Court Is Inviting The Senate To Scrap The Filibuster, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The Big Lie Is Undermining Our Democracy. Both Parties Need To Defeat It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Judicial Ethics May Decide Whether A Prisoner Can Be Touched As He Is Executed, Mikayla Lewison

SLU Law Journal Online

The community having faith in the judiciary is vital for the U.S. to function as a democracy. Recently, the Court has become seemingly more politicized, even though Americans prefer an apolitical court. In this article, Mikayla Lewison argues that personal interests of the justices on the Court have likely played a role in whether or not prisoners, like John Henry Ramirez, may have a cleric of their choice inside the chamber as they are executed.

Sure, Things Seem Bad. But There Are Some Reasons To Be Cheerful In 2022, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

On Controlling The Supreme Court: Is There A Future For American Law?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

This Earthly Frame: The Making Of American Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.”

First Amendment Challenges To State Vaccine Mandats: Why The U.S. Supreme Court Should Hold That The Free Exercise Clause Does Not Require Religious Exemptions, Donna M. Gitter

American University Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court has never issued a judicial opinion on the merits declaring that the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause permits states to mandate vaccinations without offering religious exemptions. However, in two recent cases, the Court in brief orders declined applications for emergency relief to block state vaccine mandates, and the petitioners have vowed to continue to pursue these cases.

This Article explores how the seemingly sudden onset of the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with its protracted duration, has occasioned both emergency and enduring state regulation of religious behavior in a way that exposes deep divides in our society’s views …

Reclaiming Establishment: Identity And The 'Religious Equality Problem', Faraz Sanei

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Since at least 2017, the Court has implicitly recognized a right of equal access to generally available public benefits based on the beneficiary’s religious identity or status. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the Court went a step further and, for the first time, concluded that the “statususe distinction lacks a meaningful application” in both theory and practice. It then held that restrictions on the use of public benefits for sacral purposes amount to religious discrimination because they impose substantial burdens on free exercise rights. Carson’s holding, and the rationale underlying it, contravene settled case law and effectively gut the Establishment …

Covid-19, Churches, And Culture Wars, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause often requires courts to balance competing interests of the highest order. On the one hand, the Constitution recognizes the free exercise of religion as a fundamental right. On the other hand, the government sometimes has compelling reasons for limiting free exercise, especially in situations involving dangers to health and safety. The shutdown and social distancing orders issued during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic not only restricted free exercise but also limited what many people consider to be the core of that exercise: religious worship. But the orders did so in order to …

Fragility, Not Superiority? Assessing The Fairness Of Special Religious Protections, Sherif Girgis

Journal Articles

Is it fair to grant exemptions from neutral laws to protect religion but not other deep commitments and pursuits, like secular conscience or care-giving bonds? The 30-year scholarly debate on this question now has legal import, as the Supreme Court stands poised to reverse precedent and restore free exercise exemptions from neutral laws. Whether it should, under stare decisis, turns partly on moral considerations like the fairness issue. And the debate is worth revisiting. Almost everyone has assumed that special religious protections are fair if and only if religion matters more than other interests. Yet protections for religion might be …

Why Secular Society Desperately Needs The Recognition Of Religious Holidays, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

How Should The Law Adjust To The Rittenhouse Verdict?, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Stop Calling Kyle Rittenhouse A Hero. He Killed Two Unarmed People, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Maybe Deficits Do Matter After All, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

No, This Isn’T Facebook’S ‘Big Tobacco’ Moment, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Here's What's At Stake In Texas Abortion Case Before U.S. Supreme Court, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The The Universe Is On Our Side: Restoring Faith In American Public Life, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Books

In The Universe Is On Our Side, Bruce Ledewitz argues that there has been a breakdown in American public life that no election can fix - Americans struggle to even converse about politics and the usual explanations for our condition have failed to make things better. Ledewitz posits that America is living with the consequences of the Death of God, which Friedrich Nietzsche presumed would be momentous and irreversible.For a long time, God acted as the story of the meaning of our lives. America's future requires that we begin a new story by each of us asking a question posed …

No, Joe Biden And The Dems Are Not Collapsing, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

The 2021 Race For Pa. Supreme Court: The Questions The Candidates Have To Answer, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.