First Amendment Commons^™

School Choice And The Challenges That Remain: A Comment On Richard D. Komer's "School Choice And State Constitutions' Religion Clauses", Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Richard Komer’s paper helpfully and carefully shows that, after the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, a formidable obstacle to choice-based educational reform has been removed, and also that other, no-less-formidable obstacles remain, in the form of anti-aid provisions contained in various states’ own constitutions. This brief, appreciative Comment notes, first, that uncertainties remain about the implementation and interpretation of Zelman, and even—considering the possibility of new appointments to the Court—the decision’s fate. Next, and moving beyond the Court’s First Amendment doctrine, this Comment suggests that the effort to implement choice-based educational reform is, and will remain, as …

Separating Church And State: Transfers Of Government Land As Cures For Establishment Clause Violations, Paul Forster

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The note examines one of the issues currently before the Supreme Court in Salazar v. Buono, the case concerning a Latin cross war memorial in the Mojave desert. The issue is whether the government may, by transferring land to private parties, cure Establishment Clause violations caused by permanent displays that contain religious imagery. The article surveys the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence as it applies to permanent displays, discussing the sometimes-used and sometimes-ignored Lemon-endorsement standard and the potential shift to a coercion standard. It concludes by arguing that even under the Lemon-endorsement standard, courts should often allow the …

Establishing Inequality, Gene R. Nichol

Michigan Law Review

Part I outlines Nussbaum's thesis and her similarly interesting, if perhaps not always completely consistent, applications of it. Part II touches on some challenges and potential shortcomings her theory presents-for clearly there are such. But, in Part III, I argue that her wide-ranging study of the work of the religion clauses nonetheless touches something residing at the core of American citizenship. No bosses. No masters. No insiders. None outcast. Finally, and far more idiosyncratically, in Part IV I explore and expand on Nussbaum's thesis in light of a modestly serious and rather public dispute over religious equality that occurred at …

Strings Attached: An Analysis Of The Eruv Under The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment And The Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act, Alexandra Lang Susman

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Jewish Women Under Siege: The Fight For Survival On The Front Lines Of Love And The Law, Adam H. Koblenz

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Parental Rights And The State Regulation Of Religious Schools, Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the United States Supreme Court invalidated convictions of several Amish parents for removing their children from school in violation of state mandatory attendance laws. In reaching its decision, the Court argued that protecting the Amish parents’ decisions fit into a longstanding American tradition of giving parents control over the upbringing of their children. Yet the Supreme Court mischaracterized the history of parental rights and state interests in education. Contemporary historical research shows that parents have long ceded a large measure of control to the state in the education of their children. Still, very little has been …

House Of Wisdom Or A House Of Cards? Why Teaching Islam In U.S. Foreign Detention Facilities Violates The Establishment Clause, Scott Thompson

Publications

In an attempt to erase Islamic-fundamentalist sentiments held by detainees apprehended in the course of the "war on terror," the United States government began teaching and preaching a more moderate version of the Qur'an and Islam to detainees in Iraq. One such detention program in Iraq was dubbed the House of Wisdom. But the wisdom of such a practice is highly suspect--both because it likely runs afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and because it may be doing more harm than good to the American effort to defuse Islamic-extremism and anti-American sentiment. This Article examines the practice …

A Cross To Bear: The Need To Weigh Context In Determining The Constitutionality Of Religious Symbols On Public Land, Catherine Ansello

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Shifting Out Of Neutral: Intelligent Design And The Road To Nonpreferentialism, Kelly S. Terry

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Excluding Religion": A Response, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

In a thorough and thoughtful article, Excluding Religion, Prof. Nelson Tebbe asks "whether the government may select religious entities for exclusion from its support programs?" and concludes that, sometimes, it may. "The government," he contends, "need not remain neutral toward religion in its support programs[.]"

In this short response to Tebbe's paper, I first suggest that the reasons Tebbe offers for such exclusion - including "promoting equal citizenship for members of minority faiths . . . , fostering community concord, [and] respecting taxpayers' freedom of conscience", are not particularly strong. Next, I turn to the various "limits" that Tebbe …

Do Churches Matter? Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

In recent years, several prominent scholars have called attention to the importance and role of First Amendment institutions and there is a growing body of work informed by an appreciation for what Professor Balkin calls the infrastructure of free expression. The freedom of expression, he suggests, requires more than mere absence of government censorship or prohibition to thrive; [it] also require[s] institutions, practices and technological structures that foster and promote [it]. The intuition animating this scholarship, then, is that the freedom of expression is not only enjoyed by and through, but also depends on the existence and flourishing of, certain …

An Expressive Jurisprudence Of The Establishment Clause, Ivan E. Bodensteiner, Alex Geisinger

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Shifting Toward Balance, Not Conservatism: The Court's Interpretation Of The Lemon Test's Legislative Intent Prong And Reaction From The Electorate, Kedrick N. Whitmore

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Freedom Of The Church, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This Article focuses on what the American theologian and Jesuit John Courtney Murray called a Great Idea, whose entrance into history marked the beginning of a new civilizational era. That idea was libertas ecclesiae, or the freedom of the Church. It served, according to Harold Berman, as the catalyst for the first major turning point in European history and as the foundation for nearly a millennium of political theory. And, this Article suggests, it remains a crucial component of any plausible and attractive account of religious freedom under and through constitutionally limited government. It is tempting to assume or expect …

The Jurisprudence Of Colliding First Amendment Interests: From The Dead End Of Neutrality To The Open Road Of Participation-Enhancing Review, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

First Amendment interests in both speech and religion often collide with one another. A political activist claims a free speech interest in the right to purchase advertising time on a television network, while the network claims a free speech interest in its decision not to sell the time. A religious enclave claims a free exercise interest in having a dedicated public school district, while its neighbors claim a nonestablishment interest in the government's not extending the group special treatment. In this article Professor Magarian examines the phenomenon of colliding First Amendment interests, explains and critiques the Supreme Court's failure to …

Through A Glass Darkly: Van Orden, Mccreary, And The Dangers Of Transparency In Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Protecting Islam's Garden From The Wilderness: Halal Fraud Statutes And The First Amendment, Elijah L. Milne

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Like all religions, Islam needs protection from governmental encroachment. As early as 1644, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, recognized that state involvement in religious matters defiles religion. "When they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of [religion] and the wilderness of the world," wrote Williams, "God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made His garden a wilderness ... ." Although Williams was mostly concerned about the government's impact on Christianity, his oft-quoted metaphor applies equally to the government's influence on Islam. This Article will discuss …

Thou Shalt Not?, Mark Strasser

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

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 …

“The Indispensable Basis Of Democracy”: American Catholicism, The Church-State Debate, And The Soul Of American Liberalism, 1920–1929, Zachary R. Calo

Scholarly Works

Several recent works of scholarship explore how Establishment Clause jurisprudence has been shaped by broader political debates over the role of religion in public life. This literature focuses on the politics of anti-Catholicism, particularly during the early years of Establishment Clause jurisprudence in the1940s and 1950s. While not questioning the centrality of this period to the historical narrative, this Note argues that the political contest over church and state took shape in an earlier debate over the compatibility of Catholicism and the Constitution during the 1920s. The Church’s response to the anti-Catholicism of this period was of particular importance. Catholic …

In Cases Involving Sites Of Religious Significance, Plaintiffs Will Fall In The Gap Of Judicial Deference That Exists Between The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment, Jeff Pinter

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

"And What Do You Say I Am?": The Meaning Of The Kentucky Display, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

In McCreary County v. ACLU, a bare majority of the Supreme Court affirmed that secularism is still the overriding principle of church-state law. Their “touchstone” was the “principle” which “mandates governmental neutrality between...religion and nonreligion.” But that’s actually not quite it. “Neutrality” between something and its absence— such as “religion” and “nonreligion”—would be (if it is imaginable at all) at least some of the thing. “Neutrality” between, say, a desert climate and a tropical climate would be someplace like Northern Indiana: rains here quite a bit but nothing like it does in the Amazon.

If “neutrality” means anything here …

American Conversations With(In) Catholicism, Richard W. Garnett

Michigan Law Review

The jacket photo for John T. McGreevy's Catholicism and American Freedom is striking. In the foreground, a young and vigorous Pope John Paul II, censer in hand, strides across an altar platform on the Mall in Washington, D.C. His attention is fixed off-camera, presumably at the altar he is about to reverence with incense. At the bottom of the picture, gathered around and below the platform, sits a grainy group of mitre-wearing bishops. Looming directly over the scene, in the background yet dominating the photograph, is the towering dome of the U.S. Capitol Building. This picture is worth many thousand …

"Go And Sin No More": The Constitutionality Of Governmentally Funded Faith-Based Prison Units, Lynn S. Branham

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses faith-based prison programs that immerse prisoners living in residential units within a prison in a religious atmosphere. Part One analyzes the constitutionality of these programs under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It notes that state action in the prison context receives more deference from courts than outside the prison context, and that prisoners' constitutional rights are more constricted than free persons" Part I proceeds to analyze the constitutionality of faith immersion programs in prisons, in light of the Supreme Court's precedents dealing with prisoners' rights and the Establishment Clause. States can defend immersion programs on …

Davey And The Limits Of Equality, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

American Conversations With(In) Catholicism, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

CATHOLICISM AND AMERICAN FREEDOM: A HISTORY. By John T. McGreevy. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co. 2003. Pp. 431. $26.95.

John T. McGreevy's Catholicism and American Freedom tells the story of how America or, more particularly, American liberalism has reacted and responded to Catholic claims about the nature and purpose of freedom. It also addresses how these claims were, in turn, shaped by Catholicism's own interactions with, internal conversations about, and adjustment to American liberalism. As McGreevy shows, for many people and for many years, the Roman Catholic Church served as a foil for American values and …

Reflections On Newdow, Gerard V. Bradley, Paul J. Griffiths

Journal Articles

Although saving the Pledge from a declaration of unconstitutionality is an end worth our prayers, I think that O’Connor’s effort to portray it as “ceremonial deism” fails. “Under God” endorses religion, and the Court should address the issue on that basis. If the phrase comports with the Constitution – as I think it does – it is because the Constitution does not prohibit governmental affirmations that “God” – a greater-than-human source of meaning and value – exists.

Quo Vadis: The Continuing Metamorphosis Of The Establishment Clause Toward Realistic Substantive Neutrality, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

For years, the rhetoric of substantive neutrality has dominated interpretation of the Establishment Clause. Under this approach, courts and commentators purport to ask whether a public policy under scrutiny is likely to affect religious choices in an unacceptable way. In fact, so broadly has this approach been taken that both separationists and accommodationists resort to it freely, although with radically differing perceptions as to when policy becomes unacceptable. Arguably, however, adherents to this approach have paid insufficient attention to religious behavior per se. Had they paid sufficient attention to this phenomenon, they would have been forced to acknowledge that little …

The "Blaine" Debate: Must States Fund Religious Schools?, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the United States Supreme Court held-by a vote of 5 to 4-that the funding of religious schools with taxpayer money through voucher programs does not violate the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. Emboldened by this success, voucher proponents now attack state constitutional provisions (often called "Blaine Amendments") that prohibit taxpayer funding of religious schools. These state provisions, which may stand in the way of religious-school voucher programs, are attacked as violative of the federal Constitution, rooted in anti-religious bias, or otherwise illegal or unwise.

It is my view that efforts to force states …

Choice Programs And Market-Based Separationism, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris appears to clear the way for a wide variety of educational and charitable choice plans. In this decision, the Court upheld against Establishment Cause Challenge a formally neutral school choice program that encompassed a wide variety of options in the public and private sector, including private sectarian schools. The Court reasoned that, when the government makes aid available to a broad class of recipients without regard to their religious or non-religious affiliation, and when the recipients have a genuine choice as to whether to obtain that aid from a religious or …