First Amendment Commons^™

Standing, Spending, And Separation: How The No-Establishment Rule Does (And Does Not) Protect Conscience, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

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 …

Privatizing And Publicizing Speech, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When and how should governments be permitted to use private-law mechanisms to manage their public-law obligations? This short piece poses that question in the context of Summum, which the Supreme Court decided earlier this year, and Buono, which it will hear in the fall. In both cases, the government manipulated formal property rules in order to fend off constitutional challenges. In Summum, the government took ownership of a religious symbol in the face of a free speech challenge, while in Buono it shed ownership of land containing another sectarian symbol in an effort to moot an Establishment Clause problem. Although …

Eclecticism, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This short piece comments on Kent Greenawalt's new book, Religion and the Constitution: Establishment and Fairness. It argues that although Greenawalt's eclectic approach carries certain obvious costs, his theory cannot be evaluated without comparing its advantages and disadvantages to those of its competitors. It concludes by giving some sense of what that comparative calculus might look like.

Excluding Religion, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article considers whether government may single out religious actors and entities for exclusion from its support programs. The problem of selective exclusion has recently sparked interest in lower courts and in informal discussions among scholars, but the literature has not kept pace. Excluding Religion argues that government generally ought to be able to select religious actors and entities for omission from support without offending the Constitution. At the same time, the Article carefully circumscribes that power by delineating several limits. It concludes by drawing out some implications for the question of whether and how a constitutional democracy ought to …

Changing The Rules Of Establishment Clause Litigation: An Alternative To The Public Expression Of Religion Act, Christopher D. Tomlinson

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU") threatened to sue the city of Redlands, California, if it did not remove a small cross from its city seal.' The cross represented the city's religious heritage and its history as a city of churches. Instead of facing the possibility of litigation and the more daunting risk of losing in court and being forced to pay the ACLU's attorneys' fees in addition to its own, the Redlands City Council agreed to change the seal. The City of Redlands not only could ill afford the risk of paying the ACLU's attorneys' fees; it …

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 …

Indeterminacy And The Establishment Clause, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

Prepared for a symposium on Kent Greenawalt, 2 Religion and the Constitution: Establishment and Fairness (Princeton, 2008), this essay responds to Professor Greenawalt's criticism of my argument in The Rhetoric of Church and State (Duke, 1995), that Establishment Clause doctrine is the incoherent residue of conflicting rhetorical discourses of religious communitarianism and secular individualism. Not only are the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause decisions inconsistent at the margins, but there is no identifiable core meaning that can account for these decisions. The essay concludes that, contra Greenawalt, the thesis of conflicting rhetorical discourses remains the most powerful explanation of the Court's …

When Accommodations For Religion Violate The Establishment Clause: Regularizing The Supreme Court's Analysis, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

This article sets forth five rules with respect to what government may do to accommodate religious practice and five rules with respect to what government may not do. As it turns out the Supreme Court has said that most religious accommodations are left to the broad discretion of legislators and public officials. So long as the object of the accommodation is to protect or expand religious freedom, as distinct from expanding religion, the accommodation will be permitted.

Reconciling The Irreconcilable: Military Chaplains And The First Amendment, Steven K. Green

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Establishment Clause And Religious Expression In Government Settings: Four Variables In Search Of A Standard, Daniel O. Conkle

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Establishment Clause Limits On Free Exercise Accommodations, Kent Greenawalt

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Accommodations For Religion Violoate The Establishment Clause: Regularizing The Supreme Court's Analysis, Carl H. Esbeck

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Exemptions And The Common Good: A Reply To Professor Carmella, Laura S. Underkuffler

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Responsible Freedom Under The Religion Clauses: Exemptions, Legal Pluralism, And The Common Good, Angela C. Carmella

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Uncivil Religion: Judeo-Christianity And The Ten Commandments, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Roger Hendrix

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Subsidiary And Religious Establishments In The United States Constitution, Kyle Duncan

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Uncivil Religion: Judeo-Christianity And The Ten Commandments, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Roger Hendrix

Faculty Scholarship

In the recent Decalogue Cases, Justice Scalia argued that when it comes to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits th[e] disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists. Justice Scalia's argument represents the latest attempt to insulate American civil religion from Establishment Clause attack. A civil religion is a set of nondenominational values, symbols, rituals, and assumptions which create both reverence of national history and formation of a communal national bond.

The most recent incarnation of American civil …

Religion And Group Rights: Are Churches (Just) Like The Boy Scouts?, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

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 Court's Purpose: Secular Or Anti-Strife?, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Context Is King: A Perception-Based Test For Evaluating Government Displays Of The Ten Commandments, Nathan P. Heller

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Prayer Or Prison: The Unconstitutionality Of Mandatory Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment, Christopher M. Meissner

Cleveland State Law Review

Whether faith-based substance abuse treatments are effective is certainly a valid question in its rightful place, but it is not the inquiry pursued here. Rather, this Note argues that a drug court's act of assigning unwilling offenders to twelve-step or otherwise religiously-based residential treatment centers violates the Establishment Clause guarantee. Specifically, such centers regulate the offenders' beliefs and compel them to affirm whatever tenets are professed at the individual treatment center. Moreover, a court's subsequent act of threatening or actually imposing criminal sanctions upon offenders for refusing to complete such treatment programs constitutes punishment for refusing to be religiously indoctrinated …

Putting Religious Symbolism In Context: A Linguistic Critique Of The Endorsement Test, B. Jessie Hill

Michigan Law Review

The treatment of Establishment Clause challenges to displays of religious symbolism by the Supreme Court and the lower courts is notoriously unpredictable: a crèche is constitutionally acceptable if it is accompanied by a Santa Claus house and reindeer, a Christmas tree, and various circus figures, but unacceptable if it is accompanied by poinsettias, a "peace tree," or a wreath, a tree, and a plastic Santa Claus. A menorah may be displayed next to a Christmas tree, or next to Kwanzaa symbols, Santa Claus, and Frosty the Snowman, but not next to a crèche and a Christmas tree. A number of …

Unincorporated, Unprotected: Religion In An Established State, Kathryn E. Komp

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the summer of 2004, the group American Veterans Standing for God and Country ("American Veterans") began a cross-country pilgrimage to carry a 5,200-pound statue of the Ten Commandments to Washington D.C. The infamous statue cost Roy Moore his job as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court when he refused to remove it from the lobby of the state courthouse in 2002. American Veterans took up Moore's cause, however, and in October they brought the Commandments statue to a Christian rally in Washington, D.C. The group then planned to ask Congress to display the statue permanently in the Capitol …

The Pluralistic Foundations Of The Religion Clauses, Steven H. Shiffrin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Contemporary Supreme Court interpretations suggest that the religion clauses are primarily rooted in the value of equality. The United States Supreme Court has argued that in the absence of discrimination against religion (or the presence of other constitutional values), there is no violation of the Free Exercise Clause when a statute inadvertently burdens religion. Similarly, equality values have played a strong role in the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Many distinguished commentators have pointed to the equality focus and have argued that it gives insufficient attention to the value of religious liberty. Professor Shiffrin argues that these commentators are right in …

Lost In The Forest Of The Establishment Clause: Elk Grove V. Newdow, Todd Collins

Campbell Law Review

This article provides and in-depth examination of the Newdow case and High Court's opinion.

Freethought Society V. Chester County And The Ten Commandments Debate: The Buck Stops Here For Establishment Clause Challenges To Religious Public Displays In The Third Circuit, Lauren A. Cates

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

God, Jesus, Allah And Yahweh Should Be Government Employees: How Zelman V. Simmons-Harris Can Establish A Constitutional Framework For Government Funding Of Faith-Based Services, Craig A. Newell Jr.

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Religious Expression, Government Funds, And The First Amendment, Suart J. Lark

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Liberalism And The Establishment Clause, Steven H. Shiffrin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Every political theory tolerates some things and not others. Every political theory promotes a particular kind of person even if it denies it is doing so. But the best liberalism does not confine itself to promoting a Rawlsian-tolerant citizen. Liberalism, like conservatism, has greater ambitions in the socialization of the young. The best liberalism, a neo-Millian liberalism, promotes a creative, independent, autonomous, engaged citizen and human being who works with others to make for a better society and speaks out against unjust customs, habits, institutions, traditions, hierarchies, and authorities.

Although government may promote a particular conception of the good life, …

The First Amendment And The Socialization Of Children: Compulsory Public Education And Vouchers, Steven H. Shiffrin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Criticism of American public schools has been a cottage industry since the Nineteenth Century. In recent years the criticism has gone to the roots. Critics charge that to leave children imprisoned in the public school monopoly is to risk the standardization of our children; it is to socialize them in the preferred views of the State. They argue that it would be better to adopt a system of vouchers or private scholarships to support a multiplicity of private schools. A multiplicity of such schools, it is said, would enhance parental choice, would foster competition, and would promote a diversity of …