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Twenty-five leading scholars offer thoughtful reflection on the implications for law and religion in the United States of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the economic and racial justice crises, from our current perspectives approximately six months into the crisis.
At every confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice, inevitably, commentators appear advocating 18-year term limits for Supreme Court Justices, under the assumption that regular and scheduled appointments will solve the confirmation battles. This approach is mistaken: while there may be advantages (and disadvantages) to Supreme Court term limits, even if term limits were imposed, we…
Cathedral Basilica of St. James in Brooklyn, NY. Source: Jim Henderson / Wikimedia CC0-1.0 The U.S. government designates certain entities as “religious” and enforces different rules on them than on “secular” entities. The two categories find differential treatment in taxes, employment law, and other domains. Americans call this religious freedom. Certain religious organizations have used…
On October 28, 2017, a post appeared on 4chan, an anonymous online message board, alleging Hillary Clinton’s imminent arrest and a subsequent violent national uprising. The poster, whose username was simply the letter “Q,” claimed to be a high-ranking government intelligence officer with access to classified information. Hillary Clinton was not arrested and no subsequent…
Tax Changes for Religious Organizations and Clergy in a Biden Presidency? Time will tell how much of President-elect Joe Biden’s tax proposal will become law in the next four years. The ease with which the Biden White House can implement its plans depends in part on which political party ends up in control of the…
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced remote instruction, homeschooling was the fastest-growing educational choice in the United States over the past two decades. While many parents have kept their children enrolled in schools for online instruction, it appears that thousands of other families have chosen independent homeschooling this fall instead. These numbers will almost certainly…
Christianity and Private Lawedited by Robert F. Cochran, Jr. andMichael P. Moreland Review by John Witte, Jr. This volume is one of several new introductions to Christianity and Law commissioned by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Each volume is an anthology of some twenty chapters written by leading…
Earlier this year, Harvard Magazine, the university’s alumni publication, interviewed Elizabeth Bartholet, professor at Harvard Law School and faculty director of its Child Advocacy Program, for an article titled “The Risks of Homeschooling.” In the article, Bartholet argued that unregulated homeschooling poses a danger to children, exposing them to risk of educational deprivation and even…
If you’re looking for a convenient signpost to mark the beginning of the homeschooling movement in the U.S. you might choose the publication of the first ever newsletter devoted to the practice, hand-typed and sent out to a few families by the famous education reformer John Holt in August of 1977. One of the major concerns…
When Amy Coney Barrett took the bench November 4 for her third day of oral arguments as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the questions she asked seemed to reveal both her loyalty to her late mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, and her ongoing interest in abortion rights. The case at hand, Fulton v.…
“I’m just not going to do that. I’m one of these secular homeschoolers. I am not going to join a church to homeschool. I don’t feel comfortable going in that space, which is usually predominantly White, to have my son homeschooled because I am not convinced that the experience will be any different from what…