Constitutional Law Archives

“Religious Belief as an Existential Threat: How Russia Victimizes Religious Minorities in Russia and in the Occupied Territories of Ukraine” by Dr. Kyriaki Topidi

Nov 2, 2024Canopy ForumEssays, SeriesChristianity, Constitutional Law, Human Rights / Civil Rights, November 2024, Topidi, Kyriaki

“Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks” by Ilya Repin (CC0) This article is part of our series on Transnational Christian Nationalism, and its impact on politics, the rule of law, and religious freedom. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. Russia counts more than 200 ethnic groups among its more than 140 million…

“Good Vibes Only: The “Aloha Spirit” in Hawaiʻi Constitutional Interpretation” by Aaron Walayat

Oct 24, 2024Canopy ForumEssays“Other”, Constitutional Law, October 2024, Political Philosophy, Walayat, Aaron J.

Image by Talpa from Pixabay In 2017, Christopher Wilson, a resident of Maui, Hawaiʻi, was charged by the state for possession of an unregistered pistol, a violation of state statute. He moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that the statutes unconstitutionally infringed on his right to keep and bear arms under both the Hawaiʻi Constitution…

“What Do Protestants Believe about In Vitro Fertilization? It’s Complicated” by Whittney Barth

Oct 16, 2024Canopy ForumSeriesBarth, Whittney, Christianity, Constitutional Law, Healthcare, October 2024

Trinity Episcopal Church in Fredionia, New York via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) This article is part of our “Religious Perspectives on Assisted Reproduction and Surrogacy” series. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. In February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that, under state law, the loss of embryos during the process…

“Cuba: A Legal Framework that Restricts the Right to Religious Freedom” by Teresa I. Flores

Sep 23, 2024Canopy ForumEssaysConstitutional Law, Flores, Teresa, Latin America (Geography), Religious Freedom, September 2024

Image of Palacio del Centro Asturiano, Havana, Cuba by Carol M. Highsmith (CC0) The following essay is reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal Derecho en Sociedad, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Their issue 18(2) features full length articles in Spanish and English. Read Flores’ long-form essay on the Cuban…

“Why ‘School Choice’ is a Strange Term: Educational Pluralism and International Norms” by Ashley Rogers Berner

Jun 14, 2024Canopy ForumLiterature HighlightsBerner, Ashley, Constitutional Law, Family Law, June 2024, Religious Freedom

Why ‘School Choice’ is a Strange Term: Educational Pluralism and International NormsAshley Rogers Berner The following is an excerpt from Ashley Rogers Berner’s new book, Educational Pluralism and Democracy, Reprinted with permission from Harvard Education Press. The United States needs a new conversation about education. Few areas of American life have experienced more conflict of…

“Seeing like a Church, Seeing like a State: The Church-State Relation in Religious Asylum Adjudications” by Jaeeun Kim

May 23, 2024Canopy ForumEssaysConstitutional Law, Human Rights / Civil Rights, Kim, Jaeeun, May 2024, Politics

Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Bury, England. Photo by Michael Beckwith (CC BY 3.0). Religion is one of the five categories of protection—along with race, nationality, political opinion, and membership in a particular social group—designated by the international and domestic refugee regimes. Migrants who claim a “well-founded fear of persecution” on account…

“A Belated Book Review: Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Rackman, ‘Israel’s Emerging Constitution’ (1954) and Its Continued Relevance” by Michael J. Broyde

Apr 18, 2024Canopy ForumEssaysAsia (Geography), Broyde, Michael J., Constitutional Law, Judaism, Politics

Nuremburg Trials Protocols by David Shay (CC BY 3.0 DEED) Prologue Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Rackman (b. 1910, d. 2008) was a unique figure in the Orthodox Jewish community. Besides his well-known intellectual brilliance, he was involved with nearly every important Orthodox organization in America for many decades and then moved to Israel to be the…

“Religious Charter Schools: A New Horizon for the Establishment Clause and School Choice” by Charles J. Russo

Apr 16, 2024Canopy ForumEssaysConstitutional Law, Education, Family Law, Politics, Russo, Charles J.

Oklahoma City’s Skyline by Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau (CC BY-SA 3.0). The school choice movement spurred on by Milton Friedman’s highly influential 1955 essay, The Role of Government in Education, affords parents greater opportunities to select where their children can be educated. A key component in this movement are charter schools. Charter schools…

“Ghosts of Law and Religion: The Paranormal Fascination and the Bounds of Knowledge and Experience” by M. Christian Green

Nov 10, 2023Canopy ForumEssaysChristianity, Constitutional Law, Green, M. Christian, Media and Culture, November 2023

Photo titled “Ghosts, Spooky” from Pixabay (License). As anyone with cable or streaming television in the United States knows, it’s a scary world out there! Talking to dead people, hunting the forests for bigfoots, searching the skies for UFOs—it’s a big paranormal world that’s become big programming and entertainment. Maybe it’s because I recently stayed…

“Leave Your Conscience at the Court: Religious Tax Protest Before and After RFRA” by Samuel D. Brunson

Oct 31, 2023Canopy ForumSeriesBrunson, Samuel D., Constitutional Law, History, October 2023

Juniata River in Pennsylvania, United States by Chris Liu-Beers on Unsplash. This article is part of our “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at Thirty” series. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. The Society of Friends — popularly known as the Quakers — emerged in England in the wake of the Thirty…