Photo by Xavier Coiffic on Unsplash. Religion clause jurisprudence is one of the more convoluted areas of constitutional law. The Supreme Court has articulated at least six different standards in recent years for determining whether a state has violated the First Amendment’s prohibition against “establishment of religion.” The Court’s approach to free exercise cases is…
Photo by Rachel Moore on Unsplash. What does it mean to call a law generally applicable? The question is timely because of a confluence between the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia and ongoing litigation over COVID-19 prevention measures, especially vaccination mandates. In Fulton, the Court gestured toward two…
Photo by Mikael Kristenson on Unsplash. This is Part II of Laura Ford’s essay on Social Identity Pietism and the First Amendment Balance. The First Amendment Balance & Social Peace In a careful historical study of American cultural and jurisprudential developments relating to First Amendment religious freedom, Philip Hamburger has persuasively argued that the U.S.…
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash. Introduction The coronavirus pandemic has robbed us all of something. My brother works for the state of Texas, and he still hasn’t returned to his office, having been away for more than a year. My elderly parents caught the virus early this year. Even after recovering, they have…
Photo by Pedro Lima on Unsplash. In a recently issued report, the RAND Corporation highlighted a dimension of the impact that the government response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had on trust. It noted that trust in the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined significantly between May and…
Photo by Prisilla Du Preez on Unsplash. Identifying proper boundaries for religious liberty in American public life continues to be a hot-button issue. Stories of friction between religious groups and other members of society have pervaded the headlines, and such conflicts aren’t going away anytime soon. Over the last few years, the Supreme Court has…
Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Religious Corporations and the Law” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. What is a religious corporation? After a number of high profile U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the past decade, this question has assumed great significance as…
Photo by Chuttersnap on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Religious Corporations and the Law” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. In academic and legal debates, we frequently hear that the tradition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) supports religious exemptions for business corporations. As Justice Alito wrote in…
Photo by little plant on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Law and Religion Under Pressure: A One-Year Pandemic Retrospective” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. I The COVID-19 pandemic recently passed the one-year mark. Despite the predictions of some health officials a year ago, the once-impossible has…
Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash. This article is part of our “Law and Religion Under Pressure: A One-Year Pandemic Retrospective” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. In Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020), the U.S. Supreme Court held that New York’s religious-attendance restrictions “would lead to irreparable…