Rights and the Religion Clauses

Article published in the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

Intelligent Design in Public University Science Departments: Academic Freedom or Establishment of Religion

Article published in the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Struggling with Text and Context: A Hermeneutic Approach to Interpreting and Realizing Law School Missions

Article published in the St. John's Law Review

Religious Objects as Legal Subjects

Article published in the Wake Forest Law Review

Playing the Proof Game: Intelligent Design and the Law

Intelligent design advocates argue that excluding intelligent design from educational and scientific environments discriminates in favor of methodological naturalism and against other approaches for understanding natural phenomena. These arguments are flawed both legally and philosophically. In order to succeed ID advocates need to demonstrate that ID is science and that public school classes and scientific institutions are public fora for speech. Legal scholarship has generally ignored the most relevant arguments from philosophy of science and the relationship of those arguments to constitutional concepts. This article demonstrates that even when ID is given the benefit of the best scientific, philosophical, and legal arguments it is unequipped to take advantage. This is because, in part, ID is a response to several important cases decided under the Establishment Clause, and the form the ID movement has taken reflects a plan to avoid the legal defeats that creationism and creation science faced. Intelligent design is essentially a marketing plan to claim credibility in public discourse and to avoid conflict with inconvenient court decisions. At least as to the latter goal ID advocates are likely to fail

A Basic Introduction to Constitutional Free Exercise of Religion in the United States and Japan

Article published in the Contemp. Readings Law & Soc. Just.

Be Careful What You Wish for: Why Hobby Lobby Weakens Religious Freedom

The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which brought for-profit corporations under the protection of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, has been the subject of widespread support and criticism. Some have lauded the Hobby Lobby decision as an important step in protecting religious freedom. Others have derided it as an affront to the civil rights of corporate employees. This Article suggests a third perspective, namely, that Hobby Lobby harms, rather than helps, religious freedom. Both legally and politically, Hobby Lobby is likely to lead to a reduction in protection for religious individuals and entities that have traditionally been included under the Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This is particularly troubling because the Hobby Lobby decision is legally flawed. The Article takes seriously the reality that many religious people do not experience religion as a divisible phenomenon that they can separate from the rest of their lives. Sometimes this requires exemptions to generally applicable laws if there is a legal mechanism for doing so, but cases involving large, for-profit entities like Hobby Lobby raise additional concerns. In these cases, religious individuals seek exemptions in the name of the company, which imposes the owners’ religious tenets on corporate employees. This creates a confrontation between “lived religion” and the legal or civil rights of others. Over time, as courts create precedent in cases involving for-profit entities, the rights of religious individuals and religious entities will likely be weakened. Moreover, the legislative, legal, and public response to Hobby Lobby does not bode well for religious accommodation claims in the long run, and, sadly, will have a negative impact on accommodation claims brought by religious individuals and entities

Law, Religion and Science - Determining the Role Religion Plays in Shaping Scientific Inquiry in Constitutional Democracies - The Case of Intelligent Design

Article published in the Contemp. Readings Law & Soc. Just.