Thomas Jefferson and The Establishment Clause

Perhaps no other founder has influenced our understanding of the meaning of the Establishment Clause more than Thomas Jefferson. His name is frequently invoked when scholars or the Supreme Court attempt to discover the original intent of that crucially important provision of the Bill of Rights

Thomas Jefferson and the Establishment Clause

The purpose of this paper is to ask whether the historical record actually supports either of these assumptions. A note about my mode of analysis is necessary at this juncture. When inquiring about Jefferson’s influence on the Establishment Clause, it is important to focus on the entire process by which it was adopted rather than its mere introduction by Madison in the House of Representatives. Its adoption, after all, required the assent of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress, three-fourths of the state legislatures, and the support of a majority of the American public. Without the requisite support of all three groups the Establishment Clause would never have become part of the Constitution. To argue that Jefferson’s views regarding original intent ought to be accepted as definitive, as members of the Court have done, is implicitly to argue that his views were known to, and supported by, all three groups...Thus, throughout this paper I will write in terms of the adoption process rather than merely the drafting process, thereby reminding myself and the readers that we are considering the influence of Jefferson on this wider group

Experiences of University Life for Students with Asperger’s Syndrome: a comparative study between Spain and England

Research has consistently shown that young people with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) are likely to experience increased anxiety during new social situations; yet, studies have been regionally and culturally bound. The aim of this study was to explore how higher education students with AS experienced attending university in two European countries: the UK and Spain. The objective was to find out if experiences differed between the two countries in relation to contrasting support arrangements and what kinds of interventions might aid students’ social well-being at university, an important learning outcome for future practice. This small-scale comparative exploratory study incorporated life-history interviews with nine students with AS. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Four superordinate themes significant to both groups of students in Spain and the UK emerged from the data: social relationships, ‘special interests’, ‘environment’ and ‘support mechanisms’. Students with AS need and want clear, unambiguous and structured information from academics; support to get to know others in ‘small special interest groups’; more designated ‘quiet zones’ across campuses; and above all, a move away from ableist notions of AS. To our knowledge, this is the only Spanish–UK comparative study of university students with AS