Departments

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First Amendment

  • SOURCE: The Hill
    6/8/2023

    Is Oklahoma's Religious Charter School Good News for Secularists?

    by Jacques Berlinerblau

    Oklahoma recently approved the first publicly-funded religious charter school in the United States. Is it possible that this ambitious move will backfire when schools representing all denominations and faiths demand equal treatment? 

  • SOURCE: The Guardian
    5/24/2023

    Texas GOP's Ten Commandments School Bill Fails

    The Texas House did not have the votes to pass a bill approved by the state senate that would have required the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. 

  • SOURCE: PEN America
    5/2/2023

    Firing of Bakersfield College Prof. Conflates Protected and Unprotected Speech

    Matthew Garrett, a self-proclaimed conservative and tenured professor, was fired for cause by his institution after many cases of controversial speech and some alleged violations of university policy. The university's "kitchen sink" claim against him undermines academic freedom and faculty free speech rights. 

  • SOURCE: The Hill
    3/3/2023

    At its 150th Anniversary, the Comstock Law is Relevant Again

    by Jonathan Friedman and Amy Werbel

    Anthony Comstock drew on elite connections to give himself near unilateral power to confiscate "obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, or immoral" materials —terms he was free to define on his own—and prosecute people for possessing them. Right-wing politicians seem to be inspired by the example. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    1/30/2023

    The Latest SCOTUS Case to Privilege Religion Over Civil Society

    by Linda Greenhouse

    Historically, the Supreme Court has viewed workplace accommodations for religious workers in terms of protecting minority faiths and relieving undue burdens on employers and coworkers. A pending case brought by a Christian postal worker promises to upend that balance. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Globe
    8/1/2022

    The Demise of the Church-State Wall

    by Steven V. Mazie

    A political scientist and court correspondent says that SCOTUS has adopted a radical version of the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment that makes a mockery of the historic separation of religious and political authority. 

  • SOURCE: Vox
    4/2/2022

    A Bizarre War on Protest By Republican Judges

    "If protest leaders can be hauled into court — and potentially forced to pay out of their own pockets — for the actions of a single protest attendee, then no sensible person will organize a protest."

  • SOURCE: Salon
    1/7/2022

    Secularism: The Essential, Fatally Weak Guardrail of Democracy

    by Jacques Berlinerblau

    The framers of the US Constitiution failed to build in the protections against religious belief overpowering the rights of others or the security of the state that Locke and other political theorists thought were urgently necessary. This oversight might imperil democracy.

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    10/14/2021

    The Sleeper SCOTUS Case that Threatens Church-State Separation

    by Kimberly Wehle

    "If the plaintiffs win, states and municipalities could be required to use taxpayer dollars to supplement strands of private religious education that many Americans would find deeply offensive, including schools that exclude non-Christian or LGBTQ students, families, and teachers."