The Supreme Court today is vigorously debating the scope of religious exemptions. Under the Constitution, are religious individuals and organizations excused from following generally applicable laws? On the heels of the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021) decision, join legal experts Douglas Laycock, author of the five-volume series The Collected Works on Religious Liberty; Vincent Phillip Muñoz, author of God and the Founders; and Kathleen Brady, author of The Distinctiveness of Religion in American Law, for a conversation exploring the historical and current debates about religious exemptions. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.
This program is presented in partnership with the University of Notre Dame's Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government.
Participants
Douglas Laycock is the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law, Class of 1963 Research Professor in honor of Graham C. Lilly and Peter W. Low, and professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia School of Law. He co-edited a collection of essays, Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty and his many writings on religious liberty have been republished in a five-volume collection, The Collected Works on Religious Liberty.
Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame where he also serves as the faculty director of undergraduate minor in Constitutional Studies. He won a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to support his forthcoming book on the natural right of religious liberty and the original meanings of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses, which is scheduled to be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2022.
Kathleen Brady is a senior fellow and McDonald Distinguished Fellow with the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Her book The Distinctiveness of Religion in American Law: Rethinking Religion Clause Jurisprudence was the recipient of a book award from the Catholic Press Association in 2016. She has also held faculty appointments at Villanova University and University of Richmond School of Law.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Vincent Phillip Muñoz, God and the Founders: Madison, Jefferson, and Washington
- Kathleen Brady, The Distinctiveness of Religion in American Law: Rethinking Religion Clause Jurisprudence
- Douglas Laycock, Notre Dame Law Review, “Regulatory Exemptions of Religious Behavior and the Original Understanding of the Establishment Clause”
- James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance (1785)
- George Washington, Letter to the Society of Quakers (1789)
- Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018)
- Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021)
- Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990)
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