Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Legal Spirits 083: Tradition and the Constitution

Mark welcomes back his friend and former colleague, Professor Marc DeGirolami of the Catholic University of America, for a conversation about Marc’s new book, The Constitution of Practice. Drawing on questions they have discussed and debated for years, Mark and Marc explore the case for constitutional traditionalism, how it differs from originalism, and what the Supreme Court’s turn to “history and tradition” means for the Establishment Clause. Mark presses Marc on some of the harder questions for a traditionalist approach: how to identify the relevant tradition, what to do about bad traditions, and whether in a country as diverse as the United States constitutional law should leave more room for regional and local variation. Listen in!

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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • The Ninth Circuit rejected an effort to remove a nearly century-old cross and longstanding nativity display at the historic El Pueblo monument in Los Angeles. 
  • In a speech to sick people and caregivers, the Pope Leo denounced France’s recent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Catholic Church has continued to push against assisted suicide laws in the U.S. 
  • A federal district court in Oklahoma ruled the state may not single out religious schools for exclusion from public charter funding on the basis of religion.
  • A federal judge in Tennessee dismissed most of the claims against Southern Baptist Convention leaders in a lawsuit filed by a former SBC seminary professor David Sills, who lost his job due to sexual misconduct allegations.
  • The Muslim Center of New Jersey is suing the Marlboro Township, New Jersey zoning board, council, mayor and others, alleging religious discrimination and violations of the community’s right to worship after a five-year application process to build a mosque ended in a denial.
  • The Chicago Immigration Court ruled that the U.S. can deport the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque on the grounds that he is a threat to national security.

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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • A federal judge ruled that Oklahoma cannot exclude a Jewish charter school from the state’s charter school program because of its religious character. 
  • The Eighth Circuit heard arguments over Arkansas’s law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. 
  • An Oregon mother sued a public school district for refusing to reimburse her for Christian homeschooling materials while providing reimbursements for secular materials. 
  • A dispute over access to a Jewish rabbinical court reached the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. 
  • Two Christian student organizations sued Virginia State University, alleging that the public university discriminated against them in access to campus recognition and benefits because of their religious requirements for student leaders. 

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

SMU Law Review Symposium on the Establishment Clause

I’m looking forward to participating in this upcoming online symposium the SMU Law Review will sponsor next month: Religion and Government: The Future of the Establishment Clause. Registration link available in the photo above. Friends of the Mattone Center, sign on and say hello!

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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Lewis v. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, the 9th Circuit upheld a jury’s verdict against the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). The jury found BART failed to show that accommodating employees’ religious objections to the Covid vaccine would have imposed undue hardship on BART. In his concurrence, Judge Nelson took the position that the Supreme Court case Employment Division v. Smith was “demonstrably erroneous” and “is inconsistent with history and tradition.”
  • Last week, Planned Parenthood filed suit in Wisconsin challenging the state’s laws requiring abortions to be performed only by physicians, and not by qualified advance practice clinicians. They are also challenging the state’s 24-hour waiting period after examination and consultation with a physician before an abortion can be performed.
  • The United Kingdom’s passed a new law, the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which requires reporting of child sex abuse. MP Ben Obese-Jecty has made clear that “The Crime and Policing Act 2026 does not provide any exemption from mandatory reporting on the basis of religious practice, or the setting in which information is received.”
  • DOJ announced that it has reached a settlement with Lincoln Memorial University to resolve complaints of discriminatory treatment of Jewish students. As a result of the settlement, “LMU-DCOM will revise its absence policy to allow excused absences for religious reasons on the same basis as non-religious reasons.”
  • A group of Christian doctors in Colorado filed suit last week in federal district court alleging that the state is violating their 1st and 14th Amendment rights by applying to them the Colorado Supreme Court’s interpretation of the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act. They contend, among other things, that the court’s interpretation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act “now forces doctors to medically transition their patients—including children—even when doing so violates their conscience and medical judgment.”
  • A Michigan state appellate court upheld the dismissal on ecclesiastical abstention grounds of defamation, breach of contract, and other related claims filed by an assistant imam against his mosque and its board of trustees.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Tenth Edition of the International Moot Court Competition in Law & Religion Announced

Law students take note! The 10th edition of the International Moot Court Competition in Law & Religion will take place from March 10-13, 2027, at the University of Milan Law School. This competition, which the Mattone Center co-sponsors, brings together teams from the US and Europe to argue a case before judges representing the US Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. It’s a fantastic opportunity. Please check the website for the announcement and upcoming posting of this year’s case: https://sites.google.com/view/imcclr/home?pli=1&authuser=0.

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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in urging the Supreme Court to reject a broad application of the “finality” rule that subjects religious liberty plaintiffs to drawn-out proceedings.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by a Catholic mother seeking a religious exemption from New York’s school vaccine mandates.
  • A federal district court in Maryland temporarily barred Montgomery County from enforcing a gun ban against a Jewish synagogue, holding that the synagogue was likely to succeed on its Second Amendment and Free Exercise claims, and that the county had not shown a sufficient historical tradition of banning guns in houses of worship.
  • A federal district court in Oregon dismissed negligence claims against the LDS Church, holding that church membership alone did not create a special relationship imposing a duty to protect a member from abuse occurring outside church supervision.
  • A federal district court in Maine upheld the state’s school vaccine mandate against Free Exercise and Establishment Clause challenges, holding that eliminating all personal belief exemptions did not single out religion and that the mandate does not burden the parents’ right to direct their child’s religious upbringing.
  • The Indiana Supreme Court heard arguments whether the state’s abortion ban violates the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, with plaintiffs arguing that the law burdens sincerely held religious beliefs that require religiously motivated abortions.
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Legal Spirits 082: A Short Take on a Tomb in Sicily and a Never-Ending Contest

The Tomb of Frederick II in Palermo Cathedral

In this Legal Spirits Short Take, Center Director Mark Movsesian reflects on his recent visit to Sicily and the 13th-century tomb of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, and the famous Stupor Mundi—the “Wonder of the World”—in Palermo Cathedral. Medieval Sicily was a major theater in the long struggle between popes and secular rulers over the boundaries of spiritual and temporal power, a struggle that included disputes over the appointment and authority of bishops. Frederick was deeply involved in that conflict. His burial in the cathedral, after years of bitter conflict with the papacy and repeated excommunications, offers a reminder of the ambiguous line between church and state—and of a contest that never wholly ends. Listen in!

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Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Mattone Center Fellows for 2026-2027

L-R: Kaliabakos, Derrickson, Lane, and D’Avanzo

Delighted to announce our Mattone Center Student Fellows for 2026-2027: Vincent D’Avanzo ’27, Marc Derrickson ’28, Anastasia Kaliabakos ’27, and Isabel Lane ’27. Fellows help produce the Forum and the Legal Spirits podcast series and assist generally with Center activities. For more about this year’s team, please see our People page.

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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • Florida officials and Catholic schools are at odds over whether schools participating in state scholarship programs must provide religious exemptions from vaccination requirements.
  • Several Catholic religious orders and the Archbishop of Chicago filed a federal lawsuit challenging Illinois requirements that healthcare providers inform and counsel terminally ill patients about physician-assisted suicide, arguing that the requirements violate their religious freedom.
  • Maine’s highest court upheld a ruling allowing a father to prevent his daughter from attending her mother’s church after finding that participation there was psychologically harmful to the child, rejecting the mother’s constitutional claims.
  • A federal bankruptcy court allowed a Jewish religious nonprofit’s lawsuit against the City of Hollywood, Florida, to proceed after the city denied zoning approval for a proposed K-12 Jewish day school, with the nonprofit alleging violations of its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
  • A South Korean court sentenced Unification Church leader Hak Ja Han to two years in prison after convicting her of bribery, violating political finance laws, and embezzling church funds.
  • InterVarsity Christian Fellowship sued SUNY Broome Community College after the school denied the group official recognition because its constitution requires student leaders to affirm a statement of faith, which the college says conflicts with its nondiscrimination policy.
  • Catholic leaders in Maharashtra are considering a legal challenge to a new state law regulating religious conversions, which requires advance notice of conversions and has drawn broader constitutional challenges over religious freedom.