Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists

I am delighted to participate in a panel at the annual conference of the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists which will be convened over the next few days. I’ll be responding to Professor Frank Beckwith’s fine lecture on the legacy of Dignitatis Humanae, the important (and still controversial) Vatican II Declaration of 1965 concerning religious freedom. I’m honored (and just a bit daunted) to be responding just after Professor J. Budziszewski, whose scholarly contributions to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas have been a great help to me over the years. See, for example, his indispensable Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Law and his Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Virtue Ethics.

I’m particularly excited to be part of this gathering because, by design, it combines scholarly and artistic/literary reflection on the many contributions of Catholicism. I have a new project, just now beginning to take shape (and about which more soon!) that, I hope, will reflect this union of interests and aims in its own way.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

What Binds Us?

In 1973, the distinguished political theorist, Wilson Carey McWilliams, first published perhaps his best-known work, The Idea of Fraternity in America. The book might be broadly placed within what was then the growing family of communitarian accounts of American culture. It distinguished two strains of thought and feeling in the United States, the religious and the liberal. The religious was represented in such literary figures as Hawthorne, Melville, Henry Adams, and James Baldwin, while the liberal had its literary spokesmen in the likes of Emerson and Whitman (to complement its political spokesmen in Madison and Hamilton). The project of The Idea of Fraternity was to investigate these two traditions of thought, but especially the first, the tradition that emphasizes affection, fellow-feeling (I’ve often thought that Charles Dickens, though of course not American, makes this a central theme of his novels), duty to others, and brotherhood. To oversimplify a great deal, McWilliams’ view was that liberty and equality were having their way in his time, while the tradition of fraternity was eroding, as the common civic American culture–the bonds of affection (as Lincoln put it)–steadily diminished. This latter tradition, McWilliams called “America’s Second Voice,” and in his view it was vital to sustain the American project.

McWilliams’ ideas are visible and vital today in many places. His broader train of thought can be seen as something of a precursor to the flowering of so-called post-liberalism today, as in, for example, the work of his student and Center collaborator and friend, Patrick Deneen. But it also appears in more mundane and less expected areas. One of the first concepts we begin with in Tort law is “duty.” What do we owe to each other, and what in turn binds us as a political and legal community? It is an urgent question and instructive also that many of the most prominent tort scholars in the 20th century deemphasized or even attempted to eliminate duty as a feature of the law.

This year, on the 50th anniversary of the original publication of the book, The University of Notre Dame Press publishes a new edition of The Idea of Fraternity in America. I am looking forward to investing some time with it. Here is the description.

The United States is currently experiencing a crisis of citizenship and democracy. For many of us, there is a sense of forlornness caused by losing sight of human connectedness and the bonds of community. Originally published in 1973, and long out of print, The Idea of Fraternity in America is a resonant call to reclaim and restore the communal bonds of democracy by one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century, Wilson Carey McWilliams.

This sprawling and majestic book offers a comprehensive and original interpretation of the whole range of American historical and political thought, from seventeenth-century White Puritanism to twentieth-century Black American political thought. In one sense, it is a long and sustained reflection on the American political tradition, with side glances at other cultures and other traditions; in another sense, it is an impressive beginning to an original and comprehensive theory of politics, rooted in a new reading of a vast array of relevant sources. Speaking with a prescience unmatched by his contemporaries, McWilliams argues that in order to address the malaise of our modern democracy we must return to an ideal of our past: fraternity, a relation of affection founded on shared values and goals. This 50th anniversary edition, which offers a critique of the liberal tradition and a new social philosophy for the future, contains a new introduction from McWilliams’s daughter, Susan McWilliams Barndt. She writes, “At a time when many Americans are wondering how we got to where we are today . . . this book demonstrates that there is in fact a lot of precedent for what feels so unprecedented in contemporary American politics.”

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Legal Spirits Episode 047: “Christianity and Constitutionalism”

For our first podcast of 2023, we are delighted to welcome Professor Nicholas Aroney of the University of Queensland Law School, a distinguished constitutional law scholar who has co-edited (with Professor Ian Leigh) a new book just published by Oxford University Press: Christianity and Constitutionalism. Marc and Mark interview him about the book’s themes, scope, and arguments, including questions about the overarching relationship of Christianity and law, and about growing scholarly interest in the connection between law and theology (in Australia and elsewhere!). Listen in!

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Around the Web

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

  • In Groff v. DeJoy, the United States Supreme Court will review a Christian mail carrier’s lawsuit alleging the United States Postal Service did not accommodate his religious objection request to delivering packages on Sundays. The Third Circuit held in October 2022 that Groff’s accommodation would cause undue hardship to USPS. 
  • In Hunter v. U.S. Dept. of Education, an Oregon federal district court dismissed a class-action suit by more than forty students who claimed that the Department of Education failed to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination at religious schools. The court wrote that exempting religious schools from Title IX to avoid interfering with their convictions is “substantially related to the government’s objective of accommodating religious exercise.”
  • In Hammons v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp., a Maryland federal district held that a hospital’s refusal to perform a procedure to treat the plaintiff’s gender dysphoria was sex discrimination in violation of the Affordable Care Act’s discrimination ban. The University of Maryland-owned hospital was originally a Catholic hospital, and its purchase required the University to abide by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services promulgated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
  • In Planned Parenthood South Atlantic v. State of South Carolina, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that the state’s Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act violates a woman’s right to privacy protected by the South Carolina Constitution. The opinion stated that “[the] Act, which severely limits—and in many instances completely forecloses—abortion, is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman’s right to privacy and is therefore unconstitutional.”
  • The Hamtramck, Michigan City Council amended the city’s Animal Ordinance to permit animal sacrifices on residential property subject to certain permits and guidelines. Hamtramck has a large Muslim population, and animal sacrifice is a traditional component of Eid al-Adha.
  • Per a French court order, the town of La Flotte, France, must remove a statue of the Virgin Mary that stands at a crossroads in the small municipality. Citing a 1905 French law that forbids all religious monuments in public spaces, the court noted that, while town officials had not intended any expression of religious support, “the Virgin Mary is an important figure in Christian religion,” which gives the statue “an inherently religious character.”
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Nonverts

This new book from Oxford University Press on the rise of the religiously unaffiliated is getting some attention: Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by sociologist Stephen Bullivant (St. Mary’s University, London and University of Notre Dame, Sydney). I just received my copy in the mail and am looking forward to reading it. The rise of the religiously unaffiliated has implications for American culture generally and for free exercise law in particular. Understanding the phenomenon is essential. Here’s the publisher’s description:

The United States is in the midst of a religious revolution. Or, perhaps it is better to say a non-religious revolution. Around a quarter of US adults now say they have no religion. The great majority of these religious “nones” also say that they used to belong to a religion but no longer do. These are the nonverts: think “converts,” but from having religion to having none. There are currently has about 59 million of them in the United States.

Nonverts explores who they are, and why they joined the rising tide of the ex-religious. One of world’s leading experts on contemporary atheism and nonreligiosity, sociologist and theologian Stephen Bullivant draws on dozens of interviews, original analysis of high-quality survey data, and a wealth of cutting-edge studies, to present an entertaining and insightful exploration of America’s ex-religious landscape. Bullivant criss-crosses the country, talking to everyone from ex-Mormons in Utah to ex-Catholics in Pennsylvania, from ex-Evangelicals in Georgia to ex-Muslims in California, showing not only what they have in common but also how the traditions they left behind continue to shape them.

While American religion is not going to die out any time soon, ex-Christian America is a growing presence in national life. America’s religious revolution is not just a religious revolution–it is catalyzing a profound social, cultural, moral, and political impact. Nonverts will serve as an indispensable guide to this shifting landscape, as well as the future of American life.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

“Public-Private Drift”

Here’s a new paper of mine, Public-Private Drift, examining the growing proclivity to blend public law and private law in order to mold behavior and coerce it into certain ideological grooves. The paper explores the phenomenon in a variety of contexts today. Here is the abstract:

The public law/private law divide is back. Scholars with a broad range of theoretical commitments are attempting to rediscover or reestablish the division. This paper approaches the public-private law problem by describing what it calls “drift.” Drift is the tendency of what is thought traditionally to be private law to become public (public drift), and the tendency of what is thought traditionally to be public law to become private (private drift). Though it is possible to distinguish public and private drift conceptually, drift is in practice a unified phenomenon: public and private drift go together. Drift is manifested not only in formal, legal developments, but also in the informal processes by which public law frameworks now influence private ordering, private rulemaking, and private relationships, as well as the way private authorities have been entrusted with the responsibility to implement those public law frameworks.

This paper’s perspective on the public-private debate is explanatory. It accepts that many people perceive or believe American law to be in some sense divided into public and private domains, without endorsing that perception or belief. It does so in order better to describe the coming of drift. Even if one were skeptical about the conceptual purity of public and private law, one might nevertheless believe that what is public and private is a question of more and less, of greater and lesser degrees, and that there can be periods of relative stability in these categories and relative disruption. The paper describes various contemporary examples of drift, explains drift’s comparative ascendancy today, and speculates about possible future developments for drift.

The upshot is that drift in public and private law may not be driven primarily by anything innate or conceptually necessary in the disciplines believed to constitute private or public law. Drift is instead a political byproduct, the issue of social and cultural anxieties concerning the absence of anything like a common political project. The paper deliberately selects examples of drift that exhibit what would be conventionally described as conservative and progressive valences (in the meteoric rise of public nuisance, in the strategy of statutes like Texas’ S.B. 8, in the mixed public-private response to COVID-19, in the controversies about social media speech control, and others) to illustrate the universality of the phenomenon. Drift is a response to a perceived political void or emptiness in which public-private partnerships of powerful actors emerge to fill the void, capture the institutions of power, and coerce people’s behavior into certain ideological grooves. Drift is, in sum, a reaction to social fragmentation that ironically and unhappily exacerbates the pathologies that provoke it in the first place.

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Around the Web

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

  • In Adams v. School Board of St. John’s County, Florida, the Eleventh Circuit held that separating the use of male and female bathrooms in public schools based on students’ biological sex does not violate either the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX. 
  • In Spivack v. City of Philadelphia, a Pennsylvania federal district court held that Philadelphia’s District Attorney Lawrence Krasner did not violate the religious rights of an Orthodox Jewish Assistant District Attorney when he refused to grant her an exemption from the Office’s COVID vaccine mandate. The final mandate offered no religious exemptions and only limited medical exemptions. 
  • In Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart, Inc. v. City of Madison, Wisconsin, a Wisconsin federal district court rejected RLUIPA, free speech, and other challenges by a Catholic high school to the city’s denial of a permit for outdoor lighting at its athletic fields. The surrounding residential neighborhood association objected to the proposal. 
  • In Markel v. Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, a California federal district court held that the “ministerial exception” doctrine bars claims rooted in the California Labor Code brought against a synagogue organization by a mashgiach formerly employed by it. The court found that the Orthodox Union meets the requirements for a religious organization and that the mashgiach, whose responsibilities involve supervising and inspecting the preparation of kosher food, should be categorized as a “minister.” 
  • In In re Moscatelli v. New York City Police Department, a New York trial court annulled an administrative determination that denied a New York City Detective a religious exemption from the city’s COVID vaccine mandate. The court held that the administrative determination was arbitrary and capricious, saying that “the NYPD EEOD’s determination is a prime example of a determination that sets forth only the most perfunctory discussion of reasons for administrative action.” 
  • On December 23, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed New York Senate Bill 7313A which would have required courts, in imposing alcohol or substance abuse treatment on a defendant, to inquire if the defendant has religious objections to the program, and if the defendant does, to identify an alternative nonreligious treatment program for the defendant. 
  • In two recent Chamber Judgments, the European Court of Human Rights reaffirmed its prior holding in a 2021 case that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose adherents are known as Pastafarians, does not qualify as a “religion” or “belief” protected by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In Sager v. Austria, Austria’s Office for Religious Affairs refused to recognize the Church as a religious community. In ALM v. Austria, Austrian authorities refused to issue the petitioner an identity card with a photograph showing him wearing a crown made of pasta. 
Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami · 3 Comments

Syllabus for my course on Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Inquiry

Still a work in progress, but this is the rough plan for a new seminar I’m teaching this spring at Princeton on the subject, as part of the Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

One focus for the course concerns the connection between free inquiry and knowledge–what knowledge’s value is, how it is gained, and how it is produced. More broadly, I’d like to explore in this course the goods that freedom of speech and inquiry are for, to borrow a line from John Garvey.

Suggestions most welcome. 

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Department of Politics

POL 494: Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Inquiry

Instructor. Marc O. DeGirolami

Description. American law vigorously protects free speech. Free speech lies at the core of our politics and culture. But many argue for greater government regulation of speech, particularly for “hate speech” and other speech deemed “offensive.” Social media and speech at universities present additional challenges, some of which have involved Princeton itself. And what about “cancel culture” and other social controls on speech? Are these healthy limits or stifling constraints? This course explores the historic and philosophical justifications for protecting speech, focusing on the freedom of inquiry—the freedom to ask questions in pursuit of knowledge and truth. It also introduces students to the constitutional law of free speech. It asks students to think about speech’s value in historical perspective and today.

The course is sponsored by the James Madison Program’s Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression, and by a grant from the Stanton Foundation.

Freedom of Thought, Expression, and Discussion. As set forth in Rights, Rules, Responsibilities section 1.1.3, Princeton University strictly respects the right to free speech of everyone in our community of scholars and learners. That right is sacrosanct in this class and is possessed by faculty and students alike. With the aim of advancing and deepening everyone’s understanding of the issues addressed in the course, students are urged to speak their minds, explore ideas and arguments, play devil’s advocate, and engage in civil but robust discussions. There is no thought or language policing. We expect students to do business in the proper currency of intellectual discourse—a currency consisting of reasons, evidence, and arguments—but no ideas or positions are out of bounds.

Readings. All readings are posted to the Canvas page with the following exceptions. Please purchase a copy of the following:

  • John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Dover Thrift Edition 2002)
  • Keith Whittington, Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (2018)

Grading. The grading breakdown for the course is as follows: mid-term paper 30%; final paper 50%; class participation 20%.

Late Penalty. Due dates are strictly enforced. Papers received with a time stamp after 5 pm but before midnight on the date on which they are due will be penalized a half letter grade. Papers will be penalized another half letter grade if they are received by 5 pm the subsequent day and another half letter grade the day after that.

SCHEDULE OF COURSE MEETINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Assignments are tentative and subject to revision as the course proceeds

Week 1, Thursday, February 2: Introduction to the Course, the Constitution of the United States, and the First Amendment Freedoms

Syllabus

U.S. Constitution (all)

Geoffrey Stone, “The Story of the Sedition Act of 1798: ‘The Reign of Witches,’” in First Amendment Stories (Garnett & Koppelman, eds. 2012)

Jud Campbell, “Natural Rights and the First Amendment,” Yale Law Journal (2017) (Introduction, Part II, Part III, Part IV)

THEORY

Week 2, Thursday, February 9: English Antecedents and American Foundations

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part II, Chapter XXIX (“Of those things that weaken or tend to the dissolution of a Commonwealth”) (1651)

John Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)

James Madison,

Federalist 10 (1787)

Federalist 51 (1788)

Report on the Virginia Resolutions (1799-1800)

Judith N. Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear,” in Judith Shklar, Political Thought and Political Thinkers (Hoffman, ed. 1998)

Week 3, Thursday, February 16: Classic Justifications and Critiques

Abrams v. United States (1919) (majority and dissent of Holmes, J.)

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapters 1, 2, 3 (1859)

James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873) (selection)

Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance” (1965)

Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993) (Chapters 1 and 7)

Week 4, Thursday, February 23: Free Speech and Free Inquiry at the University, Part I—The Purpose of the University

Plato, Apology

Aristotle, Politics, Book 7.13; Book 8

Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of the Intellectual Life (2020) (Introduction, Chapter 3)

Alasdair MacIntyre, “The Very Idea of a University: Aristotle, Newman, and Us,” British Journal of Educational Studies (2009)

Anthony Abraham Jack, The Privileged Elite: How Elite Colleges are Failing Underprivileged Students (2019) (Introduction)

Jonathan Haidt, “When Truth and Social Justice Collide, Choose Truth,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2022).

Week 5, Thursday, March 2: Free Speech and Free Inquiry at the University, Part II—Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and Cancel Culture

Keith Whittington, Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (2018) (selection)

Patrick Deneen, “Against Academic Freedom,” Irish Rover (2022)

Naomi Oreskes & Charlie Tyson, “Is Academe Awash in Liberal Bias?” Chronicle of Higher Education (2020) & Phillip W. Magness, “Tenured Radicals Are Real,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2020)

Justin McBrayer, “Diversity Statements are the New Faith Statements,” Inside Higher Education (2022)

Brian Soucek, “How to Protect Diversity Statements from Legal Peril,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2022)

Brian Leiter, “Diversity Statements are Still in Legal Peril,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2022)

Clifford Ando, “Princeton Betrays Its Principles,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2022)

Sarah Brown, “‘Public-University Curricula are Government Speech,’ Florida Says,” Chronicle of Higher Education (2022)

Katha Pollitt, “Cancel Culture Exists,” The Nation (2022)

Week 6, Thursday, March 9: Free Speech Skepticism

Gerhart Niemeyer, “A Reappraisal of the Doctrine of Free Speech,” Thought: Fordham University Quarterly (1950)

Jamal Greene, How Rights Went Wrong (2021) (selection)

Anthony Leaker, “Against ‘Free Speech,’” Cato Unbound (2019)

Note, “Blasphemy and the Original Meaning of the First Amendment,” Harvard Law Review (2021)

Marc O. DeGirolami, “The Sickness Unto Death of the First Amendment,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (2019) (selection)

Richard George Wright, “Free Speech as a Cultural Holdover,” Pace Law Review (2019)

MIDTERM PAPERS DUE FRIDAY, MARCH 10, BY 5:00 PM

SPRING BREAK

LAW

Week 7, Thursday, March 23: The Content-Based//Content-Neutral Framework, Expressive Conduct

United States v. O’Brien (1968)

Texas v. Johnson (1989)

Frisby v. Schultz (1988)

Renton v. Playtime Theaters (1986)

Week 8, Thursday, March 30: Categorical Exceptions to the Freedom of Speech

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) (fighting words)

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) (incitement to violence)

Miller v. California (1973) (obscenity)

United States v. Alvarez (2012) (false statements of fact)

Week 9, Thursday, April 6: Offensive Speech, Hate Speech

Cohen v. California (1971)

Snyder v. Phelps (2011)

Matal v. Tam (2017)

Richard Delgado, “Words That Wound: A Tort Action for Racial Insults, Epithets, and Name Calling,” Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review (1982)

Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (2012) (selection)

Steven D. Smith, “Liberalism and Hate Speech,” Law and Religion Forum (2022)

Week 10, Thursday, April 13: Compelled Speech and Association

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

Wooley v. Maynard (1977)

Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 (2018)

303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2022) [listen to LegalSpirits Podcast on the case]

Week 11, Thursday, April 20: Government as Subsidizer and Employee Speech

Rust v. Sullivan (1991)

Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010)

Pickering v. Board of Education (1968)

Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006)

Week 12, Thursday, April 27: Issues in Social Media Speech and Regulation

Packingham v. North Carolina (2017)

Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute (2021) (Thomas, J., concurring)

Lee C. Bollinger & Geoffrey R. Stone, eds., Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy (2022) (selection)

Adam J. White, “Google.gov,” The New Atlantis (2018)

Kate Klonick, “The Terrifying Power of Internet Censors,” N.Y. Times (2017)

Ken Klippenstein, Lee Fang, “Truth Cops: Leaked Documents Demonstrate DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation,” The Intercept (2022)

Thomas Fazi, “The Human Cost of Twitter’s Censorship,” Compact (2022)

FINAL PAPERS DUE FRIDAY, MAY 18, BY 5:00 PM

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

The Revanche of Obligation

It is increasingly common to see a new kind of academic/trade press hybrid, whose central theme is to proclaim the centrality of obligations alongside rights. What is especially notable is that the authors of these books are generally liberal in political orientation (and I mean this primarily in the non-partisan sense). The reasons for the proliferation of this type of book are complex, as are, I think, the many difficulties that attend these proposals, precisely from within the general perspective that they tend to operate. But the general trend in offering accounts of the importance of obligation, of what binds the polity and its people, of what constitutes community and is necessary for its sustenance–all of these I think are interesting and important developments.

Here is a new book by Richard Haass, the former diplomat and government official in several administrations, very much in this line: The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens (Penguin Random House), out later this month. Note especially Haass’s emphasis on “habits.” The centrality of habits, customs, and…well, traditions, in creating a sense of mutual political obligation goes back well before the creation of the American Bill of Rights.

The United States faces dangerous threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, terrorists, climate change, and future pandemics. The greatest peril to the country, however, comes not from abroad but from within, from none other than ourselves. The question facing us is whether we are prepared to do what is necessary to save our democracy.

The Bill of Obligations is a bold call for change. In these pages, New York Times bestselling author Richard Haass argues that the very idea of citizenship must be revised and expanded. The Bill of Rights is at the center of our Constitution, yet our most intractable conflicts often emerge from contrasting views as to what our rights ought to be. As former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out, “Many of our cases, the most difficult ones, are not about right versus wrong. They are about right versus right.” The lesson is clear: rights alone cannot provide the basis for a functioning, much less flourishing, democracy.

But there is a cure: to place obligations on the same footing as rights. The ten obligations that Haass introduces here are essential for healing our divisions and safeguarding the country’s future. These obligations reenvision what it means to be an American citizen. They are not a burden but rather commitments that we make to fellow citizens and to the government to uphold democracy and counter the growing apathy, anger, selfishness, division, disinformation, and violence that threaten us all. Through an expert blend of civics, history, and political analysis, this book illuminates how Americans can rediscover and recover the attitudes and behaviors that have contributed so much to this country’s success over the centuries.

As Richard Haass argues, “We get the government and the country we deserve. Getting the one we need, however, is up to us.” The Bill of Obligations gives citizens across the political spectrum a plan of action to achieve it.

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Around the Web

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

  • In Dykes-Bey v. Schroeder, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit brought under the First Amendment and RLUIPA by a Michigan inmate, concluding that the Michigan prison system had not imposed a “substantial burden” on the inmate’s free exercise of religion. 
  • In Sisters for Life, Inc. v. Louisville-Jefferson County, KY Metro Government, the Sixth Circuit held that an ordinance imposing a 10-foot buffer zone around the entrance of any healthcare facility abridges the free speech rights of pro-life groups who wish to hand out leaflets and speak with women entering abortion clinics. 
  • An English teacher filed suit in an Arizona federal district court after he was fired for urging the school’s principal to show acceptance and understanding of a student who identifies as pansexual. The complaint in McDorman v. Valley Christian Schools alleges that McDorman’s firing amounted to religious discrimination and retaliation for opposing discriminatory practices in violation of Title VII and Title IX. 
  • In Kingston v. Kingston, the plaintiff is challenging a trial court’s order in a divorce proceeding that barred him from encouraging his children to adopt the teachings of any religion without the consent of his former wife. In a 3-2 decision, the Court remanded the case to the trial court for it to “craft a more narrowly tailored remedy.” 
  • The EEOC has announced that it filed a Title VII religious discrimination suit against a Williamsburg, Kentucky IGA grocery store. The suit, filed in a Kentucky federal district court, alleges that the grocery refused to hire Spiritualist Rastafarian Matthew Barnett as an assistant manager after he refused to cut his dreadlocks which he wears for religious reasons. The EEOC says that employers must consider reasonable accommodations for religious beliefs. 
  • In Hordyk v. Wansiea Family Services, Inc., the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia held that a non-profit family services agency that contracts with the state to arrange foster care for children placed in the custody of the state violated Section 62 of the Western Australia Equal Opportunity Act 1984 when it rejected a couple who are members of the Free Reformed Church of Australia as foster parents.