Courses

This is a survey course on issues of religious liberty arising under the Free Exercise Clause, the Establishment Clause, the Test Oath Clause, state constitutional provisions, and modern religious liberty legislation. There are three principal sets of issues: 1) Government regulation of religious practice, including laws that make religious observances illegal, laws that make it difficult or impossible to physically create a place of worship, and laws that interfere with internal church decisions concerning employment, doctrine, property ownership, and lines of religious authority;2) Government funding of religious institutions and especially of secular services provided by religious institutions, including such issues as school vouchers, faith-based social services, religious colleges and universities, and religious hospitals; and3) Government sponsorship and regulation of religious speech, including such issues as school-sponsored prayer, student religion clubs, distribution of religious literature, municipal Nativity scenes, monuments to the Ten Commandments, and so on.