Jay Wexler | |
---|---|
Born | April 12, 1969 |
Alma mater | Harvard University (BA) University of Chicago (MA) Stanford University (JD) |
Occupation | Law professor |
Employer | Boston University School of Law |
Known for | Studying laughter at the U.S. Supreme Court |
Jay D. Wexler (born April 12, 1969) is an American legal scholar known for being the first to study laughter at the Supreme Court of the United States. His work also focuses on church-state issues, constitutional law, [1] and environmental law. Wexler is a professor of law at the Boston University School of Law.
Wexler earned a B.A., magna cum laude in East Asian Studies from Harvard University in 1991, his M.A. in religious studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1993, and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1997, [2] where he was a notes editor on the Stanford Law Review [3] and a Semifinalist in the Kirkwood Moot Court competition. After law school, Wexler clerked for Judge David Tatel on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court of the United States. He was an attorney advisor at the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel from 1999 to 2001. [4] Wexler began teaching at Boston University School of Law in 2001 and became a tenured professor in 2007. [5]
Wexler has appeared on National Public Radio's All Things Considered [6] and On Point, [7] CNBC, [8] C-SPAN, [9] [10] [11] [12] State of Belief , [13] the Brian Lehrer Show, [14] New Hampshire Public Radio's Word of Mouth, [15] and has been featured in Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath [16] and Hail Satan? [17] He is admitted to the bar in Illinois [18] and Massachusetts. [19]
In 2005, Wexler's pioneering research counted the number of times each Supreme Court justice generated laughter in the courtroom, as indicated in the official transcript, as well as each Justice's "Laughter Episodes Instigated Per Argument Average," by dividing each justice's total laughs for the 2004–2005 term by the number of oral arguments he or she attended. [20] [21] [22] This lighthearted inquiry to determine "the relative funniness of the Justices" [20] : 59 was replicated by Wexler in 2007. [23] Since then, other scholars have built on these initial studies and seriously examined how laughter is used by the justices at the Supreme Court. [24] [21] [25]
In addition to laughter during sessions of the Supreme Court of the United States, Wexler's research focuses on church-state issues and environmental law. He also writes legal fiction.
Weed Rules: Blazing the Way to a Just and Joyful Marijuana Policy (2023)
The book argues that states which have legalized cannabis should adopt a "careful exuberance" approach to regulating the drug rather than the "grudging tolerance" they typically use now. Wexler suggests that a commitment to equity and joy should guide cannabis policy. [26]
The book examines how a smaller portion of the United States population identifies as Christian than in the past, and how the growing non-Christian religions are using the law to assert themselves and create a more diverse public square. Wexler travels the country to obtain first hand accounts of the religious disputes of the Summum in Salt Lake City, Wiccans in Wisconsin, Atheists in Greece, New York, and Muslims in North Carolina. [27]
The book details his trips to sites where religious practices negatively impact the environment. Because large groups of people engage in these practices, it is the harm caused by the cumulative practice that needs to be weighed against religious freedom. [28]
Wexler's first novel follows a United States Supreme Court Justice during a midlife crisis. [29] Although the story is satirical, it also examines serious legal issues such as filming Supreme Court arguments. [30] Ultimately, the story is a reminder that Supreme Court justices are ordinary people. [31]
Wexler's first collection of short stories takes readers to disparate places: a zoo where all of the animals are black and white, a children's camp where they have to collect clams, Justice Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing run by the 1977 Kansas City Royals, and Henry Clay's advice to various people. [32] The title story about Justice Ed Tuttle trying to pick up women while on vacation [33] was expanded into Wexler's novel, Tuttle in the Balance. [4]
The book discusses ten of the lesser known parts of the United States Constitution. He examines provisions regarding incompatibility, weights and measures, recess appointments, original jurisdiction, natural-born citizens, the Twenty-First Amendment, letters of marque and reprisal, titles of nobility, bills of attainder, and the Third Amendment. This book, like much of Wexler's work, seeks to educate and entertain, [4] and while some enjoy this "fresh vantage point," [34] others find it distracting. [35] Wexler also authored a blog called Odd Clauses Watch [36] with news about other odd clauses that did not make the book.
This book details his journey to the sites of recent separation of church and state judicial opinions. [37]
In addition to studying which justices are funny, Wexler has authored numerous humor pieces. His first foray into humor publishing explained how it is possible to get 100% of one's daily recommended allowance of vitamins and minerals by eating mass quantities of junk food. [38] Wexler frequently writes about the Supreme Court of the United States, [39] [40] including his clerkship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg [41] and alternate reality confirmation hearings for the justices. [42] Wexler also writes about legal oddities, including how legislation limits Woodsy the Owl's effectiveness. [43] Although most of Wexler's humor writings are law-related, he has also written general humor pieces. [44] [45] [46]
Wexler has written numerous academic articles examining constitutional law, [47] law and religion, [48] [49] [50] [51] environmental law, [52] and intersections thereof. [53] He has made significant contributions to the discourse surrounding the teaching of religion, particularly intelligent design, in American public schools. [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] Wexler's work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Interdisciplinary History , [63] the Journal of Legal Metrics, [64] New England Law Review, [65] and Texas Law Review . [66] His work has been cited by two federal circuit courts, [67] [68] two federal district courts, [69] [70] and the Vermont Supreme Court. [71] His most cited articles include [72] [73]
Wexler received numerous awards as a student at Stanford Law School. He was awarded the Steven M. Block Civil Liberties Award and the Irving J. Hellmann Jr. Award for his student note [88] published in the Stanford Law Review . [2]
Wexler is a two-time Fulbright Scholar (2007-2008 [89] and 2014-2015 [90] ), and was selected for the Michael Melton Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2009. [5]
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws respecting an establishment of religion; prohibiting the free exercise of religion; or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. In the original draft of the Bill of Rights, what is now the First Amendment occupied third place. The first two articles were not ratified by the states, so the article on disestablishment and free speech ended up being first.
Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of teaching creationism. The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public schools, creation science must also be taught. The constitutionality of the law was successfully challenged in District Court, Aguillard v. Treen, 634 F. Supp. 426, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, Aguillard v. Edwards, 765 F.2d 1251. The United States Supreme Court ruled that this law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. In its decision, the court opined that "teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to school children might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction."
Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), when the Court had held that laws criminalizing sodomy were constitutional.
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act from 1968 was unconstitutional and in an 8–1 decision that Rhode Island's 1969 Salary Supplement Act was unconstitutional, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The act allowed the Superintendent of Public Schools to reimburse private schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in these private elementary schools from public textbooks and with public instructional materials.
Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on the issue of silent school prayer.
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, on behalf of his son Ellery Schempp, and declared that school-sponsored Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools in the United States was unconstitutional.
Originalism is a legal theory that bases constitutional, judicial, and statutory interpretation of text on the original understanding at the time of its adoption. Proponents of the theory object to judicial activism and other interpretations related to a living constitution framework. Instead, originalists argue for democratic modifications of laws through the legislature or through constitutional amendment.
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools, due to violation of the First Amendment. The ruling has been the subject of intense debate.
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), was a unanimous landmark United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in the public schools. The Court held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits a state from requiring, in the words of the majority opinion, "that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma." The Supreme Court declared the Arkansas statute unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. After this decision, some jurisdictions passed laws that required the teaching of creation science alongside evolution when evolution was taught. These were also ruled unconstitutional by the Court in the 1987 case Edwards v. Aguillard.
"Separation of church and state" is a metaphor paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in discussions of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
The Blaine Amendment was a failed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have prohibited direct government aid to educational institutions that have a religious affiliation. Most state constitutions already had such provisions, and thirty-eight of the fifty states have clauses that prohibit taxpayer funding of religious entities in their state constitutions.
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to state law. Before this decision, the clause, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", imposed limits only on the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Michael William McConnell is an American jurist who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009, McConnell has been a professor and Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. He is also a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and Senior Of Counsel to the Litigation Practice Group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. In May 2020, Facebook appointed him to its content oversight board. In 2020, McConnell published The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution under Princeton University Press.
Golan v. Holder, 565 U.S. 302 (2012), was a US Supreme Court case that dealt with copyright and the public domain. It held that the "limited time" language of the United States Constitution's Copyright Clause does not preclude the extension of copyright protections to works previously in the public domain.
Mark David Hall is a professor in Regent University's Robertson School of Government and a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. Mark is also Distinguished Scholar of Christianity & Public Life at George Fox University, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, and a Senior Fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. In 2022-2023, he was a Garwood Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program and a Visiting Scholar at the Mercatus Center.
Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388 (1983), was a United States Supreme Court case examining the constitutionality of a state tax deduction granted to taxpaying parents for school-related expenses, including expenses incurred from private secular and religious schools. The plaintiffs claimed that a Minnesota statute, allowing tax deductions for both public and private school expenses, had the effect of subsidizing religious instruction since parents who paid tuition to religious schools received a larger deduction than parents of public school students, who incurred no tuition expenses.
Vincent Phillip Muñoz is an American political scientist. He is the Tocqueville Professor in the Department of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of two books on the principles of the American Founding focusing on religious liberty and the separation of church and state in the United States.
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a state-based scholarship program that provides public funds to allow students to attend private schools cannot discriminate against religious schools under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution.