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Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and thus they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The decision is widely considered the worst ever rendered in the Supreme Court's history, being widely denounced for its overt racism, perceived judicial activism and poor legal reasoning, and for its crucial role in the start of the American Civil War four years later. Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz said that it "stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions". Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes called it the Court's "greatest self-inflicted wound".
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which involved a dispute of whether preferential treatment for minorities can reduce educational opportunities for whites without violating the Constitution. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. However, the court ruled that specific racial quotas, such as the 16 out of 100 seats set aside for minority students by the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, were impermissible.
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.
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), was a 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 regarding 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 Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-4, is a 1993 United States federal law that "ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected." The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Ted Kennedy (D-MA) the same day. A unanimous U.S. House and a nearly unanimous U.S. Senate—three senators voted against passage—passed the bill, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
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. Prior to 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.
Wisconsin v. Jonas Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), is the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade. The parents' fundamental right to freedom of religion was determined to outweigh the state's interest in educating their children. The case is often cited as a basis for parents' right to educate their children outside of traditional private or public schools.
Rachel v. Walker (1834) was a "freedom suit" filed in the St. Louis Circuit Court by an African-American woman named Rachel who had been enslaved. She petitioned for her freedom and that of her son James (John) Henry from William Walker, based on having been held illegally as a slave in the free territory of Michigan by a previous master, an Army officer. Her case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri, where she won in 1836. The court ruled that an Army officer forfeited his slave if he took the person to territory where slavery is prohibited. This ruling was cited as precedent in 1856 in the famous Dred Scott v. Sandford case before the Supreme Court of the United States.
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 relevant constitutional text is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), was a 5–4 decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld an Ohio program that used school vouchers. The Court decided that the program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, even if the vouchers could be used for private religious schools.
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 by Princeton University Press.
The Thomas More Law Center is a Christian, conservative, nonprofit, public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and active throughout the United States. According to the Thomas More Law Center website, its goals are to "preserve America's Judeo-Christian heritage, defend the religious freedom of Christians, restore time-honored moral and family values, protect the sanctity of human life, and promote a strong national defense and a free and sovereign United States of America."
In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. As stated in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". Freedom of religion is linked to the countervailing principle of separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Dr. John Clarke, Roger Williams, William Penn, and later Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
Robert J. Muise is an American attorney who specializes in constitutional law litigation. Along with attorney David Yerushalmi, he is co-founder and Senior Counsel of the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), a national nonprofit law firm whose stated mission is "to fight for faith and freedom by advancing and defending America's Judeo-Christian heritage and moral foundation through litigation, education, and public policy programs." Before launching AFLC, Muise was Senior Trial Counsel at the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian law firm founded by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan.
School prayer in the United States if organized by the school is largely banned from public elementary, middle and high schools by a series of Supreme Court decisions since 1962. Students may pray privately, and join religious clubs in after-school hours. Public schools are those operated by government agencies, such as local school districts. They are banned from conducting religious observances such as prayer. Private and parochial schools are not covered by these rulings, nor are colleges and universities. Elementary and secondary schools are covered because students are required to attend, and are considered more at risk from official pressure than are older students and adults. The Constitutional basis for this prohibition is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...
Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in 2016 concerning the First Amendment rights of public employees. By a 6–2 margin, the Court held that a public employee's constitutional rights might be violated when an employer, believing that the employee was engaging in what would be protected speech, disciplines them because of that belief, even if the employee did not exercise such a constitutional right.
Amy Vivian Coney Barrett is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth woman to serve on the court, she was nominated by President Donald Trump and has served since October 27, 2020. Barrett was a U.S. circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2017 to 2020.
Kristen Kellie Waggoner is an American constitutional lawyer. She was the lead counsel in a case at the United States Supreme Court concerning First Amendment rights, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. In the lawsuit, Waggoner represented Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips. She currently serves as CEO, President and General Counsel of the Christian-oriented legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
References
- ↑ Saxon, Wolfgang (18 January 1999). "William Ball Is Dead at 82; Defended Religious Rights". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
- ↑ "William Bentley Ball" . Retrieved 2018-04-26.
- ↑ "William Bentley Ball: An inventory of the William Bentley Ball Papers at The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives" . Retrieved 2018-04-26.