William Bentley Ball

Last updated

William Bentley Ball, KSG (October 6, 1916 - January 10, 1999) was a prominent American constitutional lawyer, Roman Catholic layman, and former US Navy officer who gained national attention for winning the precedent-setting Wisconsin Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder in a 6-1 decision which held that requiring Amish parents to send their children to secondary school violated their constitutional right to religious free exercise. He was also the vice chairman of the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, the group for which he won the precedent-setting case. Ball argued 9 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1967, Ball worked on his first Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia , entering a brief on behalf of 25 Catholic bishops on the unconstitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws. The last case that he argued and won was Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District to force a school district through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to continue supplying a sign language translator for a student who transferred to a Catholic high school.

Born in Rochester, New York, he graduated from Western Reserve University in 1940. Ball served with the 107th Cavalry Regiment of the Ohio Army National Guard and was a US Navy officer during World War II, serving aboard the USS Quincy and reaching the rank of lieutenant commander. He received his law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1948. A native of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, he died at age 82 while on vacation in Florida. [1] [2] [3]

Related Research Articles

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 therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The decision is widely considered the worst in the Supreme Court's history, being widely denounced for its overt racism, judicial activism, poor legal reasoning, and 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". A future chief justice, Charles Evans Hughes, called it the Court's "greatest self-inflicted wound".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugo Black</span> US Supreme Court justice from 1937 to 1971

Hugo Lafayette Black was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. A member of the Democratic Party and a devoted New Dealer, Black endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the 1932 and 1936 presidential elections.

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment protects students from being compelled to salute the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

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 that involved a dispute of whether preferential treatment for minorities could 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.

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. The Court also ruled these laws were unconstitutional in the 1987 case, Edwards v. Aguillard.

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.

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...

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Roberts</span> Chief Justice of the United States since 2005

John Glover Roberts Jr. is an American jurist who has served since 2005 as the 17th chief justice of the United States. He has been described as having a moderate conservative judicial philosophy, though he is primarily an institutionalist. Regarded as a swing vote in some cases, Roberts has presided over an ideological shift toward conservative jurisprudence on the high court, in which he has authored key opinions.

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.

Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual. Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts performed in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas More Law Center</span> Christian conservative law firm in Michigan, US

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".

Kenneth Francis Ripple is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom of religion in the United States</span>

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...". George Washington stressed freedom of religion as a fundamental American principle even before the First Amendment was ratified. In 1790, in a letter to the Touro Synagogue, he expressed the government “gives to bigotry no sanction” and “to persecution no assistance." 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory G. Garre</span> American lawyer

Gregory G. Garre is an American lawyer who served as the 44th United States Solicitor General from June 19, 2008, to January 16, 2009. He is currently a partner at Latham & Watkins, a private law firm.

The ministerial exception, sometimes known as the ecclesiastical exception, is a legal doctrine in the United States barring the application of anti-discrimination laws to religious institutions' employment of ministers or as to jobs with ministerial roles. As explained by the Supreme Court in the landmark 2012 case Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C., the exception is drawn from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and serves two purposes: to safeguard the freedom of religious groups "to select their own ministers" and to prevent "government involvement in [...] ecclesiastical decisions". The first purpose is rooted in the Free Exercise Clause; the second, in the Establishment Clause. When the ministerial exception applies, it gives religious institutions an affirmative defense against lawsuits for discrimination. For example, a woman seeking to become a Catholic priest cannot sue the Catholic Church for sex discrimination over its position that women cannot be ordained as priests. The Supreme Court later elaborated on when employees qualify as ministerial – and thus how broadly the exception applies – in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (2020).

United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982), was a United States Supreme Court case establishing precedent regarding the limits of free exercise of religious conscience by employers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School prayer in the United States</span>

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, such as local school districts, 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 ...

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Coney Barrett</span> US Supreme Court justice since 2020

Amy Vivian Coney Barrett is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2020 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. Barrett was a U.S. circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2017 to 2020.

Mitchell v. Wisconsin, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that "when a driver is unconscious and cannot be given a breath test, the exigent-circumstances doctrine generally permits a blood test without a warrant."

References

  1. Saxon, Wolfgang (18 January 1999). "William Ball Is Dead at 82; Defended Religious Rights". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  2. "William Bentley Ball" . Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  3. "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.