Supreme Court’s two religious liberty cases could have broad impact

The U.S. Supreme Court’s May 22 deadlock prevented the establishment of the nation’s first religious charter school.

A decision allowing such an institution would have dramatically overhauled long-standing norms about public education and religious freedom in the United States.

However, decisions in two other cases centered on religion and the First Amendment are still ahead, and experts say those, too, could reshape what religious liberty means across the nation.

The cases one dealing with public school curriculum and the other with tax exemptions for religious organizations are “very significant” for different reasons, but all are coming before justices amid a broader trend of the court intervening to protect the free exercise of religion, said Daniel Conkle, a professor of law emeritus at Indiana University s Maurer School of Law.   

Plus, there s been an almost complete ideological switch on the court in recent years, said Eugene Volokh, a professor of law emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. He and other experts attributed the shift to a conservative majority that includes three Trump appointees.  

The court now tends to have a very minimalist view of the establishment clause and a very robust view of the free exercise clause, said Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor and dean of Berkeley Law. 

In the First Amendment, one clause prohibits the government from establishing a religion and the other bans the government from interfering with citizens’ free practice of religion as long as, according to a federal court analysis, “the practice does not run afoul of ‘public morals’ or a ‘compelling’ governmental interest.”

The court’s rulings in the remaining religious liberty cases will indicate whether that trend will continue.  

via www.usatoday.com