Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’
The Supreme Court and the new religious aristocracy — The Hill Column
The Supreme Court has effectively authorized schoolteachers to pressure their students to pray. Kennedy v. Bremerton held that football coach Joseph Kennedy had the right to engage in what Justice Neil Gorsuch called a “short, private, personal prayer” on the 50-yard line after games. The court held that forbidding that prayer improperly discriminated on the basis of religion,…
Read MoreOriginalism and the football coach’s prayer — The Hill Column
Amid the recent Supreme Court argument over a high school football coach’s demand to lead his players in prayer, the judges lost sight of one of the central purposes of the First Amendment’s prohibition on “establishment of religion” — a purpose that should be of particular concern to the court’s self-styled originalists. The justices’ questions…
Read MoreAkhil Amar and the Dobbs draft — The Hill Column
Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar, in a prominent defense of the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion overruling Roe v. Wade, argues in the Wall Street Journal that it contains “nothing radical, illegitimate or improperly political.” Amar supports abortion access but doubts that it is protected by the Constitution. He emphasizes that Roe was poorly reasoned. He thinks that…
Read More‘Roe,’ Precedent, and Reliance — The American Prospect
Supreme Court Justice Alito’s recently leaked draft opinion overruling Roe v. Wade is remarkable for many reasons, not least its treatment of precedent. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has observed that, among the reasons why courts follow their own precedents, “the protection of reliance interests is paramount.” People make plans based on the law as they understand it, and abrupt…
Read More