These statements come from the Ohio Constitution of 1803. They are from Section 3, the religion section of Article VIII, the Bill of Rights. This last sentence of Section 3, which addresses education, is taken directly from a statement in the Northwest Ordinance, passed by the Continental Congress July 13, 1787, which provided the framework for the admission of Ohio to the Union. It is the contention of this paper that these words express widely-held attitudes in regard to church and state, as well as religion and education, in the early days of the United States... [Read more!]

I thank Gene for that kind introduction, and of course the Federalist Society for the singular honor of delivering this lecture. This is actually the third time I have been invited to speak at a Federalist Society convention—I’m a little bit like the tenor called out for his second encore who is feeling pretty good about himself until he hears someone in the balcony shouting, “You’ll keep singing it until you get it right.” ... [Read more!]

Richard Brookhiser's book examines the life of America's fourth President, James Madison, including his role in advising Thomas Jefferson, his relationships with various Founding Fathers, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Featuring Mr. Richard Brookhiser, Author of James Madison and Columnist for American History and National Review Magazines, and Mr. James A. Haynes of the Federalist Society's Professional Responsibility & Legal Education Practice Group Executive Committee and Baltimore Lawyers Chapter. [Listen now!]

In the second week of January, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The case involved a fourth-grade teacher, Cheryl Perich, suing her employer, a church-based school, alleging retaliation for having asserted her rights under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the original suit, and the teacher intervened as a party. In the lower federal courts Hosanna-Tabor raised the “ministerial exception,” which recognizes that under the First Amendment religious organizations have the authority to select their own ministers—which necessarily entails not just initial hiring but also promotion, retention, and other terms and conditions of employment. Over the last forty years the ministerial exception has been recognized by every federal circuit to have considered it. Indeed, the exception overrides not just the ADA but also a number of venerable employment nondiscrimination civil rights statutes. Just who is a “minister,” however, has varied somewhat from circuit to circuit—and in any event the Supreme Court had never taken a case involving the ministerial exception. [Read more!]