S5, Ep. 25: The crisis in teaching constitutional law

Respecting Religion

Some troubling trends at the Supreme Court are starting to affect the legal profession and how students in law school approach the U.S. Constitution. As SCOTUS continues to upend decades of established precedent in church-state law, Amanda and Holly discuss what’s changed since they were in law school and the rapid changes in church-state law itself. They look at the views of legitimacy of the Court, and Holly shares specifically what she sees in her work teaching church-state law at Georgetown University Law Center.

SHOW NOTES Segment 1 (starting at 01:15): Respect for the Supreme Court in law school

Read “The Crisis in Teaching Constitutional Law,” an opinion piece by Jesse Wegman for The New York Times.

Holly mentioned recent episodes of Respecting Religion that covered:

• Religious accommodation in the workplace (episode 26 of season 4 on Groff v. DeJoy)
• The funding of private religious schools with government funds (episode 20 of season 3 on Carson v. Makin)
• Prayer by a coach on the 50-yard-line (episode 21 of season 3 on Kennedy v. Bremerton)

Amanda mentioned the book Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court by H.W. Perry.

Segment 2 (starting at 10:51): Turning points, hypocrisy, and partisan muscle

Holy mentioned how SCOTUS uses history and tradition and the case of Greece v. Galloway, which we covered in episode 3 of season 5.

Segment 3 (starting at 21:26): The differences in the Souter/Stevens/O’Connor era and what it’s like in the classroom today

To read more about the Supreme Court religious liberty cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, check out this article by Jane G. Rainey published by the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

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