In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Tp. et al., this symposium will feature an examination of the current and future state of relationships between the government and religion. The landmark Everson decision ruled that the First Amendment prohibition of laws respecting an establishment of religion applies to the states, defined the clause as mandating a wall of separation between church and state, and ruled that publicly funded religious school bus transportation did not violate this definition. For the six decades following the 5-4 decision, Everson has continued to stand at the forefront of the court’s analysis of myriad issues, including school prayer, vouchers for private schools, nativity scenes on public property, the “under God” clause of the pledge of allegiance, Bible reading in public schools, and the posting of the 10 commandments in public places. In fact, many of the controversies in American society concerning religion and politics are directly related to Everson’s 74 pages in the Supreme Court reports, including Justice Hugo Black’s majority opinion, and separate dissents by Justices Robert Jackson and Wiley Rutledge handed down on February 10, 1947.
The symposium will begin with a presentation summarizing the Everson case and the controversies it catalyzed. A panel of prominent legal, political, ethical, and theological leaders has been assembled to discuss the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based Initiative, state “Blaine” restrictions on the public funding of religious institutions, and theological and legal perspectives on the future of church and state law.
This symposium is designed for lawyers, religious leaders, and citizens interested in determining how vital religious faith and religious freedom can coexist and flourish in a civil society.
Seminar Leaders
Lawrence M. Stratton: Ph.D. candidate in Christian ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary. A graduate and former adjunct professor of Georgetown University Law Center, he examines in his current dissertation work the phenomenon of the government funding of religion from the standpoint of both law and ethics.
Carl H. Esbeck: Isabelle Wade and Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law. As senior counsel to the deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, he helped initiate the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative program.
K. Hollyn Hollman: general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a seven-decades-old religious liberty education and advocacy group that seeks to bring a uniquely Baptist witness to the principle that religion must be freely exercised, and neither advanced nor inhibited by government.
T. Jeremy Gunn: director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, founded in 2005 to help promote the American constitutional value of freedom of religion. He publishes and teaches widely on constitutional and religion issues, and oversees ACLU’s litigation and advocacy efforts on these issues.
Joseph P. Viteritti: Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public Policy at Hunter College, CUNY. He is the author of Can Religion and Democracy Coexist? American Discord from the Public School to the Public Square (Princeton University Press, 2007); Choosing Equality: School Choice, the Constitution, and Civil Society (Brookings Institution Press, 1999), and numerous articles on religion, law, and education. He has served as a senior advisor to the city school superintendents in New York, Boston, and San Francisco, and gave expert testimony in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris school voucher case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. He has previously taught at Princeton, NYU, and Harvard.
Nancy J. Duff: Stephen Colwell Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), she teaches on the ethics of the Ten Commandments, as well as on the theology and ethics of German anti-Hitler theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and liberation theorist James Cone.
Marci A. Hamilton: Paul R. Verkuil Professor of Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. A former clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, she is involved in cutting-edge First Amendment litigation. Her book, God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press 2005), is a widely acclaimed study of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.
Audience: Legal professionals, ministry professionals, and education professionals
Continuing Education Credits:
PA Attorneys: 5.00S CLE Credit Hours approved by the PA CLE Board
DE Attorneys: This event has been approved for 5.3 CLE credits from the Commission on Continuing Legal Education of the Supreme Court of Delaware.
NY Attorneys: Application for accreditation of this course in New York is currently pending with the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board.
NJ Teachers: 6.0 Professional Development Hours approved by the New Jersey Department of Education
Registration Fee:
$120 (program only, lunch not included)
Student rate (for university and law school students with valid ID): $60 (program only, no lunch)
$10 (lunch)
