Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents

About the Book

Throughout American history, legal battles concerning the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty have been among the most contentious issue of the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents, second edition, represents the most authoritative and up-to-date overview of the landmark cases that have defined religious freedom in America. Noted religious liberty expert Vincent Philip Muñoz provides carefully edited excerpts from 77 of the most important Supreme Court religious liberty cases. In addition, Muñoz’s substantive introduction offers an overview on the constitutional history of religious liberty in America. Introductory headnotes to each case provide the constitutional and historical context. Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court is an indispensable resource for anyone interested matters of religious freedom from the Republic’s earliest days to current debates.

Table of Contents:

Cases by Subject Matter
Notes on the Text
Acknowledgments
Introduction

I. CASES
1. Reynolds v. United States (1879)
2. Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892)
3. Bradfield v. Roberts(1899)
4. Cantwell v. State of Connecticut (1940)
5. Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940)
6. Jones v. Opelika; Bowden v. FortSmith; Jobin v. Arizona (1942)
7. Murdock v. Pennsylvania (City of Jeannette) (1943)
8. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
9. Follett v. Town of McCormick (1944)
10. Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township (1947)
11. Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education (1948)
12. Zorach v. Clauson (1952)
13. Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)
14. Braunfeld v. Brown (1961)
15. Engel v. Vitale (1962)
16. Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
17. Sherbert v. Verner (1963)
18. United States v. Seeger (1965)
19. Board of Education v. Allen (1968)
20. Epperson v. Arkansas (1968)
21. Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970)
22. Welsh v. United States (1970)
23. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
24. Tilton v. Richardson (1971)
25. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
26. Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (1973)
27. McDaniel v. Paty (1978)
28. Stone v. Graham (1980)
29. Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division (1981)
30. Widmar v. Vincent (1981)
31. United States v. Lee (1982)
32. Bob Jones University v. United States (1983)
33. Mueller v. Allen (1983)
34. Marsh v. Chambers (1983)
35. Lynch v. Donnelly (1984)
36. Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)
37. Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986)
38. Goldman v. Weinberger (1986)
39. Edwards v. Aguillard (1987)
40. Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos (1987)
41. Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association (1988)
42. Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock (1989)
43. County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter (1989)
44. Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990)
45. Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990)
46. Lee v. Weisman (1992)
47. Lamb’s Chapeland John Steigerwald v. Center Moriches Union Free School District (1993)
48. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993)
49. Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District (1993)
50. Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette (1995)
51. Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995)
52. Agostini v. Felton (1997)
53. City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
54. Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000)
55. Mitchell v. Helms (2000)
56. Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001)
57. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002)
58. Locke v. Davey (2004)
59. Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004)
60. Van Orden v. Perry (2005)
61. McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (2005)
62. Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010)
63. Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn (2011)
64. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012)
65. Town of Greece, NewYork v. Galloway (2014)
66. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014)
67. Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017)
68. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018)
69. American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019)
70. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020)
71. Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru (2020)
72. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021)
73. Shurtleff v. City of Boston (2022)
74. Carson v. Makin (2022)
75. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022)
76. Catholic Charites Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (2025)
77. Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025)


II. HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
A. A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia (1777,1786)
Thomas Jefferson
B. Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments (1785)
James Madison
C. Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 and Barnes v. Falmouth (1810)
D. Records of the First Congress Pertaining to the Drafting of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment (1789)
E. Letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers (1789)
George Washington
F. Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport (1790)
George Washington
G. Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (1802)
Thomas Jefferson

About the Author :
Vincent Phillip Munoz is the Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Munoz writes and teaches across the fields of constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy.

Review :
"Vincent Phillip Muñoz’s Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court is by far the best single collection of Supreme Court cases on the religion clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Muñoz’s editorial work on abridging the opinions, as well as his brief introductory comments for each case, are masterfully done. I have used this book as a required text since the first edition appeared in 2011. Unlike traditional case law books—which are dominated by commentary and black-letter law—Muñoz’s text consists almost entirely of just the cases themselves. This allows students to explore the Court’s many opinions unburdened by some overarching theory or point of view that the editor or author thinks they should embrace. This also permits instructors a lot of leeway in crafting their syllabi and introducing students to secondary sources.” “Interpretations of the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment continue to evolve and elicit great interest, and few scholars are better situated to trace them than Professor Muñoz, with his deep knowledge of the American founding fathers and his expertise in both law and political science. Although Muñoz arranges this thorough and well-edited casebook chronologically, he also lists cases by subject matter, allowing professors the option of taking either approach in their teaching. In addition to key Supreme Court decisions, the book includes other important documents, which cast additional light on the origin and meaning of the two clauses.” "The earlier edition of this book has long been required reading for anyone interested in the long (and often complicated) debate over religious liberty in the United States. This updated version, which adds more recent decisions from the Roberts Court, makes it indispensable for understanding both the evolution of the Court's thinking and the jurisprudence guiding Church-State relations today. I could not recommend it highly enough." “Religious liberty is one of the hallmarks of the American political order, and for anyone who wants to better understand how the Supreme Court has understood it, Munoz’s deftly chosen and edited collection of cases is unmatched.” “Philip Muñoz’s Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court is an excellent compilation of the most essential cases on religion in American constitutional law, supplemented with some valuable historical documents. It was the perfect resource for my seminar on Religion and the Supreme Court. This is just what one would expect of a book produced by one of the outstanding contemporary scholars on religious liberty.” “Prof. Munoz has expertly curated the founding documents and Supreme Court decisions that explain America’s distinctive commitment to religious liberty. He presents the well-edited cases and historical documents in chronological order and, refreshingly, allows them to speak for themselves without distracting commentary. The Supreme Court has recently issued several landmark decisions in this area, and I am happy to see a new edition that includes these important developments.”