M1 Homework for week 4

Study amendment 14 and amendment 4, as well as the vocabulary already covered in class.

Read (and prepare a commentary) on : A 12, Brendlin v. California, 2007
Read A1, J. D. B. v. North Carolina, 2011.

Text for the Week 5 presentation on the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment

Groups 8 and 9
Town Meetings Can Have Prayer, Justice Decide, text p. 46-47 of the Booklet

Groups  42-43-44-51

Obamacare and religious liberty. A corporate conscience?

The Economist, Oct 3rd 2013, by S.M.

When the Citizens United decision came down in 2010, 80% of Americans were unhappy to learn that political speech by corporations was protected under the first amendment. Three years later an effort to undermine Obamacare by expanding the constitutional rights of corporations is quietly gaining ground in the courts. The campaign includes some 73 cases challenging the law’s requirement that health-insurance plans provided by large employers include coverage for birth control. This contraceptive mandate, detractors say, presents organisations owned by religious individuals opposed to certain forms of birth control with a dilemma: abandon their beliefs or pay a hefty fine of up to $100 per employee per day.

Conestoga Wood Specialties, a cabinet manufacturer with 950 employees in Pennsylvania, is one of the plaintiffs challenging the mandate. Conestoga is owned and run by the Hahns, a Mennonite family that considers two forms of birth control—the emergency contraceptives known as Plan B and ella—to be the sinful taking of embryonic life. The family has objected to Obamacare's mandate on constitutional grounds and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a 1993 law requiring that “substantial burdens” on religious exercise be justified by a compelling state interest. (RFRA reimposed the “strict scrutiny” standard for federal incursions on religious liberty after the Supreme Court deserted it in its Employment Division v Smith decision in 1990.)

This past July, the third circuit court of appeals rebuffed the Hahns’ claim, insisting that religious free exercise is a "purely personal" right. In the opinion, Judge Robert Cowen of the third circuit wrote, “Since Conestoga is distinct from the Hahns, the Mandate does not actually require the Hahns to do anything. All responsibility for complying with the Mandate falls on Conestoga.” Corporations may have mission statements. They may advance political positions and, since Citizens United, may spend freely to advocate for particular candidates. Corporate entities can even be said to have a "conscience" in the sense of acting responsibly and with regard to moral principles. But, citing a previous ruling, the court said corporations "do not, separate and apart from the actions or belief systems of their individual owners or employees, exercise religion. They do not pray, worship, observe sacraments or take other religiously-motivated actions separate and apart from the intention and direction of their individual actors." […]

In its petition requesting Supreme Court review of the third-circuit decision, Conestoga presented the question as follows: "Whether the religious owners of a family business, or their closely-held, for-profit corporation, have free exercise rights that are violated by the application of the contraceptive-coverage Mandate of the Affordable Care Act." It then noted that the court has repeatedly allowed corporations to bring free-exercise claims. This Court has allowed an Amish business owner to raise a free exercise defense to nonpayment of Social Security taxes... It has also let Jewish merchants challenge Sunday-closing laws on the same ground... These rulings were indisputably correct as neither RFRA nor the Free Exercise Clause contains an exception for activity carried out for profit. On the contrary, “religious exercise” under RFRA includes “any exercise of religion.”

The Obama administration disagrees. In its own petition the administration notes that Congress reined in the courts with the RFRA, bringing them back to pre-Smith standards. Even if the court finds that Conestoga enjoys a right to religious liberty, this right, like all constitutional guarantees, is limited. The administration implies that the promotion of public health, "unquestionably a compelling governmental interest", outweighs the corporation's free-exercise right (if it exists). It argues that increased access to contraceptive services leads to positive health outcomes for women and children. This is difficult to deny.  […] How the Supreme Court will sort this out is difficult to parse. The five conservative justices appear sceptical of Obamacare's underpinnings, while the four liberals on the court are unlikely to ratchet up constitutional rights for corporations. But it was Antonin Scalia who penned the 1990 Smith decision holding that courts should not carve out exemptions for people with religious objections to neutral, generally applicable laws.

1. Present the facts of the case as well as the parties involved. What legal question is raised by the case and what are the respective arguments of each party?

2. In light of previous rulings, can we guess in favour of which party the Supreme Court might rule? What could be the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision?

L3 Homework for week 4:

Homework for week 4:

·  

SFor all groups:

SStudy introduction to the First Amendment: Freedom of Speech / Press Freedom / Freedom to Assemble p. 24-29.

·    Study the glossary p. 38.

·    Exercise 1 p. 29. (Complete the following sentences)

·    Grammar Exercise p. 37. (Have someone do…)

 + for G 8 and G 9: Exercise 2 p. 29.

L2 HOMEWORK for week 3

Unit 1: Study the vocabulary p. 32-33.

If you haven't done them:
Ex 2 p. 24
Ex 5 p. 31

Unit 2: Study the Introduction to Unit 2: Article One: Congress
Study the vocabulary p. 55.
Read text Exercise 4 p. 47-49.

M1 Homework for week 3

Read Amendments 1, 2 and 14 of the Bill of Rights. (Focus on the doctrine of Selective Incorporation.)

Go over the notes you took last year and read the parts of the L3 booklet that deal with these amendments

Read the Case Summary of Georgia v. Randolph, 2006.

L3 HOMEWORK for week 3

Study what had been discussed in class on week 2.

Read the end of the introduction: The Warren Court and the Heyday of Selective incorporation

Grammar: Ex p. 13 n° 1 and 2

Read text n° 2, p. 7: Anchor Babies. Make a list of the important new vocabulary. (Look for definitions in English)

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. (…)


In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.