2 0 2 3 Y E A R I N R E V I E W
The University of Notre Dame in Indiana is home to Notre Dame Law School and the Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative.
The Main Building, with its famous Golden Dome, is a centerpiece of Notre Dame’s past and present. Today, it serves primarily as a headquarters for administration, although it still contains classrooms, harking back to a time when it was a crossroads where students learned, ate meals, and resided.
The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative is housed within Notre Dame Law School and contributes to its broader integrated mission to combine teaching, research, and service within the Catholic tradition.
We envision a world in which society has more peace as a result of robust legal protections and cultural acceptance that treat the freedom of religion or belief as a foundational component of human flourishing for all people.
Our mission is to promote human flourishing by serving as a source of advocacy, counsel, scholarship, training, fellowship, and hope in defense of the fundamental human right to the freedom of religion or belief for all people.
Our work is focused primarily on the following strategic goals:
We seek to step forward institutionally as a global thought leader to foster meaningful public engagement with the ideals of religious liberty. This goal includes promoting the work of scholars across disciplines, both at the University of Notre Dame and elsewhere, who are advancing these ideals.
Through the work of our Religious Liberty Clinic at Notre Dame Law School, we prepare the rising generation of religious liberty scholars, advocates, and builders to defend the fundamental right to the freedom of religion or belief for all people.
We leverage theoretical religious liberty ideals through students’ clinical work to maximize real-world impact in the context of litigation victories and amicus briefs; transactional advising regarding governance of religious organizations; domestic government affairs, including monitoring and providing input on public policy at local, state, and federal levels; and international projects defending against infringements of the freedom of religion or belief, including religious discrimination.
Our pursuit of these goals is animated by five core values which set a standard for our scholarship, our advocacy efforts, the mentorship we provide to the Student Fellows in our Religious Liberty Clinic, and our collaborative efforts with external stakeholders: Service, Collaboration & Fellowship, Professional Formation, Excellence, and Pluralism.
G. Marcus Cole
Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law Founder, Religious Liberty Initiative
Stephanie Barclay Professor of Law Faculty Director, Religious Liberty Initiative
John Meiser Director, Religious Liberty Clinic
Meredith Holland Kessler Staff Attorney, Religious Liberty Clinic
Brendan Wilson
Adjunct Professor of Law
Brett Cavanaugh Transactional Legal Fellow, Religious Liberty Clinic
Francesca Genova Matozzo Legal Fellow, Religious Liberty Clinic
Kimberlie Orr
International Legal Fellow, Religious Liberty Clinic
Mia Tiwana Program Manager
Arienne Calingo Communications Specialist
Laura Sniadecki Legal Assistant
Roger Alford Professor of Law
Gerard V. Bradley Professor of Law
Samuel L. Bray
John N. Matthews Professor of Law Paolo Carozza Professor of Law
Diane Desierto Professor of Law and Global Affairs Director, LL.M. in International Human Rights Law Founding Director, Global Human Rights Clinic
Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C. President-Elect
Associate Professor of Political Science
Nicole Stelle Garnett Associate Dean for External Engagement
John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law
Richard W. Garnett
Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corp. Professor of Law Director, Program on Church, State & Society
Sherif Girgis Associate Professor of Law
Mary Keys Professor of Political Science
Rev. John Paul Kimes Raymond of Peñafort Fellow in Canon Law, de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture
Marah McLeod Associate Professor of Law
Vincent Phillip Muñoz Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Professor of Law
Daniel Philpott Professor of Political Science
Christian Smith
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology
O. Carter Snead
Charles E. Rice Professor of Law Director, de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture
Lord David Alton House of Lords, United Kingdom
Kristina Arriaga CEO, Intrinsic Communications
Louis Brown
Executive Director, Christ Medicus Foundation
Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Director, James Madison Program, Princeton University
Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, Harvard University
Brian Grim
President, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation
Suzan Johnson Cook
Former U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom
Paul E. Kerry
Associate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University
Douglas Laycock
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia
Samah Norquist
Former Chief Advisor for International Religious Freedom, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
Peter Petkoff
Director of the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford
Mona Polacca
International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Elizabeth Prodromou
Visiting Professor, International Studies, Boston College
Jim Rice
National Advisor, Governance and Leadership Consulting, Gallagher Consulting
Jacqueline Rivers
Executive Director, Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies
David Trimble
Vice President for Public Policy and Education, Religious Freedom Institute
Nury Turkel Chair, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
Asma Uddin
Religious Liberty Attorney and Scholar
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi House of Lords, United Kingdom
Paul Yowell
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
Notre Dame Law School Dean G. Marcus Cole founded the Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative in 2020, with a generous gift from the family of Matt and Lindsay Moroun.
The Religious Liberty Initiative is one of the largest academic institutions in the world dedicated to promoting, protecting, and defending religious freedom.
In 2023, the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative held a wide variety of events on the Law School’s campuses in Indiana, Chicago, and London.
These events — panel discussions, book launches, scholarly conferences and symposia, and more — convened the world’s foremost experts and advocates who have made significant contributions to the area of religious freedom.
On March 27, Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative and Nottingham Law School jointly sponsored a workshop on “Religious Freedom and the Law in the UK” at Nottingham Law School.
The workshop featured a series of panel conversations shared by experts in the field of law and religion, followed by opportunities for attendees to enter into further discussion and reflection in small groups. Panels addressed exorcism practices in contemporary England and Wales, the current legal context of these issues, and parallel issues of religious freedom and state duties to safeguard, including in the context of recent conflicts that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The workshop concluded with a
keynote address from Nazir Afzal, former prosecutor within the Crown Prosecution Service.
On June 16, the Religious Liberty Initiative co-sponsored an event with the Oxford Society for Law and Religion at Balliol College of the University of Oxford. The event, “The Judiciary and Religious Literacy,” included a presentation
14 in central London
The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative hosted a book launch and discussion in London for Lord David Alton’s and Ewelina Ochab’s book, State Responses to Crimes of Genocide: What Went Wrong and How to Change It.
The event, organized by Professor Stephanie Barclay, director of the Religious Liberty Initiative, included a fireside chat between Lord Alton, who is a member of the Religious Liberty Initiative’s board of advisors, and Notre Dame Law School Dean G. Marcus Cole. Their conversation was followed by a panel discussion which focused on broadening the themes of the
book from the perspective of three distinguished panelists whose work centers on advocating for human rights. After the panel discussion, there was a reception and surprise
birthday celebration for Lord Alton. The reception featured the artwork of British artist Hannah Thomas, displaying her series of portraits of women affected by genocide.
The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative hosted a panel discussion that explored the dynamic and complex intersection of education and religious liberty. The event featured accomplished attorneys who have taken up cases that pose questions about the interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause in relation to educational programs.
In the discussion, titled “Carson v. Makin, Parental Choice, and Religious Liberty,” the panel of school choice and religious liberty experts offered their insights on the implications and impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Carson v. Makin, which held that religious
schools must be included in privateschool-choice programs.
The panelists included Michael Bindas, senior attorney with the Institute for Justice; Michael Helfand, Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion and professor of law at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law; Michael Moreland, professor of law and religion at Villanova University
Charles Widger School of Law and director of the Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy; and Laura Wolk Slavis, counsel at Becket Law and a 2016 graduate of Notre Dame Law School. Nicole Stelle Garnett, John P. Murphy Foundation professor of law and associate dean for external engagement at Notre Dame Law School, organized and moderated the panel discussion.
July 27 to 29 at the University of Oxford
Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative and Brigham Young University’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies hosted an enriching conference at the University of Oxford that gathered more than 150 participants. The conference attendees consisted of international law and human rights experts from around the world, including Australia, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay.
The conference, which was titled, “Civilizational Perspectives on Human Dignity for Everyone, Everywhere,” was organized in honor of United Nations Human Dignity Day. The discussants
September 7
explored human dignity through various lenses, offering insights into human dignity as an extension of human rights, the legal dimensions of human dignity, and the power of artistic expression in promoting awareness, among several other topics.
Thomas Berg explores how religious liberty can reduce polarization in an event discussing his book, Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age
In Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age, author Thomas Berg shows us how reaffirming religious freedom cultivates the good of individuals and society. In a book talk hosted by Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative on September 7, Berg spoke about the importance of religious liberty and how it can reduce polarization. The second half of the event included a discussion with Notre Dame Law School professors Stephanie Barclay, Rick Garnett, and Sherif Girgis.
After explaining the features of polarization and the societal benefits of diverse religious practices, Berg offered practical counsel on balancing religious freedom against other essential values. In his book, he traces multiple parallels between two somewhat unlikely groups, same-sex couples and religious conservatives, giving reasons to protect both groups.
Scan to access more information on Thomas Berg’s book, Religious Liberty in a Polarized Age
The Black Church & Religious Freedom Conference celebrates the Black Church for advocating for
In honor of the Black Church’s profound influence on serving as a champion for religious freedom, we hosted the Black Church & Religious Freedom Conference at the University of Notre Dame, in collaboration with the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies. Dr. Jacqueline Rivers, the executive director of the Seymour Institute and a member of the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative’s board of advisors, played a key role in organizing the conference.
The two-day event sought to recognize the University of Notre
Dame as a place where people of different faiths can come together to pursue religious freedom and to establish Notre Dame as a key player in the fight for racial justice.
The conference wove together a rich tapestry of insightful panels and speakers, featuring panel discussions on “Religious Freedom & Racial Justice”; “The Black Church’s Response to LGBTQ+ Issues”; “Religious Ministries Reaching Vulnerable Black Populations”; “Violence in the Black Community, BLM and Religious Freedom”; and “Education, School Boards and Religious Freedom.”
Eugene
At the banquet and award dinner, former U.S. Representative Bobby Rush was honored for his transformative leadership.
October 27 and 28
The Law & Religion Junior Faculty Conference, held at at Notre Dame Law School’s Chicago campus, sought to advance scholarship that contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamic relationship between law and religion. The conference participants consisted of our winning junior scholars, as well as distinguished senior scholars in the field of law and religion. Each junior scholar presented their individual papers at the conference and was paired up with a senior scholar.
We hosted “Religious Liberty: The Key to Healing LGBT Divides” on October 26. The event was co-sponsored by the LGBT Law Forum and featured a conversation with Reverend Marian EdmondsAllen, the executive director of Parity, a New York City-based national nonprofit that works at the intersection of faith and LGBTQIA+ concerns.
Edmonds-Allen sat with Dean G. Marcus Cole to share details on her faith journey as a member of clergy and the LGBTQIA+ community. She spoke about how learning she was a part of the LGBTQIA+
community at the age of 40 impacted her traditional, Christian beliefs. Edmonds-Allen also spoke about her journey as an activist working with LGBTQIA+ youth experiencing homelessness in Utah.
Meeting Laura Warburton, a legislative aide who is a Latter-day Saint, changed her life profoundly and served as a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment for Edmonds-Allen. Together, they have played an integral role in amplifying the voices of homeless youth and calling upon the national and international communities to protect the LGBTQIA+ community.
November 30
We hosted the event, “The Rising Tide of Antisemitism on American Campuses and Beyond” at the McCartan Courtroom. The event, co-organized by Notre Dame Law School Professors Avishalom Tor and Stephanie Barclay, sought to raise awareness of the need to protect Jewish students and reinforce a culture of respect, dignity, and safety amid the surge in antisemitism across U.S. college campuses.
Professor Ruth Wisse, the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Comparative Literature Emerita at Harvard University, delivered the keynote address. The panelists included
Ken Marcus, Esq., chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; the Most Reverend Robert J. McClory, bishop of the Diocese of Gary; and Professor Jeffrey Veidlinger, the Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. Barclay, who serves as the faculty director of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative, moderated the panel discussion. Together, the speakers presented a complex tapestry of perspectives from historical, legal, and theological lenses.
December 4 at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway
Bellwether International Religious Freedom Gala
In partnership with Bellwether International and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, we held the second international religious freedom art exhibition, awards ceremony, and panel discussion at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway.
The event aimed to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the winners from Bellwether’s art contest, centered on the theme, “Honoring the Uyghur People and Culture.”
The UK Parliament hosted a commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The event centered on the theme, “Freedom of Religion or Belief Going Forward.” Professor Stephanie Barclay spoke at the event and focused on recent human rights violations by the government in Nicaragua.
Honoring the Uyghur People on the 75th Anniversary of the Genocide Convention
We hosted an event with Stop Uyghur Genocide, titled, “Honouring the Uyghur People Seeking Accountability Amidst the Uyghur Genocide on the 75th Anniversary of the Genocide Convention.”
The event took place at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway and highlighted Uyghur poetry, music, and dance in honor of the resilience of the Uyghur people and the 75th Anniversary of the Genocide Convention.
Mr. Hamid Sabi, Counsel to the Uyghur Tribunal, gave the opening remarks. The event featured a
discussion between Tahir Hamut Izgil, a distinguished Uyghur poet and author of the memoir Waiting to be Arrested at Night; Rahima Mahmut, the executive director of Stop Uyghur Genocide; and Professor Stephanie Barclay about Tahir’s life and memoir. The discussion was followed by a cultural performance from the Miras Silk Road Collective, featuring dancer Tara Pandeya.
In July 2023, we hosted the third annual Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit in London. The summit is an annual gathering of the world’s leading defenders of religious freedom.
The three days of the summit in London featured more than 60 speakers who participated in 14 panel discussions on topics such as the rise of persecution against religious minorities, new threats to religious cultural heritage and sacred sites, and rebuilding faith communities after COVID.
Each panel reflected a diversity of people and viewpoints, with panelists from the United Kingdom, United States, Spain, Chile, Brazil, France, Ireland, Greece, Armenia, China, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Canada.
The lineup of speakers at the summit also represented several faith communities, including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hopi and Havasupai tribes, Coptic Orthodox Church, Bruderhof, Sikh, Jewish, Muslim, and Roman Catholic faith traditions.
In her welcome remarks in London, Professor Stephanie Barclay, faculty director of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative, introduced the theme of the 2023 Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit, “Protecting Religious Liberty in a Rapidly Evolving Society.”
“This year’s summit addresses a wide variety of pressing issues related to freedom of religion or belief, from both an ecumenical perspective and within an academic paradigm,” Barclay said. “While some religious liberty issues are the same, there are
new challenges, threats, and contexts to consider, such as social media and trends in the corporate space.”
“This fight for religious freedom is a global fight and it requires global resources,” said Dean G. Marcus Cole, founder of the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative. “The University of Notre Dame is proud that we have a footprint that reaches and spans the globe. And so we have a platform from which we can conduct this fight for religious freedom.”
The Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit is an annual gathering of the world’s leading defenders of discussions, keynote speeches, and cross-cultural experiences, the Religious Liberty Summit stimulates engaging advocates, and religious leaders about the future of religious liberty in the United States and around the world. one individual is honored with the Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty in recognition of achievement in
Throughout the summit, the panelists and keynote speakers explored the intricacies of religious freedom and expression and First Amendment protections in a variety of contexts, such as in business, law, social media, government, education, and religious cultural heritage.
For Perla Khattar, a doctoral candidate at Notre Dame Law School and fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the summit provided a platform for her to raise awareness of religious liberty issues taking place in her home country, Lebanon.
Khattar served as a panelist in the discussion, “Living up to Our FoRB International Commitments,” in which she and her fellow panelists addressed several themes pertaining to the freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), including whether the acronym ‘FoRB’ is useful, failures to live up to our FoRB commitments, best practices, and ambitions for the future in terms of advancing religious freedom on a global scale.
“I became passionate about promoting religious liberty due to my personal lived experience growing up in the Middle East,”
she said. “As a religious minority myself, I witnessed firsthand the consequences of having one’s freedom curtailed and saw the importance of advocating for the rights of individuals to practice their faith without fear of persecution or discrimination. My involvement in the area of religious liberty stemmed from a deep sense of empathy and a desire to ensure that everyone, regardless of their beliefs or nonbelief, can enjoy the fundamental human right to religious freedom.”
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, spoke on the panel discussion for “Religious Responses to the Rise of Autocracy.” He provided his perspectives on developing democracy in order to see measurable social and economic changes, as well as to pave avenues for the poor and young people to practice their faith.
Kukah has been actively addressing and strongly condemning Nigeria’s atrocious anti-Christian persecution. The acts of violence, motivated by religious hatred, include incidents of kidnapping, mob killings, child labor, human trafficking, and marginalization disproportionately aimed at the
Christian community in Nigeria. In the midst of rising violent extremism and human rights abuses in the country,
“A lot of the conversation politics, and identity in Nigeria who has power and who does Religion has been very much an instrument of power and Religion is not able to do to do. How do we dismantle become weapons of oppression?”
Bishop Matthew Kukah,
religious freedom. Through panel engaging conversations between scholars, world. Each year during the summit, in preserving religious liberty.
the Nigerian government has demonstrated complacency of such atrocities against Nigerian Christians.
conversation around religion, Nigeria revolves around does not have power. much manipulated as and staying in power. do what it is supposed dismantle systems that have oppression?”
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto
Each year during the Religious Liberty Summit, one individual is honored with the Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty in recognition of achievement in preserving religious liberty.
At the 2023 Religious Liberty Summit Gala Dinner in London, the Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty was presented to Lord David Alton of Liverpool, a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom.
For more than four decades, Alton has been a leading international voice on issues including the environment, human rights, and religious liberty. He has used his long career in Parliament to shine a spotlight on international threats to religious freedom as well as human rights abuses and genocidal atrocities against vulnerable populations across the world.
“To be awarded the 2023 Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty is a tremendous and singular honor. It means a great deal to me,” Alton said at the gala. “Through serving on the board of the Religious Liberty Initiative I have come to know and deeply admire Dean Marcus Cole and the team in Notre Dame’s outstanding and hugely respected School of Law.”
Alton is the third recipient of the Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty. Nury Turkel, a Uyghur-American attorney
and Commissioner to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, received the inaugural award at Notre Dame in 2021. Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard Law School and former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, received the award in Rome in 2022.
John E. Coons, professor emeritus of law at the University of California, Berkeley, received the Religious Liberty Initiative’s 2023 Scholarship Award. Coons has focused his work as a legal scholar on advancing parental school choice, social justice, and respect for the dignity of parents — especially for families on the margins.
In addition, the summit included keynote addresses by Nazila Ghanea, professor of international human rights law at the University of Oxford and special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Fiona Bruce, the UK Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief.
Ghanea spoke about the limitations of her mandate and unpacked the meaning of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that we all have the right to our own beliefs, to have a religion, have no religion, or to change it. Her keynote centered on human rights issues and their implications and negative effects on certain communities whose access to the law has been trampled on.
Scan to watch a video about the 2023 Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit.
Bruce delivered the closing keynote address on the second day of the summit. She shared her reflections from her role as chair of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. She highlighted that violence motivated by religious bias continues to increase across the world, so we need to be bolder and braver to challenge such violations.
In 2023, our Religious Liberty Clinic continued its mission forming students to be leaders in the legal profession as they worked to advise religious individuals and organizations and to advocate for the right to freedom of religion or belief in courts and beyond. Last Fall, the Clinic expanded to include 25 students — more than any year before — across three sections that offer students the opportunity to learn and participate in distinct areas of legal practice: litigation, transactional advising, and internationally focused work to combat global religious persecution.
Students in our litigation section participated in cases across the country, which included helping Professor Stephanie Barclay argue in support of Oak Flat before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; leading the federal appeal of a prison minister who was banned from a County jail based on the Sheriff’s disagreement with his religious views; and helping secure the approval of and defending the nation’s first faith-based charter school. In all, our Clinic filed more than 15 briefs in courts across the United States, including two amicus briefs filed in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Students in our transactional section worked directly with more than a dozen religious nonprofit organizations to advise them on tax, corporate, transactional, employment, and strategic issues to understand and maximize legal protections for their religious freedom. Students provided more than a dozen memoranda advising clients on particular questions related to their religious freedom, including questions related to bond financing, employment law, tax structuring, and many other issues; helped religiously affiliated groups form nonprofit entities; and obtained tax-exempt status for non-profit entities that were formed.
Students in our international section used various tools available in international law and policy to confront religious persecution, including by: representing several asylum seekers fleeing religious persecution in immigration court, assisting in a case defending a Muslim artist in Nigeria convicted for blasphemy, and preparing a case on behalf of groups suffering from religious persecution in South America before the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Students also worked with members of the UK Parliament to advocate for imprisoned religious leaders on a delegation to Nepal and presented findings to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees about reforms needed to decrease persecution of displaced Yezidi populations.
Apache Stronghold v. United States was one of the first cases that the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic supported when the Clinic was newly established in the 2020-21 academic year. For the past two years, faculty and students from the Religious Liberty Clinic have stood with members of the Apache tribe to protect Oak Flat, a sacred site in Arizona that is threatened by a massive copper mining operation.
Professor Stephanie Barclay participated in oral argument before the en banc Ninth Circuit on March 21, 2023 in Pasadena, California. She represented as amici the National Congress of American Indians, an Apache tribal elder, and other groups that protect Native American cultural heritage and rights.
The Religious Liberty Clinic filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and Carol Logan, an elder from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, to highlight the troubling history of governmental destruction of Indigenous sacred sites and to reject a narrow interpretation of Texas’ religious freedom law by the City of San Antonio.
The sacred site threatened with destruction in this case is a bend in the Yanaguana, where the Lipan-Apache people have gathered for prayer and worship for centuries. The brief was filed in support of Gary Perez and Matilde Torres, two practicing members of the Lipan-Apache Native American church.
For over a century, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa have operated schools that provide an authentically Catholic education, forming students to be engaged, productive, and conscientious members of their community. Our Clinic has assisted these educators in an innovative effort to extend this rich tradition throughout the state by opening a virtual charter school, especially to serve rural areas and underserved communities and families.
In June, Oklahoma approved St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to be the nation’s first religious charter school. The school is scheduled to open in the Fall of 2024 and will provide a much-needed opportunity for many Oklahoma children who lack robust educational choices or find traditional schooling difficult due to learning differences. Two lawsuits have since sought to close St. Isidore’s doors before the school can even open to children and families in the state. Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic and Professor Nicole Stelle Garnett assisted in the school’s application and approval process. The Clinic is now defending the school in the lawsuits alongside a team of attorneys from Dechert LLP and Perri Dunn PLLC.
On July 31, 2023, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and others filed a lawsuit on behalf of Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee (OKPLAC) and several individuals, seeking to prevent St. Isidore from opening.
Our Clinic is helping defend St. Isidore and to protect its right to offer a unique educational vision that will enrich the diversity of choices that charter-school programs offer parents. As St. Isidore has argued to the court, the First Amendment prohibits Oklahoma from enforcing the kind of discrimination against religious educators that the plaintiffs seek to impose.
On October 20, 2023, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sued the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board for welcoming this partnership with faith-based educators. Drummond’s lawsuit asks the Oklahoma Supreme Court to deny these critical educational opportunities solely because St. Isidore is faith-based.
St. Isidore intervened in the lawsuit to help defend its fundamental right to contribute to the array of educational options made available to families through Oklahoma’s charter-school program. St. Isidore seeks to defend its fundamental right to contribute to the “diverse array of educational options” made available to families through Oklahoma’s charter-school program.
“St. Isidore will enable the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa to provide a rigorous, and authentically Catholic, learning environment to students who would otherwise lack access to a Catholic school.”
Nicole Stelle Garnett, Associate Dean for External Engagement and John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law
“Helping protect Mr. Jarrard’s right to hold his own religious views without fear of government interference and disagreement has implications for all others who seek to spread their own religious message and live according to their beliefs.”
Jared Huber, 3L, student
fellow
“Drafting Jarrard’s opening brief challenged me to delve deeply into the trial record and to consider a variety of substantive and procedural questions that I had not focused on in my other work.”
Nathaniel J. Reyes, 3L, 2022-23 student fellow
Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic represents Reverend Stephen Jarrard, an Evangelist of the Church of Christ who has been excluded from a county jail’s volunteer ministry program because of his views on baptism.
For nearly two decades, Jarrard has served as a volunteer minister at jail and prison facilities in Georgia. Through his ministry, Jarrard shares God’s word and the Gospel with prisoners by engaging them in discussions about the Bible. As a member of the Church of Christ, Jarrard believes that baptism is necessary for salvation and must be performed by full immersion.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office invites and encourages members of the community to minister to inmates at the County Jail. But County officials, Sheriff Johnny
Moats and former Chief Jailer Al Sharp, have barred Jarrard from the Jail’s ministry program because they personally reject his views on baptism. According to Sheriff Moats, the County’s “stance” is that inmates “can wait until after release” to be baptized “since it is not a requirement for salvation.”
Jarrard was told he could not return to minister in the Jail unless he stopped teaching his views on baptism.
In January 2020, Jarrard sued the County officials to challenge that exclusion. The trial court dismissed Jarrard’s First Amendment claim. Our Clinic was retained to help lead Jarrard’s appeal of that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. As the Clinic has made clear, the First Amendment prohibits government officials like Moats and Sharp from denying
benefits, opportunities, or access to government facilities to a person merely because he has expressed religious views which the officials dislike.
The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic represents Jarrard on appeal, alongside Zack Greenamyre of Mitchell Shapiro Greenamyre & Funt, LLP and Gerald Weber of Atlanta.
Clinic Director John Meiser will argue the appeal before the Eleventh Circuit on April 19, 2024, in Atlanta.
In October 2023, Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic filed an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon case St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church et al. v. City of Brookings, advocating for religious organizations’ freedom to serve the hungry. The brief was filed in support of the church, which has long served those in need in Brookings, Oregon. The city has now discriminated against St. Timothy’s by applying its land-use regulations to burden the church’s religious exercise, including its provision of meal services and other ministries. St. Timothy’s has challenged this discrimination.
Consistent with its Christian faith, St. Timothy’s has served those in need for decades by operating healthcare clinics and providing basic necessities to members of its community, with the approval and even encouragement of the local government. Since 2009, St. Timothy’s has offered free meals at lunchtime to the hungry. After other churches stopped offering meals in response to the pandemic, St. Timothy’s increased its lunchtime meal service to six days per week in order to meet the growing needs of the Brookings community. Following gripes from neighbors about St. Timothy’s ministries, the City Council responded by deciding that St. Timothy’s was now in violation of the local zoning code. The City also amended its code to require local churches to apply for a permit to offer meal services for those in need. Because the permit allows churches to provide meals only twice per week, St. Timothy’s now faces a choice: comply with the ordinance by giving up its religious exercise of providing meals to those in need more than twice per week, or risk facing a discriminatory enforcement action by continuing its critical ministry.
“As a Christian community, St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church seeks to live out the call in the Gospel to seek and serve Christ in all people by loving one another. The law protects the church’s freedom to do so by ministering to those in need.”
Meredith
Holland Kessler, staff attorney, Religious Liberty Clinic
Students in our international section are engaged in constitutional advising in efforts to strengthen the religious liberty rights of the Constitution of Belize. The Clinic’s work has focused on advising and providing research to the representative of the Belize Council of Churches on the areas of religious freedom and education. In this context, our student fellows, along with current Notre Dame Law School J.S.D. student María Paz Madrid San Martín, have prepared reports studying the current legal and constitutional protection of both religious freedom and education. The purpose of the Clinic’s work is to propose to the client a way in which both rights can be better protected in the process.
Starting in November 2022, Belize began a process of Constitutional revision to make sure that the provisions meet the needs of the people of Belize. This process is also serving to educate the population about the meaning of the Constitution, the importance of the protection of fundamental rights and freedom, and how the idiosyncrasy of Belize is part of the Constitution.
A group of student fellows in the Religious Liberty Clinic worked with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief to draft a report that was submitted to the UK Parliament. This report aims to assist the Nepalese government in ensuring that religious freedom is fully respected throughout Nepal. The UK Parliament went public with the report in September 2023 at the UK House of Commons.
The student fellows worked alongside human rights attorney Mark Hill KC as part of a parliamentary delegation exploring the state of religious liberty in Nepal, in partnership with Bellwether International.
In October 2023, student fellows in the Global Religious Persecution and Immigration section of the Religious Liberty Clinic traveled to Nepal with the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance to investigate whether anti-proselytism provisions in Article 26(3) of the Constitution of Nepal and section 158 of the Criminal Code
could be revised in compliance with international law.
While the Nepalese Constitution nominally protects religious liberty, bans on proselytization still exist, and local police and lower courts often misinterpret laws to punish religious individuals for living according to their faith.
“Through the Global Religious Persecution & Immigration section of the Religious Liberty Clinic, our students have a tangible impact on confronting religious persecution through the various mechanisms available at the international level.”
Kimberlie Orr, international legal fellow, Religious Liberty Clinic
In 2023, some of our Religious Liberty Clinic student fellows, in cooperation with ADF International, assisted in drafting an amicus curiae brief to be submitted in the case of Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Nigerian Sufi Muslim who was previously convicted and sentenced to death for allegations of blasphemy and who is currently appealing his case to the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Daisy An, a former student fellow who was involved in the Religious Liberty Clinic during the 2022-23 academic year, said, “Yahaya Sharif-Aminu’s conviction in Nigeria was an egregious violation of international human rights. Working on his case was deeply fulfilling and I am proud of the role that the Religious Liberty Initiative played in defending his case.”
The brief argues that the blasphemy law under which Sharif-Aminu is being prosecuted violates the right to freedom of religion or belief under international law, among other protected rights.
“It is not only right, but a rare and precious privilege, to lend our voices to the chorus of advocates championing Sharif-Aminu’s freedom.”
Christopher Ostertag, 3L, student fellow
Our faculty fellows were invited to work with the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative based on their excellent scholarship and contributions to the fight for religious freedom domestically and abroad. In 2023, they participated in several speaking engagements, and their work was featured in a wide variety of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Bloomberg, The Economist, and AP News, among many other news outlets.
Stephanie Barclay published “Replacing Smith” in the Yale Law Journal Forum. Professor Lawrence Solum highly recommended her article on his Legal Theory Blog and listed it as one of the “Top Ten Downloads of 2023.” She also published “The Religion Clauses after Kennedy v. Bremerton School District” in the Iowa Law Review. Her draft article, Constitutional Rights as Protected Reasons, was selected for an award and presentation at the FedSoc AALS Young Legal Scholars Paper Presentation, and this paper was also competitively selected for presentation at the Women in Legal Philosophy Conference at Villanova Law School. Her draft article with Kurt Lash, A Crust of Bread: Religious Resistance and the Fourteenth Amendment, was selected for presentation at the 15th Annual Originalism Works-in-Progress Conference at the University of San Diego. Her work “The Historical Origins of Judicial Religious Exemptions,” was cited in the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision in Peter Vlaming v. West Point School Board, et al
Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. was elected as the University of Notre Dame’s 18th president, effective July 1, 2024. Father Dowd currently serves as vice president and associate provost for interdisciplinary initiatives at Notre Dame, a position he has held since 2021. He is also an associate professor of political science and serves as a Fellow and Trustee of the University and religious superior of the Holy Cross community at Notre Dame.
Nicole Stelle Garnett organized a conference at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile on “Educational Pluralism and the Caribbean” in May 2023. She also released a new Manhattan Institute report on the persistence of unconstitutional religious discrimination in state programs across several areas, including education, social services, and community-development and tax policies.
Vincent Phillip Muñoz published “Constructing the Establishment Clause,” with his former Notre Dame student Kate Hardiman Rhodes in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. He also spent the year giving lectures on his recent book, Religious Liberty and the American Founding, at the University of Texas, University of Virginia, Georgetown University, and the University of Wisconsin.
Sherif Girgis published Living Traditionalism in the New York University Law Review. He also published “Civil Liberties Don’t Impede the Common Good— They Advance It” in The Dispatch. He provided commentary on Robert P. George’s Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality on its 30th anniversary.
Diane Desierto, the founding director of the newly established Global Human Rights Clinic at Notre Dame Law School, joined the delegation to South Africa in November 2023 to honor the African roots of the Law School’s Human Rights LL.M. Program. The historic trip aligned with the 50th anniversary of the creation of Notre Dame’s international program in human rights law.
Richard Garnett was the 2023 recipient of the Pope Pius XI Award for Contributions toward the Building Up of a True Catholic Social Science from the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. In October 2023, he presented the annual Hesburgh Lecture of the Notre Dame Club of Utah, where he discussed “Religious Freedom in America Today.”
O. Carter Snead has been appointed as the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law, a new University Named Chair honoring the legacy of the late Notre Dame Law School professor Charles E. Rice. In addition, Harvard University Press, working with the University of Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid, Spain, has released a Spanish translation of Snead’s book, What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics
Paolo Carozza gave a lecture at the University of Florence, sponsored by the Jean Monnet Chair and the Constitutional Law of Technology (ColTech) program, on “Human Rights and the Regulation of Digital Information Platforms.” He also spoke at the University of Oxford Ethics in AI Institute’s colloquium on “The Meta Oversight Board and the Self-Regulation of Tech Companies.”
Samuel L. Bray has a new draft essay, “The Influence of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on the Common Law,” that he is contributing to a book honoring Emory University School of Law professor John Witte Jr. In addition to serving as a faculty fellow, he is a McDonald Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.
Forming the next generation to defend religious freedom is of central importance to the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative. Our Religious Liberty Clinic provides law students with numerous opportunities to protect the fundamental right to the freedom of religion or belief for all people. Our student fellows have also achieved several other milestones beyond the Clinic.
Imburgia represents client in his asylum proceedings before the Executive Office for
Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Clinic represented an Iranian convert to Christianity in his asylum proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
Religious Liberty Clinic student fellow Anthony Imburgia represented the client before the Santa Ana, California Immigration Court at a hearing in September. Student fellows Rohan Vaidya and Holly Fulbright also assisted with the case.
Athanasius Sirilla, a former student fellow in our Religious Liberty Clinic, placed 2nd in an annual writing competition led by Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State & Society. His paper, “The ‘Non-Ministerial’ Exception,” examines what First Amendment protections, if any, exist for religious organizations outside the ministerial exception context. The writing competition aims to encourage scholarship related to the intersection of church, state, and society.
Religious Liberty Clinic student fellows and Notre Dame Moot Court members, third-year law student Christopher Ostertag and second-year law student Alicia Armstrong, came back from Milan strong with a victory at the International Moot Court Competition in Law and Religion. The Notre Dame Moot Court won best team in the SCOTUS division of the competition. Ostertag also took home the best oralist award in the SCOTUS division.
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Religious liberty is a fundamental human right, and the protection of religious liberty is a global issue.
The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative has the potential to change the world by promoting and defending freedom of conscience for people and institutions around the world.
G. Marcus Cole
Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law
Notre Dame Law School