Significant Supreme Court Rulings
McCollum v. Board of Education (1948)
Invalidated an Illinois program allowing students
to be released from regular secular instruction so
that the students could receive religion instruction
on school premises.
Zorach v. Clauson (1952)
Upheld a New York program allowing students
to be released from regular secular instruction so
that the students could receive religious instruction
off school premises.
Walz v. Tax Commission (1970)
Upheld a New York state tax exemption for property
owned by non-profit organizations, including houses
of worship, because the exemption extended to all
charitable organizations, not just religious ones.
Larkin v. Grendel’s Den (1982)
Invalidated a Massachusetts law giving churches and
schools the authority to stop nearby restaurants from
obtaining liquor licenses because the law transferred
governmental power to religious entities.
Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc. (1985)
Invalidated a Connecticut law that provided Sabbath
observers with an absolute right not to work on their
Sabbath because the law imposed unreasonable costs
on employers and other employees.
Corporation of Presiding Bishops v. Amos (1987)
Upheld an exemption for religious organizations
from a federal law prohibiting religious discrimination
in the workplace because the law had imposed a
burden on religious organizations that it did not
impose on secular ones.
Employment Division v. Smith (1990)
Upheld the denial of unemployment compensation
to two Native American drug rehabilitation
counselors who had been dismissed because
they had ingested the hallucinogen peyote
as part of a religious ritual.
Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet (1994)
Invalidated New York’s creation of a special
public-school district for a village populated
primarily by an Orthodox Jewish community.
City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
Held that the Religious Freedom Restoration
Act could not constitutionally apply to state
and local governments.
Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005)
Upheld the institutionalized-persons provision
of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized
Persons Act because the provision eased the
difficulties prisoners and others confined to
institutions have in exercising their religious rights.
Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal (2006)
Held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
protects the right of a small religious group to import
and use hoasca tea, a hallucinogenic substance used in
the group’s religious rituals.
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