Religion, Constitution, and Human Rights: An Overview of Muslim Life and Religious Freedom in the United States

<p class="abstrak">The United States Constitution affirms that religious freedom is a fundamental human right regardless of religion. It is upheld by every citizen and the country. However, the political policies in a particular country are often considered to paralyze fundamental rights in religion, causing various problems in Muslim life at the social and political levels. This research aims to analyze the intersectional dynamic of religion, constitution, and Muslim human rights towards life and religious freedom in the United States. This qualitative research uses the lens of political approach. Primary data are taken from the United States Constitution and policies, and supported by secondary data from various books, scientific articles, and news. The results suggest that religious sentiment (Islam) is found in the political policies of the United States. Currently, unconstitutional and discriminative policies are gradually removed because it triggers the social and political chaos. The United States constitution strives towards a pluralist and multi-religious country rebuilding that is safe and peaceful for religion as guaranteed by the constitution. In fact, the public and political spaces have been occupied by many Muslims in an effort to resolve the problems of state and human rights, including the religious sentiment issues.</p>

The Truth Project

The United States Constitution grants Americans the “right to a speedy and public trial,” with an assumption that the trial is impartial and fair. Recent data suggest a nontrivial number of cases fail to meet this standard. During interrogations, suspects can be presented with false evidence, long interrogations can undermine a suspect’s cognitive ability, and minimization tactics often mislead suspects into believing justice is on their side. These dynamics facilitate false confessions and wrongful convictions, which are common in the United States and globally. We argue the current approaches to understand and predict innocence in legal cases are insufficient and interdisciplinary research is required to prevent innocent people from going to jail. In this review, we cover research on wrongful convictions and false confessions, ending with The Truth Project ( www.truth-project.io ), a new global framework to connect scholars and facilitate research into behavioral patterns of innocence.

Age Limitations for Presidential Candidates? Exploring Student Perspectives Using Classroom Debates

Ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election, Donald Trump (age 73) and his primary opponent, Joseph Biden (age 76) received extensive criticism regarding the aptness of their candidacies based upon their current ages. While the United States Constitution requires candidates to have “attained the age of thirty-five years”, no age cap for presidential candidates exists. In response to timely public discussion, undergraduate interprofessional gerontology students worked in assigned groups to prepare to debate either in favor of, or in opposition to a constitutional amendment capping the age of presidential candidates. Following classroom debates, course faculty moderated in-depth conversation examining cogent arguments made throughout the debates. After attending this session, participants will understand the logistics of planning in-class debates, moderating post-debate student discussions, and evaluation methods of student debate performance and on a corresponding reflective writing assignment. Student and faculty takeaways and prospective classroom debate ideas will be provided.

One Chief Executive or Many?

This chapter compares the unitary executive at the federal level with the plural executive at the state level. The fifty state constitutions and the United States Constitution share a “surface similarity” in describing the authority of their chief executives: They both vest executive power in a governor or president. But in practice, there are many differences. At the national level, the US Constitution places all executive authority in one president who controls the executive-branch officers through the singular authority to choose all cabinet members. What’s called a unitary executive largely is one, given the president’s authority to hire and fire these executive branch officers. Contrast the state side. In response to the states’ colonial experiences with a monarch, many of the first state constitutions created weak executive branches. All but one of the original state constitutions also mandated that the governor work alongside an executive council. In many states, constitutional executive offices—secretary, treasurer, auditor—are often chosen by the legislature. The rise of the state attorneys general as a source of local and national power offers one illustration of the salience of the plural executive.

The Truth Project

The United States Constitution grants Americans the “right to a speedy and public trial,” with an assumption that the trial is impartial and fair. Recent data suggest a nontrivial number of cases fail to meet this standard. During interrogations, suspects can be presented with false evidence, long interrogations can undermine a suspect’s cognitive ability, and minimization tactics often mislead suspects into believing justice is on their side. These dynamics facilitate false confessions and wrongful convictions, which are common in the United States and globally. We argue that the current approaches to understand and predict innocence in legal cases are insufficient and interdisciplinary research is required to prevent innocent people from going to jail. In this review, we cover research on wrongful convictions and false confessions, ending with The Truth Project (www.truth-project.io), a new global framework to connect scholars and facilitate research into behavioral patterns of innocence.

REGULATING EXPRESSION AND EQUALITY IN COLLEGIATE ESPORTS

Competitive professional computer gaming or “eSports” has grown rapidly over the past decade, and has extended into collegiate play, where educational institutions have begun sponsoring eSports teams, leagues, and events. However, the expansion of eSports has been accompanied by concerns regarding the online gaming culture from which eSports proceeds. Copious research establishes that women are routinely subjected to gender-based harassment in computer games and game-related activity. In the context of American collegiate eSports, this implicates the law of educational equality known as “Title IX.” Institutions subject to Title IX are required to maintain a learning environment in which educational opportunities are not impeded by sexual harassment, which will be required of eSports as it has long been required for physical sports. Yet, unlike sports played in physical space, computer games are necessarily mediated by software, which has consistently been held to constitute protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In this paper we examine the First Amendment constraints on the regulation of eSport computer games under Title IX. We argue that to the extent that choices among gaming content may be dictated by the constraints of Title IX, care must be exercised to accommodate both the statutory requirements of educational opportunity and the constitutional requirements for expressive freedom.

United States Supreme Court Approach to First Amendment Freedom of Religion in Response to the COVID Pandemic

The 2020-21 Covid 19 Pandemic has raised many legal challenges as governments world-wide have struggled to deal with the public health and safety challenges of Covid. At the center of many of these decisions is the need to balance public health protections against other rights that have been infringed by legislation related to Covid Pandemic restrictions. One of the most important rights that have been implicated by Covid restrictions in the United States has been in the area of restrictions on religious worship which implicates the right to freedom of religion as enshrined in the United States Constitution. During the time of the Pandemic the United States Supreme Court, as the final arbiter of the United States Constitution has had to work to balance the interests of the government in protecting public health and safety with the right to freedom of religion. The Supreme Court’s approach to these cases reflects the difficulties inherent in balancing two such important interests in difficult circumstances and also represents the reality of the shifting majority in the Court as a result of new Justices appointed under the administration of Donald Trump. The Court has transitioned from a majority that opposed restrictions on governmental action during COVID to a majority that is more willing to stop governmental action that is deemed to be in violation of the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment.

Pregnancy in incarcerated women: need for national legislation to standardize care

Objective This review examined prenatal care provided to incarcerated women to identify areas where improvement is needed, and examined current legislative gaps such that they can be addressed to ensure uniform templates of care be instituted at women’s prisons. Content Data were compiled from 2000-2021 citations in PubMed and Google Scholar using the keywords: prison AND prenatal care AND pregnancy. Summary and Outlook Although the right to health care of inmates is protected under the Eight Amendment to the United States Constitution, the literature suggests that prenatal care of incarcerated individuals is variable and would benefit from uniform federal standards. Inconsistency in reporting requirements has created a scarcity of data for this population, making standardization of care difficult. Although incarceration may result in improved access to care that women may not have had in their community, issues of shackling, inadequate prenatal diet, lack of access to comprehensive mental health management, and poor availability of opioid use disorder (OUD) management such as Medication Assisted Therapy (MAT) amd Opioid Treatment Programs (OTP), history of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are just a few areas that must be focused on in prenatal care. After birth, mother-baby units (MBU) to enhance maternal-fetal bonding also should be a prison standard. In addition to implementing templates of care specifically directed to this subgroup of women, standardized state and federal legislation are recommended to ensure that uniform standards of prenatal care are enforced and also to encourage the reporting of data regarding pregnancy and neonatal outcomes in correctional facilities.

Personalized Law and Equal Protection

This chapter examines personalized law from the perspective of the Equal Protection Clause in the United States Constitution. Some classifications of people, when made for the purpose of differentiated treatment, are subject to stifling doctrinal constraints. Could such classifications be made under personalized law? The chapter argues that personalized law mitigates the constitutional concerns relating to suspect classifications. Treating people as individuals, using multi-attribute data-weighed tailoring, and not as identical members in a certain class, is permissible because members of the class are not singled out for class-specific uniform treatment. The chapter examines landmark Supreme Court cases on sex and race classifications, showing that the limits set by the Court and the narrow permission it granted for some uses of classifications, all fit well within a scheme of personalized law. In addition, the chapter examines problems of unintended disparate impact that could arise under personalized law, and demonstrates the unique advantage of the algorithmic methods fueling personalized law in reducing and eliminating such effects.

Cyberspace and Libel: A Dangerous Balance for Physicians

Freedom of speech and expression is one of the core tenets of modern societies. It was deemed to be so fundamentally essential to early American life that it was inscribed as the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Over the past century, the rise of modern life also marked the rise of the digital era and age of social media. Freedom of speech thus transitioned from print to electronic media. Access to such content is almost instantaneous and available to a vast audience. From social media to online rating websites, online defamation may cause irreparable damage to a physician’s reputation and practice. It is especially relevant in these times of political turbulence where the battle to separate facts from misinformation has started a debate about the responsibility of social media. The historical context of libel and its applicability in the age of increasing online presence is important for physicians since they are also bound by duty to protect the privacy of their patients. The use of public rating sites and social media will continue to be important for physicians, as online presence and incidents of defamation impact the practice of medicine.