Yoga Spirituality in the Context of US Institutions

This chapter examines yoga as a spiritual and a social practice. It considers three institutional contexts for interpreting yoga spirituality: religion, law, and education. Social institutions such as public schools and courts of law must arbitrate interpretive contests by formulating and applying definitions for the purposes of educational policy and legal precedent. In making such determinations, it would be naive to accept all assertions of identity and meaning as full disclosures. Sometimes the same people describe the same practice as “spiritual” or “secular,” depending upon whether the legal context is First Amendment religious free exercise clause protection or establishment clause restriction. Decisions about how to categorize practices rest in large part on pragmatic concerns. This case study invites scholars of spirituality to pay closer attention to how legal and social contexts shape how people think and talk about practices in relation to the interpretive categories of “spirituality,” “religion,” and “secularity.”

Constructing a Tower of Babble: An Examination of Purpose in Establishment Clause Jurisprudence

“Purpose” is a key component of modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence. While the Supreme Court has expanded the role purpose plays in various areas of constitutional analysis over the last half-century, the Court seemingly continues to muddy the waters as to purpose’s proper place in Establishment Clause cases. This Comment focuses on the function and operation of purpose in Establishment Clause cases in order to probe the complications and obstacles inherent to this area of constitutional law. By constructing and applying an analytical framework that examines modern Establishment Clause cases through the lenses of “conceptions of purpose,” “evidence of purpose,” and “indicia of impermissible purpose,” this Comment provides critical takeaways about the development and current state of the Establishment Clause—as well as potential future outcomes in these cases. Ultimately, the dispositive consideration in Establishment Clause cases is the utilization and weight given by individual Justices in any given case to the factors discussed in this Comment’s analytical framework. This conclusion demonstrates the judge-dependent nature of these cases and the value certain Justices place on the institutional legitimacy of the Supreme Court and the judicial branch as a whole.

Public Holidays and the Law

A peculiar feature of the celebration of Christmas in the United States is that its observance and its symbols became and continue to be the subjects of First Amendment litigation regarding the Establishment Clause. It has been frequently claimed, and courts have sometimes agreed, that the public display of Christmas decorations and symbols, and the official recognition of Christmas as a legal holiday, are unconstitutional ‘establishments’ of religion. After the Supreme Court’s created the Lemon test to consider Establishment Clause claims, courts’ rulings under the test have been inconsistent and unpredictable, and the subject of widespread academic and popular criticism. There are reasons to believe, however, that the current Supreme Court is moving away from a strict form of ‘Church–State separation’ and towards a greater appreciation for tradition, history, and practice.

The Establishment Clause

Over the last few decades, there have been three competing views of the meaning of the Establishment Clause held by members of the Supreme Court. One, favored by the liberal justices, is that the Establishment Clause should be understood as creating a wall separating church and state. An alternative view, favored by the conservative justices, is that there should be “accommodation” between religion and government. Under this view, the government violates the Establishment Clause only if it creates a church, coerces religious participation, or discriminates among religions in giving financial benefits. A third position is that the government acts unconstitutionally if it endorses religion or a specific religion. The chapter argues that separation is the best view of the Establishment Clause and applies this to prayers at government activities, religious symbols on government property, and government aid to religious institutions.

The Competing Perspectives of the Religion Clauses

This chapter describes the recent Supreme Court cases dealing with the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, while also previewing the issues likely to arise in the future. It identifies how for both of these provisions there are two competing philosophies, which are titled “accommodation” and “separation.” “Accommodationists” see little as violating the Establishment Clause but want the Free Exercise Clause to be aggressively used to create an exception to general laws based on religious beliefs. “Separationists” see the Establishment Clause as creating a secular government and reject special exceptions for religion. At this point in American history, there is a political divide: conservatives tend to favor the accommodation approach, while liberals favor the separationist view.

Signing, Sectarian Schools, and the Law

This chapter examines and analyzes the five-year journey of Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District (1993) from the federal district court in Tucson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. William Bentley Ball, the Zobrests’ attorney, and John Richardson, the school district’s attorney, clashed over whether the Establishment Clause permitted any government aid to a Catholic school. Many religious and civil libertarian groups—but just one national deaf association—filed arguments to sway the court. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the majority decision favoring the Zobrests, misunderstood the complicated function of a sign language interpreter to permit what he regarded as incidental parochial school aid. Rehnquist maintained the aid was permissible because the plaintiffs and their deaf son were its main beneficiaries.

The Aftermath

Chapter 6 traces the impact of the Zobrest decision, as precedent, on U.S. Supreme Court Establishment Clause doctrine and on the practices of public school districts throughout the United States; and it discusses the lives of the Zobrest family since the decision. While strict separationists, such as the leaders of Americans United, predicted the decision would profoundly remake the meanings of the Establishment Clause in the critical area of the sharing of public resources with religiously affiliated schools, William Bentley Ball was closer to being correct, believing the decision would have an incremental impact, pushing the court modestly toward a less strict standard than had prevailed under the Lemon Test. The most important of the decisions growing out of the Zobrest lawsuit, Agostini v. Felton, is discussed.