Religious Freedom Restoration Acts and K-12 Schools

KEYWORDS: Constitutional law; First Amendment, religion, free exercise, RFRA, religious freedom, religious exemptions, education law, schools, students

SUBMITTED BY: Eugene Volokh, UCLA School of Law, 07/12/2006

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DESCRIPTION:
How do the various federal and state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts affect the government acting as K-12 educator? Do they -- as their text seems to suggest -- obligate the government to make special accommodations for K-12 students who have religious objections to various school rules? What would be the exact boundaries of this new accommodation requirement?

Many are given in the Cardozo article.

RECOMMENDED READING:
This question is discussed -- but definitely not answered -- in Part III.A of Volokh, "Intermediate Questions of Religious Exemptions -- A Research Agenda with Test Suites," 21 Cardozo L. Rev. 595, 658-661 (1999), http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/intermed.htm .






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