Event description authored by host organization. Information here does not necessarily reflect the views of CAC and may not be up to date — please refer to RSVP link for the latest information.

It seems the administration of federal law increasingly involves the interaction of government and religion. How should we think about the intersection of religion and the administrative state?

From the Affordable Care Act, to President Trump’s executive orders on entry to the United States, to state civil rights commissions administering state antidiscrimination laws, we find more and more litigation raising questions about the Constitution, federal and state statutes, and religious liberty. Indeed, such issues have become a significant part of the Supreme Court’s docket in recent years. How should courts and policymakers grapple with these issues?

This public policy conference aimed to discuss these matters, in the big-picture sense and also in terms of specific case studies, based on significant new legal scholarship written by Helen M. Alvare, Michael P. Moreland, Mark L. Movsesian, and Mark L. Rienzi. 

Agenda

8:15 – 9:00 am – Registration and Breakfast, Founders Hall, Multi-Purpose Room

9:00 – 9:05 am – Welcome, Founders Hall Auditorium

Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University 

9:05 – 10:35 am – Panel 1: The Future of Religious Liberty

Helen Alvaré, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Garrett Epps, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law

Richard B. Katskee, Legal Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Mark Movsesian, Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract Law, St. John’s University, School of Law; and Director, Center for Law and Religion

Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, The University of Notre Dame, Department of Political Science; and Director, Tocqueville Program for Inquiry into Religion and Public Life and the Potenziani Program in Constitutional Studies

Moderator: Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

10:35 – 10:50 am – Break 

10:50 – 11:55 am – Panel 2: Unions and Religious Schools—A Case Study

Gregory M. Lipper, Partner, Clinton & Peed

Michael P. Moreland, University Professor of Law and Religion, Villanova University, Charles Widger School of Law; and Director, Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy

Timothy J. Taylor, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Labor

Moderator: Sheldon Gilbert, Vice President for Content and Development and Senior Fellow, National Constitution Center

11:55 am – 12:00 pm – Break

12:00 – 1:00 pm – Lunch & Keynote, Founders Hall, Multi-Purpose Room

The Honorable Stuart Kyle Duncan, Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

1:00 – 1:10 pm – Break

1:10 – 2:35 pm – Panel 3: Religion and the Administrative State

Justin Butterfield, Senior Advisor, Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Brianne J. Gorod, Chief Counsel, Constitutional Accountability Center

Mark L. Rienzi, Professor of Law, The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law

Adrian Vermeule, Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School

Moderator: Andrew Kloster, Deputy Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

2:35 – 2:50 pm – Break

2:50 – 4:05 pm – Panel 4: The Contraceptive Mandate—A Case Study

Helen Alvaré, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

Renée M. Landers, Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Suffolk University Law School

Diana Verm, Counsel, Becket

Moderator: JoAnn Koob, Director, Liberty & Law Center, and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

4:05 pm – Adjourn