Employment Division v. Smith

                            494 U.S. 872 (1990)



                         Date Argued:November 6, 1989
                          Opinion Date: April 17, 1990


                                   Oral arguments.

       Dave Frohnmayer, for the petitioners
       Craig J. Dorsay, for the respondents




The Facts of the Case 

       Two men -- Al Smith (a Native American and member of the Klamath Tribe)
       and Galen Black -- ingested peyote, a powerful hallucinogen, as part of
       religious ceremonies of the Native American Church to which they belonged.
       As a result, they were fired from their jobs as counselors with a private drug
       rehabilitation organization. The fired employees filed for unemployment
       compensation, but were denied benefits because the reason for their dismissal
       was considered work-related "misconduct." The state drug law made no
       exception for the consumption of illegal drugs for sacramental uses.




The Constitutional Question 

       Does the state law violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment?




The Conclusion 

       No. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, observed that the Court has never
       held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an
       otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that government is free to regulate.
       Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion "would
       open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations
       of almost every conceivable kind."Scalia cited as examples compulsory military
       service, payment of taxes,vaccination requirements, and child-neglect laws.

       [An unusual coalition of religious and nonreligious groups (including the
       National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union,the
       National Islamic Prison Foundation, and B'nai B'rith) organized to restore the
       more restrictive test. As government infringements on religious practice
       mounted, public interest and legislative reaction soon meshed.

       [Spanning the theological and ideological spectrum, the alliance established in
       Congress what it had lost in the Supreme Court. In 1993, President BillClinton
       signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The law requires
       government to satisfy the strict scrutiny standard before it can institute
       measures that interfere with religious practices. Voicing wonder at thisalliance
       of groups so often at odds across religion and ideology, Clinton observed,
       "The power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can
       happen."]




The Vote 

Majority:

       Scalia (for the Court) 
       Rehnquist 
       O'Connor 
       White B. 
       Stevens 
       Kennedy 

Concurring: 

       O'Connor

Dissenting:

       Brennan
       Blackmun 
       Marshall T.

Employment Division v. Smith , supp 370, JUSTICE SCALIA,
1990: <<[religious] Neutrality>> Smith fired from job at private drug rehab center because
ingested peyote for sacramental purposes at a Native American Church ceremony. When Smith
applied to Employment Division for unemploym ent compensation, they were determined to be
ineligible for benefits because they had been discharged for work-related misconduct . HELD:
Denial of benefits is allowed. rf supp 373, The compelling government interest requirement
seems benign, because it is familiar from other fields. But using it as the standard that must be
met before the government may accord different treatment on the basis of race, or before the
government may regulate the content of speech, is not remotely comparable to using it for the
purpose asserted here. What it produces in those other fields equality of treatment, and an
unrestricted flow of contending speech are constitutional normsl; what it would produce here a
private right to ignore generally applicable laws is a constitutional anomaly.... [Just] as we
subject to the most exacting scrutiny laws that make classifications based on race or on the
content of speech, so too we strictly scrutinize governmental classifications based on religion.
TRIBE, in response: disparate impact in race and gender discrimination doesn t trigger strict
scrutiny; it would be anomalous to have strict scrutiny triggered in this case due to disparate
impact. read from 374, It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process
will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in; but
that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which
each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws
against the centrality of all religious beliefs. 
From Constitutional Law Case Summaries.

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