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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