Religion and the Administrative State

Registration is now closed. Please contact the event planner with any questions: Leah Davenport, lvirbits@gmu.edu.

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 aims 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. Please join the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State for this timely and important discussion.

We hope you will join us.

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 am – 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, Charles Widger School of Law, Villanova University; and Director, Eleanor H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy

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

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

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, Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America

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

About the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State

The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State is dedicated to fostering significant legal scholarship on new and timeless questions about the modern administrative state, in order to elevate and improve debates occurring in the courts, in Congress, in the executive branch, and in the broader public.

Since its founding in 2015, initially under the leadership of Professor Neomi Rao and now Professor Adam White, the Gray Center has hosted countless scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to research and debate the constitutional and practical issues of administrative power and discretion.

At George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, across the Potomac River from our nation’s capital, the Gray Center serves as a bridge between the work of academia and the work of courts, Congress, the executive branch, and private practitioners. Learn more at administrativestate.gmu.edu.