Civil Liberties and the (post-Kennedy) Roberts Court: Privacy, Speech, and Religion
Monday, September 17, 2018
Barristers Hall
12:45 – 2:00 p.m.
BU School of Law
765 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston MA 02215
As the Supreme Court’s 2017-2018 Term ended, Justice Kennedy, the Court’s swing vote, announced his retirement. This panel considers some of the most controversial decisions from the past Term in the areas of privacy, religion, and speech, in which Kennedy often played a critical role. These include the Court’s upholding the travel ban (in Trump v. Hawaii), reversing a ruling against baker Jack Phillips for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission), striking down California’s rules concerning crisis pregnancy centers (NIFLA v. Becerra), and ruling that Fourth Amendment expectations of privacy limit government’s ability to monitor persons through their cell phones (Carpenter v. United States).
The panel then considers how the post-Kennedy Roberts Court might address future controversies over privacy, religion, and speech. For example, what does Carpenter suggest about the shape of Fourth Amendment privacy in the digital age? How might the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment’s religion clauses change (or not change) if nominee Brett Kavanaugh fills Justice Kennedy’s seat? What does the Court’s different treatment of governmental “hostility” toward religion in the travel ban and wedding cakes cases suggest about future First Amendment challenges? How might the Court address questions postponed in Masterpiece Cakeshop to “future cases” about free speech and free exercise objections to state anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT persons?
Panelists
Danielle Keats Citron – Morton & Sophia Macht Professor of Law, University of Maryland, Frances King Carey School of Law; visiting Fordham Law School, Fall 2018
Karen Pita Loor – Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
Linda C. McClain – Professor of Law and Paul M. Siskind Research Scholar, Boston University School of Law
Jay Wexler – Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
Moderator
James E. Fleming – The Honorable Paul J. Liacos Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Intellectual Life, Boston University School of Law