Constitutional Studies: “Smith, Scalia, and Religious Free Exercise: Reconsidering the First Amendment’s Protection of Religious Liberty”
The Constitutional Studies Program at Notre Dame, a JMC partner program, will be hosting a lecture by the Honorable Amul Thapar of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Thapar will speak on religious free exercise under the First Amendment, specifically addressing Employment Division v. Smith and the late Justice Scalia’s understanding of religious liberty.
Thursday, March 28, 2019 • 12:30 PM
Eck Hall of Law, Room 1140 • University of Notre Dame
Free and open to the public
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Judge Amul Thapar was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the spring of 2017 by President Donald Trump. He is a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While United States Attorney, Judge Thapar was appointed to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (“AGAC”) and chaired the AGAC’s Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture subcommittee. He also served on the Terrorism and National Security subcommittee, the Violent Crime subcommittee, and Child Exploitation working group. Judge Thapar previously worked for the law firms of Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cincinnati, Ohio, and served as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia. He received the Daniel K. Inouye NAPABA Trailblazer Award in 2015, as well as a a Green Bag award for an opinion he wrote, Wagner v. Sherwin-Williams Co. Civil No. 14-178-ART (E.D. Ky. Apr. 29 2015).
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The Constitutional Studies Program at Notre Dame, a JMC partner program, is a minor that seeks to educate students on constitutional governments and how they may be used to secure the common good. Thoughtful and educated citizens must possess certain virtues; they must understand and be able to implement, defend, and, if need be, reform constitutional institutions. By creating informed citizens, the program contributes to the University’s mission to pursue truth and to nurture a concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.
Learn more about the Constitutional Studies Program >>
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