Freedom of religion court cases in the United States turn on two clauses in the First Amendment: the Establishment Clause, which bars government from sponsoring or favoring religion, and the Free Exercise Clause, which protects the right to practice a faith without unnecessary government interference.1Congress.gov. Overview of the Religion Clauses (Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses) Over the past sixty years, the Supreme Court has decided the cases that actually tell you what those clauses mean in a classroom, a workplace, a prison, a city hall lawn, or a state scholarship program. The rulings below are the ones that still control how those disputes come out.
School Prayer
Engel v. Vitale (1962) struck down a New York policy directing students to recite a state-composed prayer at the start of each school day. Even though the prayer was called nondenominational and students could opt out, the Court held that government officials have no business writing prayers for public school classrooms.2Justia. Engel v. Vitale A year later, Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) reached the same result for mandatory Bible readings and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, finding these practices served a religious rather than secular purpose.3Justia. Abington School District v. Schempp
Those precedents governed school ceremonies for decades. The boundary moved in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022). A public high school football coach was disciplined for praying quietly on the field after games. The Court ruled that his personal, post-game prayer was protected by both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses, and that the school district could not punish him for private religious expression just because he was on school grounds in a coaching role. The majority also declared that the Court had “long ago abandoned” the Lemon test that had governed Establishment Clause analysis, replacing it with an approach grounded in “historical practices and understandings.”4Supreme Court of the United States. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District That change reaches well beyond schools.
Religious Exemptions From Neutral Laws
Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) set an early high-water mark. Amish parents refused to send their children to school past eighth grade, arguing that high school conflicted with their community’s way of life. The Court agreed, holding that Wisconsin’s compulsory schooling law through age sixteen could not override a sincere, centuries-old religious practice when the state’s interest in two extra years of formal education was not strong enough to justify the burden.5Justia. Wisconsin v. Yoder
That generous standard collapsed in Employment Division v. Smith (1990). Two members of a Native American church were fired and denied unemployment benefits after using peyote in a religious ceremony. The Court ruled that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse anyone from complying with a valid, neutral law that applies to everyone, regardless of the incidental burden on religious practice.6Justia. Employment Division v. Smith Under Smith, the government no longer had to show a compelling reason for burdening religion, so long as the law was not aimed at a religious group.
The other side of that rule came in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993). After a Santeria church announced plans to open in Hialeah, Florida, the city passed a series of ordinances banning ritual animal sacrifice. On paper the laws used neutral language, but the Court found they were drafted to target Santeria worship while leaving similar secular conduct like hunting, pest control, and kosher slaughter untouched. Because the laws were neither neutral nor generally applicable, they had to survive strict scrutiny, and they failed.7Justia. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah Lukumi remains the leading example of what happens when government singles out a religion.
More recently, the Court has narrowed Smith from another direction. In Tandon v. Newsom (2021), a per curiam decision during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Court held that strict scrutiny applies whenever a regulation treats any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise.8Supreme Court of the United States. Tandon v. Newsom If a state lets retail stores or movie theaters operate while shutting down in-home Bible studies, the restriction is not truly neutral, and the government must justify it with a compelling interest.
RFRA, RLUIPA, and the Cases That Followed
Congress responded to Smith with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), which prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening religious exercise unless the burden advances a compelling interest and uses the least restrictive means available.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 2000bb-1 – Free Exercise of Religion Protected In City of Boerne v. Flores (1997), the Court ruled that Congress had exceeded its power by imposing RFRA on state and local governments.10Justia. City of Boerne v. Flores RFRA still applies to federal laws and agencies.
The biggest RFRA case since Boerne is Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014). The Court held that RFRA protects closely held, for-profit corporations, not just individuals and nonprofits. Hobby Lobby’s owners objected on religious grounds to a federal mandate requiring employer health plans to cover certain contraceptives, and the Court found the government had not used the least restrictive means to reach its goal.11Justia. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
To reach state and local actors, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), which applies the same compelling-interest and least-restrictive-means standard to local zoning decisions that burden religious assemblies and to restrictions on the religious exercise of people in prisons and other government institutions.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000cc – Protection of Land Use as Religious Exercise In Holt v. Hobbs (2015), a Muslim prisoner challenged an Arkansas grooming policy that banned beards. The Court unanimously held that preventing him from growing even a half-inch beard violated RLUIPA, because the prison failed to show that such a minor accommodation threatened any compelling security interest.13Justia. Holt v. Hobbs
Public Money and Religious Institutions
For decades, the Lemon test from Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) governed whether government money could flow to religious organizations. A law had to have a secular purpose, could neither advance nor inhibit religion in its primary effect, and could not create excessive entanglement between government and religion.14Justia. Lemon v. Kurtzman The Court formally set that test aside in Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022).
Even before Lemon was displaced, the Court had been loosening restrictions on public money reaching religious institutions. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002) upheld Ohio’s school voucher program, reasoning that because individual parents chose where to spend the vouchers, public funds reached religious schools only through private decisions.15Justia. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
The Court then flipped the frame, treating the exclusion of religious groups from public programs as a Free Exercise violation. In Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017), a church-run preschool was denied a state grant to resurface its playground with recycled tires solely because it was a religious organization. The Court held 7–2 that denying an otherwise available public benefit based on religious identity is unconstitutional. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020) extended the principle, striking down a state constitutional provision that barred families from using publicly funded scholarships at religious schools.16Supreme Court of the United States. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue Carson v. Makin (2022) went one step further. Maine’s tuition assistance program helped families in rural districts without a public high school pay for private education but excluded “sectarian” schools. The Court struck down that restriction, holding that once a state decides to subsidize private education, it cannot disqualify religious schools solely because they are religious.17Supreme Court of the United States. Carson v. Makin
Religious Displays on Public Property
Religious symbols on government land get evaluated based on context. Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) upheld a city-owned nativity scene displayed alongside a Santa Claus house, a Christmas tree, and a “Seasons Greetings” banner. The Court found that the display, taken as a whole, served a secular holiday purpose rather than endorsing Christianity.18Justia. Lynch v. Donnelly Van Orden v. Perry (2005) applied similar reasoning to a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas state capitol grounds. The monument was one of dozens of historical markers and had stood unchallenged for over 40 years. The Court held that a display with religious content does not automatically violate the Establishment Clause when it serves a broader recognition of historical significance.19Justia. Van Orden v. Perry
The most recent major case, American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019), involved a Latin cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, erected in 1925 as a World War I memorial bearing the names of 49 fallen soldiers. Challengers argued that a cross on public land is inherently religious, but the Court allowed it to remain, reasoning that removing a longstanding war memorial would look like hostility toward religion rather than neutrality. Older displays that have taken on secular commemorative functions now carry a presumption of constitutionality.20Supreme Court of the United States. American Legion v. American Humanist Association
Workplace Religious Accommodations
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires employers to reasonably accommodate workers’ religious practices unless doing so would create an undue hardship. For nearly half a century, the bar was set very low. Trans World Airlines v. Hardison (1977) held that requiring an employer to bear more than a “de minimis cost” to accommodate a worker’s religious scheduling needs qualified as undue hardship.21Library of Congress. Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison That standard let employers deny accommodation requests by pointing to even minor inconveniences.
Groff v. DeJoy (2023) changed the calculus. Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian postal worker, objected to working Sundays. When USPS began making Amazon deliveries on Sundays, his refusal created friction, and he eventually resigned. The Court unanimously raised the bar, holding that an employer must show that a requested accommodation would result in “substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”22Supreme Court of the United States. Groff v. DeJoy What counts as hardship for a five-person shop may not count for a Fortune 500 company, and employers now need concrete evidence of burden.
Religion, Free Speech, and Anti-Discrimination Law
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018) involved a baker who refused to create a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The Court ruled in the baker’s favor on narrow grounds: the Colorado commission had shown open hostility toward the baker’s religious beliefs during its proceedings, and that hostility violated the Free Exercise Clause’s requirement of government neutrality. The Court did not decide whether a religious exemption from anti-discrimination law would exist in a neutral proceeding.
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023) tackled the speech side. A web designer objected to creating custom wedding websites for same-sex couples under Colorado’s public accommodations law. The Court held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing someone who creates expressive, customized content to produce work that conveys messages they disagree with.23Supreme Court of the United States. 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis The ruling turned on free speech rather than religious exercise, but the practical effect is that states cannot use anti-discrimination laws to compel speech from businesses that produce original, expressive work.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021) came at the same tension from another angle. Philadelphia refused to renew a foster-care contract with Catholic Social Services because the agency would not certify same-sex couples as foster parents. The Court unanimously ruled that the city violated the Free Exercise Clause. The city’s own contract allowed the commissioner to grant discretionary exemptions, which meant the anti-discrimination rule was not generally applicable and had to survive strict scrutiny. It did not.24Justia. Fulton v. Philadelphia
Churches’ Control Over Their Own Ministers
Religious organizations have a distinctive right: the freedom to choose their own religious leaders without government second-guessing. This doctrine, the ministerial exception, prevents courts from hearing employment discrimination claims brought by ministers against their churches. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC (2012) was the first time the Supreme Court formally recognized it. A teacher at a Lutheran school was fired after she threatened to file a disability discrimination lawsuit rather than resolve the dispute internally. The Court unanimously held that the First Amendment bars the government from interfering with a religious organization’s choice of who will serve as its ministers.25Justia. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (2020) expanded the doctrine, holding that the exception does not depend on a formal ministerial title. Teachers at Catholic schools who led prayers and taught faith-based curriculum qualified, even though they were not ordained clergy. Religious schools and churches now have broad latitude in hiring and firing for any role that involves transmitting the faith, and employees in those positions cannot bring most federal discrimination claims.