How would you all analyze the Free Speech Clause issue in a case that was like Bowman except the exclusion covered "participation in activities of schools or organizations teaching or advocating about the need to reduce global warming or about marriage from a gay rights perspective?"
Would it violate the Free Speech Clause to allow military service personnel to accumulate pension rights via volunteer service in all non-profits except those excluded in the hypo above? If so, don't we have the same free speech issue when the exclusion concerns volunteering for schools teaching from a religious perspective? Again, if the dictum in Locke v. Davey applies, it applies to these secular speech exclusions as well, since Rehnquist merely concluded that a scholarship is not a forum triggering the Free Speech Clause. So, under Davey, a scholarship exclusion for students majoring in "gender studies from a feminist perspective" would also have failed to trigger the Free Speech Clause. If this seems wrong, it is because it does indeed implicate the FSC to take the viewpoint of the major into account when awarding scholarships such as the Promise Scholarship. The Rehnquist dictum in Davey is both unreasoned and wrong. Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902 --- On Mon, 5/4/09, Volokh, Eugene <[email protected]> wrote: From: Volokh, Eugene <[email protected]> Subject: Bowman v. U.S. To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <[email protected]> Date: Monday, May 4, 2009, 9:41 AM Any thoughts on Bowman v. U.S., a Sixth Circuit case decided last December but just redesignated two weeks ago as being for publication? Federal law allows a wide range of public and community service by military personnel - including working for organizations that provide "elementary, secondary, or postsecondary school teaching," or "any other public or community service" -- to "count toward [one's] years of service needed to obtain a full twenty-year military retirement." But the program excludes participation in activities of "organizations engaged in religious activities, unless such activities are unrelated to religious instructions, worship services, or any form of proselytization" (as well as in activities of for-profit businesses, labor unions, and partisan political organizations). Thus, for instance, if someone were volunteering to teach in a school program aimed at spreading various controversial views on environmental responsibility, or social justice, or civil liberties, that would presumably count. But if someone were volunteering to teach in a school program aimed at spreading religious views, that would not count. The Sixth Circuit upheld this against a Free Exercise Clause challenge, citing Locke v. Davey. Is that right? What should the result have been under the Free Speech Clause, if such a claim had been made (presumably relying on Rosenberger)? Eugene _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
