This profile provides key demographic information on Latino eligible voters[1. Eligible voters are defined as U.S. citizens ages 18 and older. Eligible voters are not the same as registered voters. To cast a vote, in all states except North Dakota, an eligible voter must first register to vote.] and other major groups of eligible voters in […]
Updated November 5, 2012 This profile provides key demographic information on Latino eligible voters[1. Eligible voters are defined as U.S. citizens ages 18 and older. Eligible voters are not the same as registered voters. To cast a vote, in all states except North Dakota, an eligible voter must first register to vote.] and other major groups […]
On Nov. 3, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of related cases involving a constitutional challenge to an Arizona tax policy aimed at providing scholarships for children to attend private – often religious – schools.
A divided Supreme Court today ruled, 5-4, that a public law school can deny recognition to a student group that excludes gays and lesbians. The Court said the school could enforce a policy requiring official student organizations to accept all students who want to join. The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, arose in 2004 […]
With their distinctive appearance and religious practices, Sikh-Americans often find themselves at the center of workplace discrimination cases and other controversies involving their religious rights. And while Sikh groups have worked to carve out legal protections for the community’s religious practices, their efforts have not always met with success. In California, for example, Gov. Arnold […]
Bradfield v. Roberts (1899) Upheld the federal government’s funding of a hospital because even though the hospital was owned and staffed by a religious order, its primary function was to provide secular health care services. Everson v. Board of Education (1947) Applied the Establishment Clause to state and local governments and announced that the clause […]
While the wall of church-state separation reached its apex in the 1985 Ball and Aguilar cases, other Supreme Court decisions around the same time started to put some cracks in the wall. In some cases, the court upheld indirect government funding of religion – that is, situations in which the government gave aid to an […]
Just three years after Allen, the Supreme Court addressed two such aid packages in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). One was a Rhode Island plan that paid 15 percent of the salaries of private school teachers who taught exclusively secular courses. The other was a Pennsylvania plan that reimbursed private schools for teaching secular subjects, and, […]
After the Everson ruling, the Supreme Court did not hear a single case involving public funding of religion for more than 20 years. Beginning in 1968 and over the next 10 years, however, the high court heard a rapid succession of funding cases, a dozen in all. The increase in funding cases was tied to […]