Thank you for visiting the website for The Religion Clauses in the 21st Century, a symposium presented by the West Virginia University College of Law and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

Few subjects in American constitutional law capture the public's interest and inflame its passions more than the First Amendment's Religion Clauses. Whether the issue is state-sponsored religious expression, taxpayer funding of faith-based social service programs, or the proper balance between religious freedom and the regulatory state, disputes about the proper interpretation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses continue to provoke public controversy and scholarly reexamination. The last two decades have seen significant changes in the Supreme Court's interpretation of both Clauses, and now the U.S. Supreme Court led by new Chief Justice John Roberts is poised to put its own distinctive stamp on the law of church and state.

On April 12-13, 2007, the symposium brought some of the nation's preeminent scholars of law and religion to the College of Law campus in Morgantown, WV, to discuss the future of the Religion Clauses. This website continues that discussion. The symposium papers have been published as the first issue of volume 110 of the West Virginia Law Review. You can find links to on-line versions of the papers here. You can watch webcasts of all the symposium programs here. In addition, you can watch participant interviews discussing various conference topics here.

William P. Marshall
Religion Clauses Issue Group Chair, American Constitution Society
William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor, University of North Carolina School of Law

Vivian E. Hamilton
Associate Professor, William & Mary Marshall-Wythe College of Law

John E. Taylor
Associate Professor, West Virginia University College of Law