Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton responds critically to a column by George Will recently published in the Washington Post in which Will belittled a Swarthmore rape victim and implied that college women are responsible for their rapes. Hamilton provides three examples of how society’s handling rape is improving and argues that Will and others should educate themselves about rape before writing columns that ignore facts.

Cardozo Law School professor Marci Hamilton argues for the importance of academic freedom but distinguishes it from immunity from debate in the marketplace of ideas. She comments on a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request targeting University of Virginia School of Law professor Douglas Laycock for allegedly using university resources for anti-LGBT ends. Hamilton calls the formal FOIA request unnecessary but the intent to question how his public positions on various issues play out in the real world. Hamilton describes a number of positions Laycock has taken publicly that support the view that he is an advocate for extreme religious forces.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton argues that the effects of Mississippi’s recent passage of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) should inform the U.S. Supreme Court as it presently considers two cases arising under the federal RFRA, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood. Hamilton points out that the new Mississippi law has ignited major conflict between businesses that simply want to do business with willing customers and those who want to impose their beliefs on employees and customers. Hamilton cautions that if the Supreme Court makes the federal RFRA’s language to applicable to organizations like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, it will surely cause national unrest.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton describes two recent disappointing developments for survivors of sex abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. The first is the plea deal for the man who threw bleach in the face of a venerated advocate of sex abuse survivors, and the second is a community’s celebration of the prison release of a man who attempted to bribe a victim to drop charges against her abuser.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on the recent shooting incident by a white supremacist in Overland Park, Kansas. She describes the suspect’s religious beliefs and explains how the Kansas RFRA, federal RFRA, and RLUIPA can be used if not to protect a murderer acting due to his beliefs, then at least other wrongdoers similarly motivated.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s first and only decision on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), and how it represents the Court’s inadequacy to apply RFRA. Hamilton describes the background of that case, Gonzales v. O Centro Esprita Beneficente Unio do Vegetal (UDV), as well as the unintended effects of the decision. She concludes that the Court should seriously contemplate its institutional limitations, think twice before discounting the government’s purposes, and employ common sense when considering the RFRA and the contraception mandate cases.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton continues her series of columns regarding Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs). Here, in her most recent column, Hamilton addresses the argument that RFRAs should be extended to suits between private parties. This issue has surfaced primarily in the states, Hamilton notes, where purportedly rampant fear by bakers and florists of having to deal with same-sex couples has led to proposals to give businesses a RFRA defense that could be invoked against potential customers. The most controversial such bill was eventually vetoed by Arizona’s Governor Brewer; that bill would have permitted private businesses to raise the state RFRA as a defense in lawsuits by customers whom they have turned away.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on federal RFRAs in the first column in a two-part series of columns that addresses the federal RFRA and the intersection of RFRAs and corporate law, as well as why corporations cannot take advantage of RFRAs. Part Two in the series, which will address state RFRAs, will appear here on Justia on March 20.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law school professor Marci Hamilton comments on recent stories about the mishandling of reports of sex abuse and assaults at two fundamentalist colleges: Patrick Henry College and Bob Jones University. Hamilton also covers the Catholic Church’s ongoing issues with clergy sex abuse, and cautions these colleges not to follow the Church's lead. Hamilton notes that President Obama has been silent on the epidemic of sex abuse and assaults in religious entities in the United States. She argues that it is high time now, nearing the end of his last Term, for him to step up for all victims, and to stop pandering to religious entities.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on the topic of college campus sexual assault, which is disturbingly frequent—so much so that the Obama Administration is now focusing on it. Hamilton considers ways to protect college women, especially women in college sports; notes how college men can help in rape prevention; and argues that worries about false accusations by women are overblown.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton covers and comments on Paroline v. Unknown Amy, a case on which the Supreme Court just held oral argument yesterday. The question in the case before the Court is how much child pornography market participants should be individually required to pay for the harm to the victims of child pornography.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton describes and comments on developments regarding justice for child-sex-abuse victims. Hamilton reports that, in 2013, the pace of the movement to procure justice for victims quickened remarkably. But there is also a negative development, Hamilton notes: religious groups have gone back to the drawing board to find new ways to protect themselves from the law in this area.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton contends that we are in the midst of a war over whether the U.S. Catholic Bishops and those who agree with them, or individual women, will control women’s bodies and health. Hamilton comments on the influence of Pope Francis. She also argues that there are two major battlefields in this war right now: one in the workplace, and the other in Catholic hospitals. Hamilton ends, too, with an account of the terrible labor of a woman who suffered unnecessarily due to these conflicts.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on the recently argued Supreme Court case that asks whether it is constitutional for a small town to open its town council meetings with prayer. Hamilton’s conclusion is that the case ultimately turns on a single factual question: Can there be, in 21st Century America, such a thing as a “nonsectarian” prayer? The short answer, according to Hamilton, is “No way.”

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton argues that a narcissistic worldview has infected debates over religious liberty in America, where, she notes, individuals are now demanding the right to construct their workplaces, communities, and schools in the image of their personal religious viewpoints. This is religious narcissism, Hamilton argues, and she compares it to the narcissistic viewpoint that critics of the Millennials say that many members of their generation often hold.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton takes strong issue with California Governor Jerry Brown’s decision to veto anti-child-abuse legislation. She argues that, in the civil rights movement for children, which she notes, is transforming children from property into persons in the United States, a critical element is giving child sex abuse victims meaningful access to justice, and she castigates Governor Brown for ignoring children's rights.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton contends that Catholic and evangelical leaders are waging a new war against the use of contraception, enlisting public relations experts, lobbyists, and lawyers, despite the fact that very large majorities of Americans support contraception. One strategy, Hamilton notes, involves “conscience clauses” that would, for instance, allow pharmacists not to hand over contraceptives if it violates the pharmacist’s own anti-contraception beliefs.

For this year’s Constitution Day, Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on three key flaws in the Constitution of 1787. She comments, specifically, on the original Constitution as to the issues of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights of gay men and lesbians.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on the investigation that occurred after many months, and many media stories about child sex abuse at the Yeshiva University High School (YUHS) in The Jewish Daily Forward. In the end, Yeshiva University released an “independent investigation” led by Karen Patton Seymour of Sullivan & Cromwell. Hamilton takes strong issue with the report that resulted from the investigation, and explains in detail her sharp criticisms of it, and what she contends that it should have contained, but did not. She also argues that, in this situation, pending litigation is a poor excuse for nondisclosure, especially in light of the statute-of-limitations situation in New York.

Justia columnist and Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton comments on a new book on the infamous Matthew Shepard murder, The Book of Matt, which she urges everyone to read, and which reveals that, as it turns out, there was much more to the Shepard case than was known at the time. Hamilton also considers the possibility that, as with the Shepard case, in which important facts weren't unearthed until now, years later, we may also be reassessing the Zimmerman/Martin case years later, when a future journalist may find new and important facts, as occurred in the Shepard case now.