Turley to Speak at University of Maryland Law School Symposium on the Supreme Court

I have the pleasure of speaking this morning at the University of Maryland Law School as part of the Law Review’s annual symposium on constitutional law. To the Law Review’s great credit, the students sought to bring together a wide range of views on the evolution of constitutional law in a well-balanced selection of academics. I will be on the first panel at 10:15 at the law school. That is the first of three panels and there will be a keynote address by the Honorable Judge Greenaway of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

I will be presenting a paper on the evolution of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on the conflict between free exercise and free speech claims on one hand and neutral, “generally applicable” laws like anti-discrimination laws. The paper, which will be published as a law review article, is entitled “The Unfinished Masterpiece: Speech Compulsion and the Evolving Jurisprudence over Religious Speech.”  The paper explores the different lines of cases under the religion clauses and the free speech clause in addressing conflicts with discrimination law. I have long argued that these conflicts should be viewed as free speech cases.

The Supreme Court could now be on a path to do precisely that in the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. The result could prove a realignment of jurisprudence that shifts these conflicts under free speech tests where they belong. It would in essence finish the work that was left undone in the earlier decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In its decision in 303 Creative, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) ruled that artist Lorie Smith had to create websites for same-sex marriage despite her religious objections to such unions. It further held that she could be sanctioned for posting her opposing views on her own site. It is only the latest case to go before the United States Supreme Court on the collision of anti-discrimination laws and the First Amendment. However, this has the makings of a major new decision on free speech.