Amicus Curiae Brief — St. Mary Catholic Parish, Littleton, Colorado, et al., Petitioners v. Lisa Roy, in Her Official Capacity as Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, et al.
Supreme Court briefAug 24, 2026
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No. 25-581
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
___________
ST. MARY CATHOLIC PARISH, LITTLETON, COLORADO, et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
LISA ROY, IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD, et al.,
Respondents.
___________
On Writ of Certiorari to the United States
Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
___________
BRIEF OF FIRST AMENDMENT SCHOLARS AS
AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS
___________
ELIZABETH B. WYDRA
BRIANNE J. GOROD*
PRAVEEN FERNANDES
DAVID H. GANS
JOSHUA D. BLECHER-COHEN
CONSTITUTIONAL
ACCOUNTABILITY CENTER
1730 Rhode Island Ave. NW
Suite 1200
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 296-6889
brianne@theusconstitution.org
Counsel for Amici Curiae
August 24, 2026
* Counsel of Record
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ..................................
ii
INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE...........................
1
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF
ARGUMENT .......................................................
1
ARGUMENT ..........................................................
6
I.
Founding-Era History Does Not
Support Petitioners’ Claim that the
Free Exercise Clause Ordinarily
Allows Individuals to Violate Neutral
and Generally Applicable Laws ............
6
This Court Has Long Recognized that
Individuals’ Free-Exercise Rights
Must Be Balanced Against
Government Interests in Protecting
Public Health, Safety, and Welfare ......
13
CONCLUSION.......................................................
28
APPENDIX.............................................................
1A
II.
(i)
ii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases
Page(s)
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis,
600 U.S. 570 (2023) .....................................
26
Bd. of Dirs. of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of
Duarte,
481 U.S. 537 (1987) .....................................
20
Bob Jones Univ. v. United States,
461 U.S. 574 (1983) ...........................
3, 18, 19
Bowen v. Roy,
476 U.S. 693 (1986) ................... 3, 4, 16, 22, 25
Braunfeld v. Brown,
366 U.S. 599 (1961) .....................................
14
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.,
573 U.S. 682 (2014) .....................................
24
Carson ex rel. O.C. v. Makin,
596 U.S. 767 (2022) .................................
5, 23
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc.
v. City of Hialeah,
508 U.S. 520 (1993) .................................
4, 21
City of Boerne v. Flores,
521 U.S. 507 (1997) .....................................
10
Edwards v. Aguillard,
482 U.S. 578 (1987) .....................................
25
Emp. Div., Dep’t of Hum. Res. v. Smith,
494 U.S. 872 (1990) ......................... 3, 4, 21, 22
iii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d
Page(s)
Espinoza v. Mont. Dep’t of Revenue,
591 U.S. 464 (2020) ...........................
5, 13, 22
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia,
593 U.S. 522 (2021) ................. 5, 21, 24, 26, 27
Gillette v. United States,
401 U.S. 437 (1971) ...........................
3, 14, 15
Hishon v. King & Spalding,
467 U.S. 69 (1984) .......................................
20
Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian &
Bisexual Grp. of Bos.,
515 U.S. 557 (1995) .....................................
24
Jacobson v. Massachusetts,
197 U.S. 11 (1905) .......................................
15
Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter &
Paul Home v. Pennsylvania,
591 U.S. 657 (2020) .....................................
25
Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery Protective
Ass’n,
485 U.S. 439 (1988) ................. 4, 16, 17, 22, 25
Mahmoud v. Taylor,
606 U.S. 522 (2025) ...........................
5, 24, 25
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. C.R.
Comm’n,
584 U.S. 617 (2018) ............................. 5, 23, 24
Newman v. Piggie Park Enters.,
390 U.S. 400 (1968) .....................................
19
iv
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d
Page(s)
Norwood v. Harrison,
413 U.S. 455 (1973) .....................................
Prince v. Massachusetts,
321 U.S. 158 (1944) ...............................
19
13, 14
R v. Lane (1704)
87 Eng. Rep. 884 (QB) ................................
9
Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees,
468 U.S. 609 (1984) .................................
4, 20
Runyon v. McCrary,
427 U.S. 160 (1976) .....................................
19
Sherbert v. Verner,
374 U.S. 398 (1963) ...............................
16, 27
Tandon v. Newsom,
593 U.S. 61 (2021) ...................................
5, 23
Thomas v. Rev. Bd. of the Ind. Emp. Sec.
Div.,
450 U.S. 707 (1981) .....................................
19
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc.
v. Comer,
582 U.S. 449 (2017) ............................. 5, 13, 22
United States v. Lee,
455 U.S. 252 (1982) ............................. 5, 15, 18
W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette,
319 U.S. 624 (1943) .....................................
17
Wisconsin v. Yoder,
406 U.S. 205 (1972) ............................. 3, 17, 18
v
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d
Page(s)
Constitutional Provisions
Del. Declaration of Rts. & Fundamental
Rules of 1776, § 3 ........................................ 8, 9
Ga. Const. of 1777, art. LVI ...........................
8
Md. Declaration of Rts. of 1776, art.
XXXIII .........................................................
7
N.H. Const. of 1784, pt. I, art. V....................
8
N.J. Const. of 1776, art. XIX..........................
9
N.Y. Const. of 1777, art. XXXVIII .................
7
R.I. & Providence Plantations Charter of
1663 .............................................................
8
S.C. Const. of 1790, art. VIII, § 1 ..................
7
U.S. Const. amend. I ...................................... 2, 6
Va. Bill of Rts. of 1776, § 16...........................
10
Legislative Materials
1 Annals of Cong. (1789) (Joseph Gales ed.,
1834) ............................................................
11
James Madison, Speech in Congress (Dec.
22, 1790), in Selected Writings of James
Madison 193 (Ralph Ketcham ed.,
2006) ...................................................... 11, 12
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, art. I .............
8
vi
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d
Page(s)
Books, Articles, and Other Authorities
2 An American Dictionary of the English
Language (Noah Webster ed., 1st ed.
1828) ............................................................ 8, 9
Creating the Bill of Rights: The
Documentary Record from the First
Federal Congress (Helen E. Veit et al.
eds., 1991) ....................................................
Philip A. Hamburger, A Constitutional
Right of Religious Exemption: An
Historical Perspective,
60 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 915 (1992) ........
11
6, 7, 9
Steven J. Heyman, Reason and Conviction:
Natural Rights, Natural Religion, and
the Origins of the Free Exercise Clause,
23 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1 (2021) .............. 11, 12
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to a Comm.
of the Danbury Baptist Ass’n (Jan. 1,
1802) ............................................................
7
Letter from James Madison to Edward
Livingston (July 10, 1822), in Selected
Writings of James Madison 304 (Ralph
Ketcham ed., 2006) .....................................
3
Michael W. McConnell, The Origins and
Historical Understanding of Free
Exercise of Religion,
103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409 (1990) .................
8, 10
vii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d
Page(s)
Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Religious Liberty
and the American Founding (2022) ...........
10
Mark Storslee, Free Exercise and Funding,
101 Notre Dame L. Rev. 101 (2026) ...........
6
1
INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1
Amici are law professors who have taught courses
in constitutional law and devoted significant attention
to studying the First Amendment. A full list of amici
appears in the Appendix.
INTRODUCTION AND
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
Colorado administers a universal preschool
program (UPK) that offers free preschool for four-yearolds statewide. Private preschools that participate in
the voluntary program—whether secular or
religious—receive taxpayer funds to cover the costs of
educating these students. To participate, eligible
preschools must abide by the UPK program’s
nondiscrimination policy, which requires that
preschools not discriminate against either children or
parents based on, among other traits, sexual
orientation or gender identity. This requirement
applies to all preschools participating in Colorado’s
UPK program, and there is no pathway for any
preschool to be exempted from the program’s ban on
discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender
identity.
Petitioners are two Catholic parishes that each run
(or ran) a preschool; the Archdiocese of Denver; and
two parents with preschool-age children. They allege
that the preschools cannot comply with the UPK
program’s nondiscrimination policy because of their
religious beliefs, and they argue that the
1 No counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in
part, and no counsel or party made a monetary contribution
intended to fund its preparation or submission. No person other
than amici or their counsel made a monetary contribution to its
preparation or submission.
2
nondiscrimination requirement thus violates the Free
Exercise Clause by excluding preschools and families
from receiving state benefits because of their religion.
If accepted by this Court, Petitioners’ claims would
mark a sea change in longstanding First Amendment
principles.
The First Amendment states that
“Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free
exercise” of religion. U.S. Const. amend. I. Although
the Clause does not permit the government to burden
religious practice without justification, this Court has
never held—in fact, has expressly declined to hold—
that individuals’ religious views can provide a
justification for violating neutral, generally applicable
nondiscrimination provisions. To now hold otherwise
would hollow out such nondiscrimination provisions,
making them protections in name only, and would
force state governments to fund discriminatory acts
carried out under their auspices.
As amici know, such an expansive interpretation of
the Free Exercise Clause conflicts with Founding-era
history, as well as decades of this Court’s precedents.
To begin, historical evidence shows that individuals
cannot ignore neutral and generally applicable laws,
notwithstanding their right to exercise their own
religion. Several Founding-era state constitutions
included provisions that protected the free exercise of
religion, but also made clear that individuals could not
violate the peace and safety of other citizens when
exercising their religion. Some of those provisions
expressly noted that free-exercise protections did not
entitle individuals to violate civil laws. Moreover,
during the First Congress, legislators debated whether
to include provisions in the Second Amendment and
the Militia Bill that would expressly exempt
conscientious objectors, suggesting that those
3
legislators believed exemptions were something the
legislature could provide as a policy matter but were
not constitutionally required. In this vein, James
Madison declared that Americans deserve “immunity
of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where
it does not trespass on private rights or the public
peace.” Letter from James Madison to Edward
Livingston (July 10, 1822), in Selected Writings of
James Madison 304, 306 (Ralph Ketcham ed., 2006).
Reflecting that history, cases predating this Court’s
decision in Employment Division, Department of
Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), made
clear that “activities of individuals, even when
religiously based, are often subject to regulation by the
States in the exercise of their undoubted power to
promote the health, safety, and general welfare,”
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 220 (1972). As this
Court put it, “[o]ur cases do not at their farthest reach
support the proposition that a stance of conscientious
opposition relieves an objector from any colliding duty
fixed by a democratic government.” Gillette v. United
States, 401 U.S. 437, 461 (1971).
Thus, before Smith, this Court held that “[t]he Free
Exercise Clause simply cannot be understood to
require the Government to conduct its own internal
affairs in ways that comport with the religious beliefs
of particular citizens.” Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693, 699
(1986). And also before Smith, this Court repeatedly
held that antidiscrimination laws satisfy even strict
scrutiny because eradicating discrimination is a
compelling government interest that cannot be
achieved without banning it outright. See Bob Jones
Univ. v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 604 (1983)
(describing
the
government’s
“fundamental,
overriding
interest
in
eradicating
racial
4
discrimination in education”); Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees,
468 U.S. 609, 624, 628 (1984) (noting that a law
barring sex discrimination “plainly serves compelling
state interests of the highest order,” “even if
enforcement . . . causes some incidental abridgment of
[a party’s] protected speech”).
Smith built upon these earlier cases that balanced
individuals’ interests in exercising their religious
beliefs against the government’s interest in enforcing
generally applicable laws. There, this Court held that
if burdening religious exercise “is not the object of [a
law] but merely the incidental effect of a generally
applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First
Amendment has not been offended,” Smith, 494 U.S.
at 878, and permitted Oregon to enforce the
consequences of violating state drug laws even when
the drug use was religiously motivated, see id. at 890.
As the Court has since elaborated, “a law that is
neutral and of general applicability need not be
justified by a compelling governmental interest even if
the law has the incidental effect of burdening a
particular religious practice.” Church of the Lukumi
Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 531
(1993). Thus, as four members of the Smith Court
recognized, the Free Exercise Clause “does not ‘require
the Government itself to behave in ways that the
individual believes will further his or her spiritual
development.’” Smith, 494 U.S. at 900 (O’Connor, J.,
concurring in the judgment) (quoting Bowen, 476 U.S.
at 699; and then citing Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery
Protective Ass’n, 485 U.S. 439, 449 (1988)).
Nor do cases this Court decided after Smith compel
a different approach. Those cases deal primarily with
scenarios in which—unlike the neutral and generally
applicable policy at issue in Smith—government
5
entities expressly targeted institutions or individuals
for differential treatment based on religion, see, e.g.,
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer,
582 U.S. 449, 462 (2017); Espinoza v. Mont. Dep’t of
Revenue, 591 U.S. 464, 476 (2020); Carson ex rel. O.C.
v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767, 789 (2022), or seemed to betray
anti-religion animus, see, e.g., Masterpiece Cakeshop,
Ltd. v. Colo. C.R. Comm’n, 584 U.S. 617, 634-35 (2018).
Colorado’s UPK program is also not beset by the
“myriad exceptions and accommodations for
comparable activities” that this Court has found
objectionable in other contexts that treat “secular
activity more favorably than religious exercise.”
Tandon v. Newsom, 593 U.S. 61, 62, 64 (2021) (per
curiam). And recent free-exercise cases upholding
challenges to general government policies have arisen
in contexts, like direct classroom instruction, in which
this Court highlighted fact-specific concerns about
state coercion. See Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522,
554-55, 557 (2025). Moreover, well after Smith, this
Court has continued to acknowledge that eradicating
discrimination constitutes a “weighty” government
interest. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 593 U.S. 522,
542 (2021).
Thus, under this Court’s precedents, when
“followers of a particular sect enter into commercial
activity as a matter of choice”—like running a
preschool that seeks to join Colorado’s UPK program—
“the limits they accept on their own conduct as a
matter of conscience and faith are not to be
superimposed on the statutory schemes which are
binding on others in that activity.” United States v.
Lee, 455 U.S. 252, 261 (1982). As a result, Petitioners
do not have a First Amendment right to obtain an
exemption from Colorado’s policy prohibiting publicly
6
funded preschools from discriminating against
parents and children based on their sexual orientation
or gender identity. Once Colorado has chosen to
require the secular and religious preschools it funds to
consider applications from families regardless of those
protected traits, Petitioner preschools—like all other
preschools—must comply with that requirement if
they wish to participate in the UPK program. This
Court has repeatedly stated that the least restrictive
means of achieving the compelling governmental
interest of eradicating discrimination is to prohibit
discrimination across the board. And that is exactly
what Colorado has done here.
ARGUMENT
I. Founding-Era History Does Not Support
Petitioners’ Claim that the Free Exercise
Clause Ordinarily Allows Individuals to
Violate Neutral and Generally Applicable
Laws.
The First Amendment states that “Congress shall
make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise” of
religion. U.S. Const. amend. I. Historical evidence
from the Founding era suggests that “late eighteenthcentury Americans tended to assume that the Free
Exercise Clause did not provide a constitutional right
of religious exemption from civil laws.” Philip A.
Hamburger, A Constitutional Right of Religious
Exemption: An Historical Perspective, 60 Geo. Wash.
L. Rev. 915, 916 (1992); cf. Mark Storslee, Free
Exercise and Funding, 101 Notre Dame L. Rev. 101,
135 & n.164 (2026) (citing scholarly agreement that, at
minimum, the Founding-era right barred “penalties
based on religion”). As Thomas Jefferson explained,
while individuals have “rights of conscience” under the
7
First Amendment, an individual “has no natural right
in opposition to his social duties.” Letter from Thomas
Jefferson to a Comm. of the Danbury Baptist Ass’n
(Jan. 1, 1802).
First, by 1789, a number of state constitutions
included provisions protecting the free exercise of
religion, but most of those provisions included “caveats
[that] reflected a willingness to allow government to
deny the otherwise guaranteed religious liberty to
persons whose religious beliefs or actions threatened
the capacity of civil society to fulfill its functions.”
Hamburger, supra, at 918. Some constitutions did so
explicitly: Maryland’s 1776 constitution provided that
“no person ought by any law to be molested in his
person or estate on account of his religious persuasion
or profession, or for his religious practice; unless,
under colour of religion, any man shall disturb the
good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe
the laws of morality, or injure others, in their natural,
civil, or religious rights.” Md. Declaration of Rts. of
1776, art. XXXIII (emphasis added). Thus, Maryland’s
constitution specifically noted that a person’s religious
beliefs could not be used to secure an exemption from
laws protecting others’ civil rights.
Similarly, both New York’s 1777 constitution and
South Carolina’s 1790 constitution provided that “free
exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and
worship, without discrimination or preference, shall
forever hereafter be allowed . . . : Provided, That the
liberty of conscience . . . shall not be so construed as to
excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices
inconsistent with the peace or safety of this State.”
N.Y. Const. of 1777, art. XXXVIII; S.C. Const. of 1790,
art. VIII, § 1 (second emphasis added). An act of
licentiousness meant an act in “contempt of the just
8
restraints of law, morality and decorum.”
Licentiousness, 2 An American Dictionary of the
English Language (Noah Webster ed., 1st ed. 1828).
These state provisions thus did not permit religious
adherents to gain exemptions from “just restraints of
law.” See R.I. & Providence Plantations Charter of
1663 (providing religious freedom so long as religious
adherents do not “use[] this libertie to lycentiousnesse
and profanenesse, nor to the civill injurye or outward
disturbeance of others”).
Other constitutions emphasized that rights to
religious freedom could not be used to disturb public
peace or safety. See, e.g., N.H. Const. of 1784, pt. I,
art. V (“Every individual has a natural and
unalienable right to worship God according to the
dictates of his own conscience, and reason” and may
not be “hurt, molested, or restrained in his person” for
doing so, “provided he doth not disturb the public
peace, or disturb others, in their religious worship.”
(emphasis added)).2 Though some commentators have
suggested that these provisions only prevented
individuals from violating “a narrower subcategory of
the general laws,” such as “breach[ing] public peace or
safety,” Michael W. McConnell, The Origins and
Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,
103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409, 1462 (1990), that
2 See also Ga. Const. of 1777, art. LVI (“All persons whatever
shall have the free exercise of their religion; provided it be not
repugnant to the peace and safety of the State.” (emphasis added));
Del. Declaration of Rts. & Fundamental Rules of 1776, § 3
(providing freedom of religion “unless, under colour of religion,
any man disturb the peace, the happiness or safety of society”
(emphasis added)); Northwest Ordinance of 1787, art. I (“No
person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner,
shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or
religious sentiments in the said territory.” (emphasis added)).
9
interpretation does not accord with the definition of
“peace” at the time. In the legal context, “peace” meant
“[p]ublic tranquility; that quiet, order and security
which is guaranteed by the laws; as, to keep the peace;
to break the peace.” Peace, 2 An American Dictionary
of the English Language, supra; see Hamburger, supra,
at 918 (“[E]very breach of law is against the peace.”
(quoting R v. Lane (1704) 87 Eng. Rep. 884, 885 (QB))).
As one commentator has pointed out, “the criminal
offenses over which common law courts had
jurisdiction were said to be ‘contra pacem,’” so “the
phrase ‘contra pacem’ became associated with the
notion of violation of law.” Id. By referencing “peace,”
then, these caveats effectively prevented individuals
from using religious beliefs to gain exemptions from
civil laws.
In addition, many of the caveats to state freeexercise provisions made explicit that religious
adherents should be treated exactly the same as
others, provided that they did not disturb public peace
or safety. New Jersey’s 1776 constitution, for instance,
provided that “all persons, professing a belief in the
faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean
themselves peaceably under the government, as
hereby established, . . . shall fully and freely enjoy
every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their
fellow subjects.”
N.J. Const. of 1776, art. XIX
(emphasis added). And Delaware’s 1776 constitution
provided that Christians shall “enjoy equal rights and
privileges in this state, unless, under colour of religion,
any man disturb the peace, the happiness or safety of
society.” Del. Declaration of Rts. & Fundamental
Rules of 1776, § 3 (emphasis added).
These
constitutions did not provide that religious adherents
were entitled to special exemptions from neutral and
10
generally applicable laws. See McConnell, supra, at
1464 (explaining that references to “the government’s
right to protect public peace and safety” in state
constitutions showed “that a believer ha[d] no license
to invade the private rights of others or to disturb
public peace and order, no matter how conscientious
the belief or how trivial the private right on the other
side”).
To be sure, not all state constitutions addressed the
limits of religious freedom. See, e.g., Va. Bill of Rts. of
1776, § 16. However, the vast majority of state
constitutions included some caveat making clear that
religious adherents must comply with at least some
generally applicable laws. Thus, to the extent it is
“reasonable to think that the States that ratified the
First Amendment assumed that the meaning of the
federal free exercise provision corresponded to that of
their existing state clauses,” City of Boerne v. Flores,
521 U.S. 507, 553 (1997) (O’Connor, J., dissenting); see
McConnell, supra, at 1456 (“[S]tate constitutions
provide the most direct evidence of the original
understanding, for it is reasonable to infer that those
who drafted and adopted the first amendment
assumed the term ‘free exercise of religion’ meant
what it had meant in their states.”), these provisions
indicate that the First Amendment does not allow
individuals to invoke religious beliefs to avoid
complying with civil laws.
Second, debates during the First Congress
demonstrate that while some legislators believed that
accommodations for religious adherents might be good
policy, they did not understand the Free Exercise
Clause to require such accommodations. See Vincent
Phillip Muñoz, Religious Liberty and the American
Founding 231 (2022) (noting that the Free Exercise
11
Clause barred only “regulating, punishing, prohibiting
or mandating religious beliefs or exercises on account
of their religious character or for religious reasons”
rather than also requiring exemptions from general
laws (emphasis added in part)). For instance, when
Congress was considering the federal Bill of Rights, it
considered including a clause in the Second
Amendment specifying that “no person, religiously
scrupulous, shall be compelled to bear arms.” Creating
the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the
First Federal Congress 182 (Helen E. Veit et al. eds.,
1991). This proposal generated considerable debate:
some argued that religious objectors must pay money
to avoid being required to bear arms in a militia, id. at
183, while others suggested that any exemptions
should be crafted by the legislature, not baked into the
constitutional text, id. at 184. Rep. Egbert Benson
urged that a religious exemption “is no natural right”
and would thrust the courts into “every regulation you
make with respect to the organization of the militia,”
such that any exemptions “ought to be left to the
[legislature’s] discretion.” 1 Annals of Cong. 780
(1789) (Joseph Gales ed., 1834). In the end, the Senate
rejected the religious-exemption clause. See Steven J.
Heyman, Reason and Conviction: Natural Rights,
Natural Religion, and the Origins of the Free Exercise
Clause, 23 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1, 111 (2021).
Similarly, when the First Congress considered a
bill to organize the militia, there was robust debate
over whether religious minorities should be granted
the right to conscientiously object to military service.
See id. at 110-15. Framers like James Madison
believed that the bill should include a clause
exempting “persons conscientiously scrupulous of
bearing arms.” James Madison, Speech in Congress
12
(Dec. 22, 1790), in Selected Writings of James Madison
193, 193 (Ralph Ketcham ed., 2006). As Madison
argued, an important American value was “secur[ing]
the rights of conscience.”
Id.
His proposed
amendment drew criticism from several colleagues
who believed that conscientious objectors should not
be given any exemption from military service and, in
the end, it was rejected by an overwhelming margin.
See Heyman, supra, at 112-15.
Notably, across both constitutional drafting and
congressional debates, no one “suggest[ed] that the
Free Exercise Clause itself would require” a religious
exemption, id. at 115—let alone that some type of
strict scrutiny would apply to generally applicable
laws that impinged on religious practice. To the
Founding generation that drafted the First
Amendment, religious exemptions were within the
discretion of lawmaking bodies to grant but were not
constitutionally required.
In short, Founding-era history provides no support
for Petitioners’ claim that religious adherents must
receive exemptions from generally applicable laws
that conflict with their religious practice.3 Nor do this
Court’s precedents, as the next Section discusses.
3 Although Founding-era sources may support a claim that
government action that targeted religion was viewed as
impermissible, those sources do not support the distinct claim
that there is a constitutional right to be exempt from generally
applicable laws protecting the welfare of the citizenry.
13
II. This Court Has Long Recognized that
Individuals’ Free-Exercise Rights Must Be
Balanced Against Government Interests in
Protecting Public Health, Safety, and
Welfare.
Though the Free Exercise Clause “‘protects
religious observers against unequal treatment’ and
against ‘laws that impose special disabilities on the
basis of religious status,’” Espinoza, 591 U.S. at 475
(quoting Trinity Lutheran, 582 U.S. at 458, 461), this
Court has repeatedly explained—in Smith and in
cases both before and after it—that the government
has substantial latitude to regulate conduct in a
neutral fashion, even if doing so may indirectly burden
religious practice.
1. For over a century, this Court has explained that
although the First Amendment does not permit the
government to burden religious practice without
justification, it also does not grant individuals an
exemption from every law that indirectly burdens
religious activity. Rather, again and again in the
decades preceding Smith, this Court held that
religious beliefs must sometimes give way to generally
applicable laws when those laws further valid
government interests.
For instance, in Prince v. Massachusetts, this Court
held that the First Amendment does not grant
individuals who wish their children to sell religious
magazines on the street an exemption from child-labor
laws. 321 U.S. 158, 168-69 (1944). The Court
acknowledged the “obviously earnest claim for freedom
of conscience and religious practice,” id. at 165, but
explained that the “rights of religion” are not “beyond
limitation” and “regulation in the public interest,” id.
14
at 166. With regard to child-labor laws, the Court
concluded that “[i]t is too late now to doubt that
legislation appropriately designed to reach [that] evil[]
is within the state’s police power,” even against a
parent’s claim “that religious scruples dictate contrary
action.” Id. at 168-69.
This Court reiterated that principle in Braunfeld v.
Brown. There, a plurality upheld a Pennsylvania ban
on Sunday labor even though the law economically
disadvantaged people whose religious day of rest fell
on Saturday. 366 U.S. 599, 609 (1961) (plurality
opinion). The plurality explained that “if the State
regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its
power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance
the State’s secular goals, the statute is valid despite its
indirect burden on religious observance unless the
State may accomplish its purpose by means which do
not impose such a burden.” Id. at 607. This rule made
sense, in the Court’s view, because “we are a
cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every
conceivable religious preference,” so it “cannot be
expected . . . that legislators enact no law regulating
conduct that may in some way result in an economic
disadvantage to some religious sects and not to
others.” Id. at 606.
In Gillette v. United States, this Court upheld the
military draft as applied to individuals with religious
objections to certain wars, explaining that “[o]ur cases
do not at their farthest reach support the proposition
that a stance of conscientious opposition relieves an
objector from any colliding duty fixed by a democratic
government.” 401 U.S. at 461. The Court explained
that conscription laws “are not designed to interfere
with any religious ritual or practice, and do not work
a penalty against any theological position.” Id. at 462.
15
Any “incidental burdens” on religion are “justified by
substantial governmental interests that relate directly
to the very impacts questioned.” Id.; see Jacobson v.
Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 29 (1905) (recognizing
that someone “may be compelled, by force if need be,
against his will and without regard to his . . . religious
or political convictions, to take his place in the ranks
of the army of his country”).
And this Court in United States v. Lee held that the
government could require Amish people to pay Social
Security taxes even though the payment of those taxes
conflicted with their religious beliefs. 455 U.S. at 254.
The Court explained that “[n]ot all burdens on religion
are unconstitutional” and that “[t]o maintain an
organized society that guarantees religious freedom to
a great variety of faiths requires that some religious
practices yield to the common good.” Id. at 257, 259;
see id. at 261 (“[E]very person cannot be shielded from
all the burdens incident to exercising every aspect of
the right to practice religious beliefs.”). Although the
Court suggested a searching standard of review, see id.
at 257-58 (requiring the government to “justify a
limitation on religious liberty by showing that it is
essential to accomplish an overriding governmental
interest”), it readily upheld the law, reasoning that
“[t]he tax system could not function” if it were
challengeable “because tax payments were spent in a
manner that violates . . . religious belief,” id. at 260.
Thus, “[w]hen followers of a particular sect enter into
commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits
they accept on their own conduct as a matter of
conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the
statutory schemes which are binding on others in that
activity.” Id. at 261.
16
The principle that individuals’ free-exercise rights
must
be
balanced
against
countervailing
governmental interests explains why this Court
repeatedly recognized prior to Smith that the
government retains substantial latitude to administer
its own public programs without having to
accommodate all individual beliefs. That is, “[t]he
Free Exercise Clause simply cannot be understood to
require the Government to conduct its own internal
affairs in ways that comport with the religious beliefs
of particular citizens.” Bowen, 476 U.S. at 699. In
Bowen v. Roy, the Court thus upheld the government’s
use of Social Security numbers to provide state
benefits to individuals even if assigning them a
number violated their religious beliefs. Id. at 701. As
Bowen explained, “[t]he Free Exercise Clause affords
an individual protection from certain forms of
governmental compulsion; it does not afford an
individual a right to dictate . . . the Government’s
internal procedures.” Id. at 700; see Sherbert v.
Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 412 (1963) (Douglas, J.,
concurring) (“[T]he Free Exercise Clause is written in
terms of what the government cannot do to the
individual, not in terms of what the individual can
exact from the government.”).
Similarly, in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery
Protective Ass’n, the Court held that the Free Exercise
Clause does not bar the government from permitting
timber harvesting on federal land traditionally used
for American Indian religious purposes. See 485 U.S.
at 441-42. The Court explained that a “broad range of
government activities—from social welfare programs
to foreign aid to conservation projects—will always be
considered essential to the spiritual well-being of some
citizens, often on the basis of sincerely held religious
17
beliefs,” even as “[o]thers will find the same activities
deeply offensive, and perhaps incompatible with their
own search for spiritual fulfillment and with the tenets
of their religion.” Id. at 452. For that reason,
“government simply could not operate if it were
required to satisfy every citizen’s religious needs and
desires.” Id. Rather, “[t]he First Amendment must
apply to all citizens alike, and it can give to none of
them a veto over public programs that do not prohibit
the free exercise of religion.” Id.
Even when this Court has upheld challenges to
government policies, it has reaffirmed the principle
that not all laws must give way to religious beliefs. For
example, in West Virginia State Board of Education v.
Barnette, the Court held that Jehovah’s Witnesses
could not be required to salute the American flag in
school. 319 U.S. 624, 631, 642 (1943). Notably, the
Court emphasized that “[t]he freedom asserted by
these appellees does not bring them into collision with
rights asserted by any other individual” and that, if it
did, such conflict would require a more careful analysis
about “where the rights of one end and those of another
begin.” Id. at 630.
And in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court held that the
First Amendment required an exemption from
compulsory-attendance laws where Amish religious
beliefs dictated that children attend at-home
vocational training rather than public high school. 406
U.S. at 234. Importantly, the Court acknowledged
that “activities of individuals, even when religiously
based, are often subject to regulation by the States in
the exercise of their undoubted power to promote the
health, safety, and general welfare.” Id. at 220. But
in that case, “an additional one or two years of formal
high school for Amish children in place of their long-
18
established program of informal vocational education
would do little to serve th[e] interests” of the state to
“prepare citizens to participate effectively and
intelligently in our open political system.” Id. at 22122.
Significantly, well before Smith, this Court
repeatedly declared that, even under strict scrutiny,
eradicating discrimination constitutes a paramount
government concern—and that barring discrimination
outright is the least restrictive method to achieve that
goal.
In Bob Jones University v. United States, for
instance, this Court held that religious schools could
be denied tax-exempt status if they discriminated
against racial minorities, even if they believed such
discrimination was required by their religious beliefs.
461 U.S. at 604. The Court applied a heightened
standard of review, id. at 603 (“[A] state may justify a
limitation on religious liberty by showing that it is
essential to accomplish an overriding governmental
interest.” (quoting Lee, 455 U.S. at 257-58)), but
concluded that “[t]he governmental interest at stake
. . . is compelling” even under that exacting standard,
id. at 604. “[T]he Government has a fundamental,
overriding
interest
in
eradicating
racial
discrimination in education—discrimination that
prevailed, with official approval, for the first 165 years
of this Nation’s history”—that “substantially
outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits
places on petitioners’ exercise of their religious
beliefs.” Id.
The Court concluded that “[t]he interests asserted
by [the religious schools] cannot be accommodated
with that compelling governmental interest . . . and no
19
‘less restrictive means’ . . . are available to achieve the
governmental interest.” Id. (citing Thomas v. Rev. Bd.
of the Ind. Emp. Sec. Div., 450 U.S. 707, 718 (1981));
see Newman v. Piggie Park Enters., 390 U.S. 400, 402
n.5 (1968) (treating as “patently frivolous” the claim
that a nondiscrimination law is “invalid because it
contravenes the will of God and constitutes an
interference with the free exercise of the Defendant’s
religion” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Beyond the Free Exercise Clause, too, this Court
has insisted that eradicating discrimination is a
compelling government interest that can be
accomplished only by prohibiting it outright.
This Court has thus held that the government can
deny benefits to schools if they engage in
discrimination. In Runyon v. McCrary, this Court held
that a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in
contracting constitutionally barred private schools
from choosing students on the basis of race. 427 U.S.
160, 176-77 (1976). Runyon acknowledged that “it
may be assumed that parents have a First
Amendment right to send their children to educational
institutions that promote the belief that racial
segregation is desirable, and that the children have an
equal right to attend such institutions,” but declared
that “it does not follow that the practice of excluding
racial minorities from such institutions is also
protected by the same principle.” Id. at 176; see id.
(noting that the Constitution “places no value on
discrimination” (quoting Norwood v. Harrison, 413
U.S. 455, 469 (1973))).
And this Court has upheld laws that prohibit sex
discrimination, rejecting arguments that private clubs
have a First Amendment right to exclude women. In
20
Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, this Court emphasized that a
state law banning public accommodations from
discriminating based on sex was constitutional as a
content-neutral
regulation
that
“eliminat[es]
discrimination and assur[es] . . . citizens equal access
to publicly available goods and services.” 468 U.S. at
624. “That goal, which is unrelated to the suppression
of expression, plainly serves compelling state interests
of the highest order.”
Id.
Even if enforcing
antidiscrimination laws “causes some incidental
abridgment of [an organization’s] protected speech,
that effect is no greater than is necessary to
accomplish the State’s legitimate purposes.” Id. at
628.
Thus, “Minnesota’s compelling interest in
eradicating discrimination against its female citizens
justifies the impact that application of the statute to
[an organization] may have on the male members’
associational freedoms.” Id. at 623; see Bd. of Dirs. of
Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537, 549
(1987) (explaining that a “slight infringement” on
plaintiffs’ “right of expressive association . . . is
justified because it serves the State’s compelling
interest in eliminating discrimination against
women”); Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 78
(1984) (holding that Title VII’s bar on sex
discrimination in hiring did not “infringe” a law firm’s
“constitutional rights of expression or association”).
Notably, in none of these cases did the Court ever
suggest that, although the government may lawfully
restrict freedom of expression and freedom of
association
when
applying
viewpoint-neutral
antidiscrimination laws, the cases would have been
decided differently if the plaintiffs had included a freeexercise claim as well.
21
2.
In 1990, this Court decided Employment
Division v. Smith and held that if prohibiting or
burdening the free exercise of religion “is not the object
of [a law] but merely the incidental effect of a generally
applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First
Amendment has not been offended.” 494 U.S. at 878.
In that case, the Court held that the Free Exercise
Clause did not bar Oregon from “deny[ing]
respondents unemployment compensation” under
state law “when their dismissal results from use of [an
illegal] drug” in accordance with their religious beliefs.
Id. at 890.
The Court subsequently explained that “a law that
is neutral and of general applicability need not be
justified by a compelling governmental interest even if
the law has the incidental effect of burdening a
particular religious practice.” Lukumi Babalu Aye,
508 U.S. at 531; see Fulton, 593 U.S. at 533 (“Smith
held that laws incidentally burdening religion are
ordinarily not subject to strict scrutiny under the Free
Exercise Clause so long as they are neutral and
generally applicable.”).
This Court has further
elaborated that a “law is not generally applicable if it
‘invite[s]’ the government to consider the particular
reasons for a person’s conduct by providing ‘a
mechanism for individualized exemptions.’” Fulton,
593 U.S. at 533 (alteration in original) (quoting Smith,
494 U.S. at 884). In addition, a law “lacks general
applicability if it prohibits religious conduct while
permitting secular conduct that undermines the
government’s asserted interests in a similar way.” Id.
at 534.
Smith also made clear that the Constitution does
not ordinarily empower reviewing courts to read
religious exemptions into duly enacted state laws.
22
Indeed, “to say that a nondiscriminatory religiouspractice exemption . . . is desirable, is not to say that it
is constitutionally required, and that the appropriate
occasions for its creation can be discerned by the
courts.” Smith, 494 U.S. at 890. Echoing earlier cases
discussed above, four members of the Smith Court
emphasized that the Free Exercise Clause “does not
‘require the Government itself to behave in ways that
the individual believes will further his or her spiritual
development.’” Id. at 900 (O’Connor, J., concurring in
the judgment) (quoting Bowen, 476 U.S. at 699; and
then citing Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449).
3. Even in post-Smith cases where this Court has
limited government action on free-exercise grounds,
the disputes have—unlike this case—most often
involved overt discrimination against religion or a
conclusion that government officials displayed antireligion animus.
Several of this Court’s more recent free-exercise
cases involved challenges to government programs
that singled out religious individuals or institutions
for differential treatment. In Trinity Lutheran, for
example, the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources enforced a policy that “expressly
discriminate[d] against otherwise eligible recipients
by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely
because of their religious character.” 582 U.S. at 462.
In Espinoza, Montana’s “no-aid provision bar[red]
religious schools from public benefits solely because of
the religious character of the schools” and prohibited
“parents who wish to send their children to a religious
school from those same benefits, again solely because
of the religious character of the school.” 591 U.S. at
476. And in Carson, Maine’s program of tuitionassistance payments “identif[ied] and exclude[d]
23
otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious
exercise.” 596 U.S. at 789. The policies in those cases
do not resemble Colorado’s nondiscrimination
requirement, which applies to all schools that seek to
join its public UPK program and is entirely neutral as
between secular and religious preschools—both of
which can receive funding under the scheme
challenged here. Indeed, neither Espinoza nor Carson
even mentioned Smith, let alone had occasion to
conduct a general-applicability inquiry of the sort
relevant here.
Nor does Colorado’s requirement reveal the sort of
anti-religion animus this Court has found
objectionable in other free-exercise cases.
In
Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Court concluded based on a
hearing record that a state commission’s treatment of
a complainant’s case bore “elements of a clear and
impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious
beliefs that motivated his objection.” 584 U.S. at 634.
And unlike the California scheme in Tandon, which
restricted gatherings for “at-home religious exercise”
while permitting commercial events of similar scale,
Colorado’s UPK program does not contain “myriad
exceptions and accommodations for comparable
activities” that treat “secular activity more favorably
than religious exercise.” 593 U.S. at 62-64. Rather,
all preschools seeking to participate in Colorado’s UPK
program must agree not to discriminate against
applicant families based on gender identity or sexual
orientation. That sort of general policy does not
“treat[] some . . . secular [preschools] more favorably
than . . . religious [preschools].” Id. at 63.
More broadly, well after Smith, this Court has
continued to recognize the gravity of the government’s
interest in eradicating discrimination to ensure
24
equality. See, e.g., Hurley v. Irish-American Gay,
Lesbian & Bisexual Grp. of Bos., 515 U.S. 557, 572
(1995) (noting that provisions barring discrimination
are “well within the State’s usual power to enact when
a legislature has reason to believe that a given group
is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a
general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth
Amendments”).
Recently, in Fulton, this Court
confirmed explicitly that Philadelphia’s interest in
ensuring “the equal treatment” of same-sex couples
was a “weighty one, for ‘[o]ur society has come to the
recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot
be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity
and worth.’” 593 U.S. at 542 (alteration in original)
(quoting Masterpiece Cakeshop, 584 U.S. at 631); see
Masterpiece Cakeshop, 584 U.S. at 632 (“It is
unexceptional that [a state] law can protect gay
persons, just as it can protect other classes of
individuals, in acquiring whatever products and
services they choose on the same terms and conditions
as are offered to other members of the public.”);
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 733
(2014) (“The Government has a compelling interest in
providing an equal opportunity to participate in the
workforce without regard to race, and prohibitions on
racial discrimination are precisely tailored to achieve
that critical goal.”).
Finally, Petitioners cite this Court’s decision in
Mahmoud, arguing that it invokes a general “rule
against religious-exercise-based benefits exclusions.”
Pet’rs Br. 34. But Mahmoud, which concerned a
challenge to a school board’s “no-opt-out policy” for
classroom instruction on certain books, cannot be
stretched that far. 606 U.S. at 563. There, this Court
distinguished cases like Bowen and Lyng based on
25
careful attention to the specific factual scenario in
which Mahmoud arose, emphasizing that the
“operation of the public schools is not a matter of
‘internal affairs’” because it “implicates direct, coercive
interactions between the State and its young
residents.” Id. at 557 (citing Bowen, 476 U.S. at 699);
see id. at 554-55 (recognizing the “potentially coercive
nature of classroom instruction,” where the
government “‘exerts great authority and coercive
power’” (quoting Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578,
584 (1987))).4 Unlike regulations like Colorado’s that
concern student enrollment and admissions, the direct
classroom-instruction context involves schools’ “power
to discipline [students] for misconduct.” Id. at 557; see
id. (emphasizing that “questions of public school
curriculum” are not “purely a matter of internal
affairs” because they implicate freedom of speech and
the Establishment Clause).
This Court thus
recognized that the “special character of the burden”
in Mahmoud (and Yoder), which both concerned
compulsory public-school instruction, required it to
bypass Smith’s analysis and apply strict scrutiny. See
id. at 564-65.
Colorado’s UPK program, which
provides benefits to secular and religious preschools
alike, imposes no such burden.
If preschools can participate in Colorado’s
voluntary funding program while opting out of any
4 Here, as in Bowen, “the objecting [parties] were not faced
with penalties or ‘coerced by the Governmen[t] into violating their
religious beliefs.’” Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter & Paul
Home v. Pennsylvania, 591 U.S. 657, 692 n.5 (2020) (Alito, J.,
concurring) (alteration in original) (quoting Lyng, 485 U.S. at
449). Petitioners simply may not join the government’s voluntary
program without complying with the nondiscrimination policy
that program applies to all participating preschools.
26
contractual term that burdens their religious beliefs,
the floodgates will open, as states could be required to
set aside all manner of nondiscrimination and other
policies they develop for their own programs. That
would mark a significant step beyond 303 Creative
LLC v. Elenis, in which this Court held that a state
antidiscrimination law could not compel a private
business owner providing “expressive services” to
fulfill orders “express[ing] views with which she
disagrees.” 600 U.S. 570, 580, 597 (2023). This Court
has never permitted private applicants seeking state
funding to redesign the rules of government programs
à la carte.
4.
Colorado’s nondiscrimination requirement
applies to all preschools seeking public UPK funding.
As the district court found, that requirement does not
admit of exceptions: “the Department has not created
a formal mechanism for exceptions to the sexualorientation and gender-identity aspects of the equalopportunity requirement.” Pet. App. 144a; cf. Fulton,
593 U.S. at 537 (“The creation of a formal mechanism
for granting exceptions renders a policy not generally
applicable, regardless whether any exceptions have
been given.”).
This program is thus markedly different from the
government scheme at issue in Fulton, which
expressly permitted carveouts to a Philadelphia
nondiscrimination policy if “an exception is granted by
the Commissioner . . . in his/her sole discretion.” Id. at
535 (emphasis added) (citation omitted); cf. Pet. App.
31a n.14 (“The real question . . . is whether the
Department has created a system of individual . . .
exemptions to the prohibition on discriminating based
on sexual orientation and gender identity. It has not,
and thus the law is still generally applicable.”); id. at
123a (“Here, there is no mechanism of individualized
27
exemptions to the equal-opportunity requirement.”);
id. at 127a (“[N]o universal discretion has been
authorized or exercised.”). The UPK program is thus
a far cry from programs this Court has considered
where “the inclusion of a formal system of entirely
discretionary exceptions . . . renders [a] contractual
non-discrimination
requirement
not
generally
applicable.” Fulton, 593 U.S. at 536. And it bears even
less resemblance to other programs that built
significant discretionary power into their core
institutional design. See Sherbert, 374 U.S. at 400-01
(discussing a statutory “good cause” exception to South
Carolina’s unemployment-compensation scheme).
***
In short, Petitioners’ claim that they must receive
an exemption from this neutral and generally
applicable nondiscrimination policy is supported by
neither Founding-era sources nor this Court’s case
law. This Court has never suggested, let alone held,
that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause
allows individuals to avoid complying with a generally
applicable nondiscrimination policy that is imposed
equally on all participants. It should not start now.
28
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the
court of appeals should be affirmed.
Respectfully submitted,
ELIZABETH B. WYDRA
BRIANNE J. GOROD*
PRAVEEN FERNANDES
DAVID H. GANS
JOSHUA D. BLECHER-COHEN
CONSTITUTIONAL
ACCOUNTABILITY CENTER
1730 Rhode Island Ave. NW
Suite 1200
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 296-6889
brianne@theusconstitution.org
Counsel for Amici Curiae
August 24, 2026
* Counsel of Record
APPENDIX
1A
APPENDIX – TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF AMICI CURIAE ..................................... 2A
2A
APPENDIX
LIST OF AMICI CURIAE
Carlos A. Ball
Distinguished Professor of Law and Judge Frederick
Lacey Scholar,
Rutgers Law School
Katie Eyer
Vice Dean, Distinguished Professor of Law, and Judge
Guido Calabresi Scholar,
Rutgers Law School
Kent Greenfield
Professor of Law and Thomas F. Carney Distinguished
Scholar,
Boston College Law School
Gregory P. Magarian
Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law,
Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
Kermit Roosevelt
David Berger Professor for the Administration of
Justice,
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.