Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith 484 U.S. 872 (1990)

• Author: John G. West
• Pages: 894-895

Page 894

Two drug and alcohol abuse counselors were fired from their jobs after ingesting the hallucinogenic drug peyote during a religious ceremony of the Native American Church. They were subsequently denied unemployment compensation by the state of Oregon because the state determined they had been discharged for work-related "misconduct." The workers filed suit, alleging that the denial of compensation violated the free exercise clause of the FIRST AMENDMENT. The Supreme Court disagreed by a vote of 6?3.

If the Court had handled Smith as it had handled most of its previous cases in the field of RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, it would have first asked whether Oregon had a COMPELLING STATE INTEREST to deny unemployment compensation to the fired workers. If Oregon could demonstrate such an interest, and the denial of compensation was narrowly tailored to further that end, the denial would have been upheld. But the Court did not treat Smith as it had previous cases. Instead, it used Smith to abolish the compelling-interest standard for challenges brought under the free exercise clause.

Writing for five members of the Court, Justice ANTONIN SCALIA made the astonishing claim that the Court had never really applied the compelling-interest standard to free exercise claims. According to Scalia, the Court had "never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate." Of course, the Court had held precisely that in several cases, most notably CANTWELL V. CONNECTICUT (1943) and WISCONSIN V. YODER (1972). But Scalia noted that these cases implicated other constitutional rights besides free exercise, and he suggested that those other rights were the decisive factor in the Court's decisions to hold unconstitutional particular applications of certain general laws. In Cantwell, the invalidated licensing law impinged on the FREEDOM OF SPEECH;in Yoder, the compulsory education law infringed on the "right of parents ? to direct the education of their children." Scalia concluded from this that only when the free-exercise clause is joined with other constitutional protections may it invalidate particular applications of general laws. As a practical matter, this means that the free exercise clause alone means very little. Generally applicable laws that do not implicate other constitutional rights are constitutional, no matter how difficult they make...