LESSON PLAN
FREE EXERCISE
LESSON PLAN
FREE EXERCISE
LESSON PLAN
GRADE LEVELS:
7th and 8th
AUTHOR:
Rebecca Stephens
INTRODUCTION/LESSON OVERVIEW:
Free exercise is the right to pracce what you believe. The founding generaon included this in the Constuon because
they had experienced a world in which the government restricted which religious pracces should or could be pracced.
Many Americans agree that the right to free exercise of religion is important, yet there are disagreements over what to
do in situaons where religious liberes conict with the laws of the naon.
The free exercise of religion is one of the foundaonal principles of the First Amendment and yet its implementaon can
lead to very challenging constuonal quesons. In this lesson students will learn what free exercise is and will examine
four Supreme Court cases to understand why and how the applicaon of free exercise has changed over me.
• What is the free exercise clause? Why did the founders include it in the Constuon?
• How has the Supreme Court’s applicaon of the free exercise clause changed over me?
• How does the Supreme Court apply the free exercise clause today?
• How can the Supreme Court balance the right of religious liberty with laws passed by the elected branches?
• Students will analyze the evoluon of Supreme Court standards set on the issue of the free exercise clause.
• Students will evaluate modern quesons surrounding religious liberty.
• Warm up/Exit Ticket Page — one for each student, printed double sided
• Four staons set up— each with a dierent Supreme Court Case Summary Sheet and an electronic
device open to www.oyez.org
• Graphic Organizers — one for each student
• Homework— can be printed on the back side of graphic organizer
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PROCEDURES:
• Class will begin with the text of the free exercise clause displayed on the board. Students can read
the clause and discuss what they think it means.
• The teacher will then pass out the Warm up/Exit cket sheet and instruct students to work with a partner
next to them, or table groups if applicable, to complete the handout.
• Students can share their thoughts with the enre class.
• The teacher should show a clip of the video on free exercise from the following link:
hps://constuoncenter.org/ic-2019/big-queson/freedom-of-religion-free-exercise-clause.
o The poron of the video appropriate for this lesson runs from the beginning unl 2:52.
• As students watch, they should answer the following quesons:
o What is an example of when the government has limited free exercise rights?
o According to Jusce Kagan, why are free exercise rights so important?
• Aer the video, the class should engage in a discussion of their understanding of free exercise as
they review the answers to the video quesons.
• If the classroom is not already situated in groups, the teacher should create four groups.
Each student should receive their own copy of the Supreme Court Graphic Organizer.
• Each staon should be dedicated to a dierent Supreme Court case, and should include several copies of
the case summary and a device open to the Oyez page for the specic case. Students can use both resources
to complete the graphic organizer.
•
The teacher can assign each group a staon to begin, moving groups about every six minutes to dierent staons.
The goal is for each group to complete all the staons, so ming may vary depending on period length.
• Aer students have visited all staons, they will return to their seats and revisit the scenarios from the
Warm up acvity by compleng the Exit Ticket poron of the page.
• For homework, students will choose a Supreme Court decision with which they agreed or disagreed
and provide evidence to support their ideas. They will have to use constuonal reasoning to support
their answer.
• Teachers can show the enre video and have students complete the video guide.
• Students can engage in a civil dialogue to answer the queson, “When does the government win?
When does the religious objector win?” Students can use resources from class, the video on freedom of
religion in its enrety, found here, or other resources from the Naonal Constuon Center’s Media Library.
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WARM UP
First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecng an establishment of religion, or prohibing
the free exercise thereof…”
Read through the following scenarios, and then as a group discuss and answer the queson based on
your reading of the free exercise clause.
SCENARIO YES NO
1 A man wants to marry more than one woman, in a pracce known
as polygamy. He claims it is his religious belief that he should be free
to pracce polygamy and that the law violates the free exercise clause.
Is he right?
2 A parent wants to pull his child out of public school at the end of
8th grade even though state law says he should aend unl the
age of 16. He believes that sending his child to high school violates
his religious beliefs and that the law violates the free exercise clause.
Is he right?
3 Counselors at a private drug rehabilitaon center were red aer they
ingested a hallucinogenic as part of a Nave American ritual. The state
then refused their applicaon for unemployment insurance. They claimed
that they were only praccing their religion and that the state’s decision
violates the free exercise clause. Are they right?
4 A religious group is sacricing animals as a part of their religious pracces.
The local community made a law, specically targeng them, outlawing
the killing of animals as a part of religious ceremony. The group argues
that this law violates the free exercise clause. Is this group right?
What did the Supreme Court decide in the cases presented in the warm up acvity?
SCENARIO COURT CASE SUPREME COURT DECISION
1
2
3
4
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FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE GRAPHIC ORGANIZER
Reynolds v. United States (1878)
Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
Employment Division v. Smith (1990)
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993)
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Based on what you learned today about the free exercise clause and the Supreme Court’s interpretaon
of it over me, choose one case that you either agree or disagree with.
(circle one)
__________________________________ (name the case).
(be sure to refer to the Constuon in your answer):
1)
2)
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STATION 1:
Reynolds v. United States
The Supreme Court rst addressed the queson in a series of cases involving 19th-century laws
aimed at the pracce of by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Laer-
day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons. The Court unanimously rejected free exercise challenges
to these laws, holding that the free exercise clause protects beliefs but not conduct. “Laws are
made for the government of acons, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and
opinions, they may with pracces” (Reynolds v. United States (1878)). What followed was perhaps
the most extreme government on religious freedom in American history. Hundreds of
church leaders were jailed, rank-and-le Mormons were deprived of their right to vote, and Congress
dissolved the LDS Church and most of its property, unl the church nally agreed to
abandon polygamy.
The belief-acon disncon ignored the free exercise clause’s obvious protecon of religious pracce,
but spoke to the concern that allowing believers to disobey laws that bind everyone else would
undermine the value of a government o
f laws applied to all. Doing so, Reynolds warned, “would be
to make the
, and in eect to
permit every cizen to become a law unto himself.” Reynolds inuenced the meaning of the free
exercise clause well into the 20th century.
: liming
: having more than one wife
: aack
: took away
:
the beliefs of a religious group are above the laws passed by elected branches
:
• Free exercise clause protects beliefs not conduct
• Reynolds set up the idea that allowing believers to disobey laws that bind everyone else would
undermine the value of a government of laws applied to all
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STATION 2:
Wisconsin v. Yoder
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Court shied, strengthening protecon for religious conduct
by the free exercise clause to protect a right of religious believers to from
generally applicable laws which religious exercise. The Court held that the government may
not enforce even a religiously-neutral law that applies generally to all or most of society unless the
public interest in enforcement is “compelling” (Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)). Yoder thus held that Amish
families could not be punished for refusing to send their children to school beyond the age of 14.
Although the language of this “compelling-interest” test suggested powerful protecons for
religion, these were never fully realized. The cases in which the Supreme Court denied exempons
outnumbered those in which it granted them.
: started interpreng in a parcular way
: not having to follow
: negavely aect
:
• The government may not enforce even a religiously-neutral law that applies generally to all or
most of society unless the public interest in enforcement is “compelling.”
• The cases in which the Supreme Court denied exempons outnumbered those in which it granted them.
• The Court did have a few key cases granng exempons, but it never really gave the free exercise clause much bite.
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STATION 3:
Employment Division v. Smith
In 1990, the Supreme Court changed course yet again, holding that the free exercise clause
“does not relieve an individual of the obligaon to with a valid and neutral law of
on the ground that the law conduct that his religion
prescribes (or proscribes)” (Employment Division v. Smith (1990)). Though it did not return to
the belief-acon disncon, the Court echoed Reynolds’ concern that religious exempons permit
a person, “by virtue of his beliefs, to become a law unto himself,” contradicng “both constuonal
tradion and common sense.” Any excepons to religiously-neutral and generally-applicable laws,
therefore, must come from the “polical process.” Smith went on to hold that the free exercise
clause does not protect the sacramental use of peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, by members of
the Nave American Church.
: follow
: laws all must follow
: forbids
prescribes: recommends
:
• The free exercise clause does not relieve an individual of the obligaon to follow “generally applicable” laws.
• Religious exempons permit a person, “by virtue of his beliefs, to become a law unto himself.”
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STATION 4:
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah
Besides and other exempon statutes, the free exercise
clause itself, even aer Smith, connues to provide protecon for believers against
from laws that target religious pracces, or that disadvantage religion in
, case-by-case decision making. In Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of
Hialeah (1993), for example, the Court unanimously struck down a local ordinance against the
“unnecessary” killing of animals in a “ritual or ceremony”— a law that was drawn to apply only
to a small and unpopular religious sect whose worship includes animal sacrice.
: a law passed by Congress that allows courts to exempt a person
from any law that imposes a substanal burden on religious beliefs or acons
: limits on how people pracce their religion
: on a case by case basis
:
•
The free exercise clause itself, even aer Smith, connues to provide protecon for believers against burdens
on religious exercise from laws especially when the challengers argue that there has been some sort of
religious discriminaon.
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