Winners of the Third Annual Religious Freedom Student Writing Competition were announced at an Awards Dinner in Washington, D.C., on 11 October 2012:

First Place – Aaron R. Petty, “Faith, However Defined”: Reassessing JFS and the Judicial Conception of “Religion”

Second Place – Brian K. Mosely, Zoning Religion Out of the Public Square: Constitutional Avoidance and Conflicting Interpretations of RLUIPA’s Equal Terms Provision

Third Place – Andrew R. Hamilton, The New York Marriage Equality Act and the Strength of Its Religion Exceptions

Honorable Mention – Nicholas T. Matich, Forum Domination: Religious speech in Limited Public Fora

Honorable Mention – David E. Merrell, Staying in Control of Religion: The Case of Islam in Central Asia and Implications for Religious Freedom

Honorable Mention – Greg Skidmore, Taking a Chance on Smith: How the Hybrid-Rights Doctrine Can Protect Both Religious Individuals and Religious Institutions

Honorable Mention – Carolyn Homer Thomas, The Unconstitutionality of the Copyright Act’s Licensing Exemption for Religious Performances of Religious Works

The sponsors of the contest, the DC Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University, congratulate these students for their excellent scholarly contributions to the field of religious liberty.  

The annual writing contest is open to law students and to students pursuing related graduate studies. Its purpose is to promote legal and academic studies in the field of religious liberty.

The event is made possible in part by the Sterling and Eleanor Colton Chair in Law and Religion.