Winnifred Fallers Sullivan: “Teaching Religion in Public”

What does it mean to teach religion in public? Is the task of religious studies instructors different at a public university? The U.S. has decided constitutionally not to define religion—indeed, it is radically indeterminate by design—yet under the free exercise clause the U.S. has decided to protect it, and it must be defined in order to be protected. And while religious studies instructors reflexively understand the words "religion" and "religious" to change meaning over time and place, the law plays a part in the consolidation of those meanings. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Professor of Religious Studies and Affiliate Professor of Law at Indiana University Bloomington, will examine the ways in which law haunts and constrains the teaching of religion at public universities under disestablishment. She will examine the obligations of teachers at public institutions through a close reading of a widely misunderstood case, Abington v Schempp—the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 decision ending Bible-reading in public schools in the U.S.