Birgit Ehlers-Renzi’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district · 2 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[R]ecognizing that this Nation’s history has not been one of entirely sanitized separation between Church and State, the Supreme Court has noted that it has never been thought either possible or desirable to enforce a regime of total separation. Thus, the principle is ifixed’ that a government program or law which in some manner aids an institution with a religious affiliation does not, for that reason alone, violate the Establishment Clause.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rogers v. Mulholland · Ed Brown v. James Gilmore

2. “This authorized, and sometimes mandatory, accommodation of religion is a necessary aspect of the Establishment Clause jurisprudence because, without it, government would find itself effectively and unconstitutionally promoting the absence of religion over its practice.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ed Brown v. James Gilmore

3. “The Establishment Clause prohibits Congress and, through the Fourteenth Amendment, the States from making any law 'respecting an establishment of religion.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Redemption Cmty. Church v. City of Laurel