Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education’s Empirical Analysis
827 F.2d 1058 · 1987
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 4 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 72 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Brown v. Hot, Sexy & Safer Productions, Inc. (1995), Parker v. Hurley (2008)
40 federal appellate · 4 district · 5 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Wisconsin v. Yoder · Sherbert v. Verner · Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same
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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The] purpose [of the Free Exercise Clause] is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority. Hence it is necessary in a free exercise case for one to show the coercive effect of the enactment as it operates against him in the practice of his religion.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[i]t is clear that governmental compulsion either to do or refrain from doing an act forbidden or required by one's religion, or to affirm or disavow a belief forbidden or required by one's religion, is the evil prohibited by the Free Exercise Clause”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The Supreme Court has emphasized that the avoidance of religious divisiveness is nowhere more important than in public education, for '[t]he government's activities in this area can have a magnified impact on impressionable young minds....'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.