Constitution Day 2022: "Keeping Government Out of Religion and Vice Versa" with Prof. Doug Coulson

In this lecture, Professor Doug Coulson addresses the role metaphors and figurality play in constitutional interpretation through an examination of competing figures of speech and thought in interpretations of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses (together, the Religion Clauses). Specifically, Professor Coulson contrasts the “wall of separation” metaphor for understanding the relationship of Church and State, commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, with the pervasiveness of chiasmus, or inverted parallelism, in James Madison’s Remonstrance and Memorial against Religious Assessments. Both the wall metaphor and Madison’s use of chiasmus were often employed by Supreme Court justices in their early opinion writing on the Religion Clauses. Professor Coulson traces the influences of these figures on the Court's Religion Clause jurisprudence, arguing that chiasmus better reflects the Court’s eventual stance but reveals a problematic irresolution in the Court’s approach to the interpretive questions raised.