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54 Wake Forest L. Rev. 617 (2019)
Opportunistic Originalism and the Establishment Clause

handle is hein.journals/wflr54 and id is 641 raw text is: OPPORTUNISTIC ORIGINALISM AND THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE Caroline Mala Corbin* This Article argues that the Supreme Court's use of originalism is opportunistic because sometimes the Court relies on it, and sometimes it does not. This inconsistency is evident in two recent decisions with significant Establishment Clause consequences: Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014) and Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017). In Town of Greece, the Supreme Court applied an originalist analysis to uphold the government's policy of sponsoring predominantly Christian prayers before town meetings. In Trinity Lutheran Church, the Supreme Court failed to conduct an originalist analysis of direct government funding to churches before ordering a state to award a cash grant to a Christian church. The Court's inconsistent application-even when dealing with a single clause-raises the possibility that the Court's use of originalism is based less on principle than on desired outcomes. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODU CTION ......................................................................... 618 II. B ACKGROUND ........................................................................... 620 A. The Establishment Clause ............................................... 620 B . O riginalism ...................................................................... 623 III. TOWN OF GREECE V. GALLOWAY .............................................. 628 A. The Court's Originalist Analysis ..................................... 629 B. Establishment Clause Doctrine Analyses ........................ 635 1. L em on T est .................................................................. 635 2. E ndorsem ent Test ....................................................... 636 3. C oercion Test ............................................................... 638 IV. TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH, INC. v. COMER ......................... 641 * Copyright © 2018 by Caroline Mala Corbint Professor of Law and Dean's Distinguished Scholar, University of Miami School of Law; B.A., Harvard University; J.D., Columbia Law School. I would like to thank Chinmayi Sharma and the participants at the Ninth Annual Law & Religion Roundtable for helpful comments, particularly Nathaniel Berman, Andy Kopelmann, Chip Lupu, and Nelson Tebbe. I would also like to thank to my research assistants Keelin Bielski, Michael Habib, Kaitlyn Mannis, and Jean Phillip Shami. 617

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