An article from the Fall 2007 symposium issue of the West Virginia Law Review, Volume 110, on “The Religion Clauses in the 21st Century.” The symposium was convened by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the West Virginia University College of Law on October April 12 and 13, 2007.

As part of the series of papers from the symposium panel “Accommodation of Religion,” Carl Esbeck, R. B. Price Professor and Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at University of Missouri-Columbia, wrote on “When Accommodations for Religion Violate the Establishment Clause: Regularizing the Supreme Court’s Analysis.” In responding to Professor Greenawalt, Professor Esbeck instead “grounds his account of accommodation on the Establishment Clause principle he labels ‘voluntaryism,’ meaning ‘that government is not to be actively involved in funding or otherwise supporting organized religion as religion.’ So understood, the Establishment Clause is ‘pro-religious freedom’ but not ‘pro-religion.’ For Esbeck, it follows that efforts to accommodate religion are generally permissible. He argues that the law of accommodations is a good deal simpler and more predictable than is commonly thought, and formulates ten ‘black-letter’ rules that summarize this law.” - From Introduction by William P. Marshall, Vivian E. Hamilton and John E. Taylor.