Spring First Amendment Conference 2025
The Center for Constitutional Studies will hold its annual First Amendment Conference Thursday, March 6, 2025, on UVU campus in Orem, Utah, starting at 10 a.m.
Entitled A Revolution in Religious Freedom: From the Declaration to the First Amendment, the conference examines the robust tradition of religious liberty that grew out
of the American Revolution and produced the First Amendment.
Sessions will focus on experiments of newly independent states with disestablishment and free exercise of religion, the theological significance of the Declaration of Independence, and the original meaning of the First Amendment.
Conference Schedule | Thursday, March 6, 2025
9:30 a.m. | Check-in
10:00 a.m. | Session 1 | CB 511
- Panel Discussion | Religious Liberty and the American Revolution | Jane Calvert , director of John Dickinson Writings Project; Michael Breidenbach, associate professor of History, Ave Maria University; and Troy Smith, professor of Constitutional Government, Civics and Law, Utah Valley University
11:30 a.m. | Session 2 | CB 511
- Debate | The Laws of Nature and Nature's God: Religion and the Declaration | Timothy Sandefur, vice president for legal affairs, Goldwater Institute, and Owen Anderson, professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Arizona State University
12:45 p.m. | Lunch Break
2:30 p.m. | Session 3 | CB 511
- Panel Discussion on Oklahoma Charter School v. Drummond, a pending Supreme Court case addressing the constitutionality of public charter schools operated by religious instituitions under the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment. Moderated by Joseph Kerry, member of the Utah State Board of Education and chair of the Department of Communication, Ensign College.