Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein:<\/p>\n
I write, as a university president and a constitutional scholar with expertise on religious freedom and judicial appointments, to express concern about questions addressed to Professor Amy Barrett during her confirmation hearings and to urge that the Committee on the Judiciary refrain from interrogating nominees about the religious or spiritual foundations of their jurisprudential views.<\/p>\n
Article VI of the United States Constitution provides explicitly that \u201cno religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.\u201d This bold endorsement of religious freedom was among the original Constitution\u2019s most pathbreaking provisions. The Supreme Court\u2019s unanimous decision in Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), holding that the First and Fourteenth Amendments render this principle applicable to state offices and that it protects non-believers along with believers of all kinds, is among the greatest landmarks in America\u2019s jurisprudence of religious freedom. Article VI\u2019s prohibition of religious tests is a critical guarantee of equality and liberty, and it is part of what should make all of us proud to be Americans.<\/p>\n
By prohibiting religious tests, the Constitution makes it impermissible to deny any person a national, state, or local office on the basis of their religious convictions or lack thereof. Because religious belief is constitutionally irrelevant to the qualifications for a federal judgeship, the Senate should not interrogate any nominee about those beliefs. I believe, more specifically, that the questions directed to Professor Barrett about her faith were not consistent with the principle set forth in the Constitution\u2019s \u201cno religious test\u201d clause….<\/p>\n