Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic

09/09/2026

Yesterday, our Clinic filed an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court requesting a stay of an unconstitutional state trial court order that prevents an Orthodox Jew from practicing his faith in the manner he believes it requires.

Consistent with his religious beliefs, Samuel Strulovitch brought a monetary dispute between two Jewish parties to a rabbinical court known as a beis din. He believes that his faith requires him to attempt to have the parties voluntarily agree to resolve the dispute under Jewish law.

But a New York court enjoined Strulovitch from seeking to resolve the dispute before the beis din. Worse still, the trial court has ordered Strulovitch to “take all steps necessary” to convince the beis din to withdraw a seruv—a religious censure—that the rabbinical judges issued on their own initiative and that Strulovitch believes the panel properly issued.

The application argues that the order squarely violates the First Amendment. Without the Supreme Court’s intervention, Strulovitch remains subject to an order that forbids him from practicing his faith in the manner he believes it requires and conscripts him to lobby leaders of his own religion to reverse a religious decision that he believes they got right.

Read more here:

Yesterday, Notre Dame Law School’s Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic filed an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court. The ...

08/31/2026

Today, our Clinic filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to correct a lower court’s misconception of the court’s own role in assessing believers’ religious needs in Perez v. City of San Antonio.

The case concerns a particular river bend where generations of Indigenous people have gathered and worshipped. Unfortunately, a construction project by the City of San Antonio threatens to disrupt the spiritual ecology of the site. If this comes to pass, the petitioners stand to lose their ability to perform religious ceremonies that require the sacred convergence of the riverbend, the trees, and the birds that nest there.

Our friends Steven T. Collis and John Greil at the University of Texas School of Law’s Law and Religion Clinic represent the petitioners.

Learn more and read our brief here:

This case concerns a particular bend in the Yanaguana—known as the San Antonio River in English—where generations of Indigenous people have gathered for prayer and worship. That river bend is central to the Yanaguana creation story, and is the only place in the world where certain religious cere...

08/27/2026

American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story is a feature-length documentary narrated by Martin Sheen that tells the remarkable story of Blessed Stanley Rother, an American priest murdered in Guatemala. The documentary airs in select theaters this week.

Originally from Oklahoma, Blessed Stanley Rother served the Indigenous Tz’utujil people of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, during the country’s brutal civil war. Just a few months after he returned to Guatemala from the United States rather than abandon the people he served, he was murdered in his rectory. Blessed Stanley Rother is the first American-born priest recognized as a martyr by the Catholic Church.

Our Clinic is proud to have provided legal support to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the producers of the film, supporting their efforts to tell this remarkable story.

Learn more here: https://www.rotherdoc.com/

08/26/2026

Last week, our Clinic welcomed its new cohort of nearly 30 students for the academic year. Within Notre Dame Law School’s Catholic tradition, the Clinic trains and prepares students in the practice of law as they defend religious freedom on behalf of clients of all faiths. Our students work to promote religious freedom by representing clients in litigation, advising nonprofit religious institutions facing organizational challenges, and advocating for religious communities facing persecution both domestically and abroad.

Meet this year's cohort: https://religiousliberty.nd.edu/people/students/

08/10/2026

Professor John Meiser, director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, was recently interviewed by EWTN News about new litigation surrounding religious charter schools in Oklahoma.

The Clinic previously represented St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School alongside attorneys from Dechert LLP and Perri Dunn PLLC in its case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read more here:

Oklahoma’s Statewide Charter School Board wants to approve religious charter schools, but a ruling from the Oklahoma Supreme Court and efforts by the state attorney general prevent it from doing so.

07/21/2026

This week, our Clinic, alongside Bellwether International and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice, released an annual report, Religious Prisoners of Conscience: An Advocacy Brief Prepared for the IRF Summit Community, reviewing advocacy efforts on behalf of religious prisoners of conscience worldwide.

The report examines the imprisonment of people for their religious beliefs and activities and analyzes the legal mechanisms governments use to target religious communities. It also reviews the 2026 IRF Summit Religious Prisoners of Conscience Campaign, which contributed to the recent release of Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, founder of one of China’s largest unregistered Protestant churches.

Clinic students supported the campaign by researching cases of religious prisoners of conscience from around the world, analyzing the laws used to justify their detention, and identifying broader patterns of religious repression. Their research helped inform the selection of prisoners for focused international advocacy.

Read more here:

Notre Dame Law School’s Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Bellwether International, and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and...

07/02/2026

Over the past year, more than two dozen law students have worked to promote religious freedom by representing clients in litigation, advising nonprofit religious institutions facing complex organizational challenges, and advocating for religious communities facing persecution.

Learn more about the accomplishments of the Clinic and our students in our 2025-2026 academic year report: https://religiousliberty.nd.edu/about/annual-reports/

06/24/2026

Olivia Rogers, a 2023 graduate of Notre Dame Law School and member of the Clinic during her 2L and 3L years, will serve as a law clerk to Justice Amy Coney Barrett during the 2026-27 Supreme Court Term.

Congratulations to Notre Dame Law School alumna Olivia Rogers ’23 J.D., who will clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett during the 2026–27 term.

Notre Dame Law School’s clerkship program prepares students for some of the most prestigious and competitive roles in the legal profession. The Law School has consistently ranked #4 nationally in federal clerkship placement and has established a strong record of placing graduates in judicial clerkships, including at the U.S. Supreme Court. Rogers will be the sixth Notre Dame Law graduate to clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court in the last five years.

Read more about Olivia here: https://law.nd.edu/news-events/news/olivia-rogers-23-j-d-to-clerk-for-u-s-supreme-court-justice-amy-coney-barrett/

05/29/2026

Our Clinic advises Catholic dioceses restructuring their assets into a more diffuse operating model that is consistent with modern corporate practice, reflects the Catholic understanding of subsidiarity, and helps protect the temporal goods of the Church.

Learn more about our work: https://religiousliberty.nd.edu/news/latest/notre-dame-law-schools-religious-liberty-clinic-advises-catholic-dioceses-on-best-practices-for-organizational-governance/

05/11/2026