Employment Division v. Smith
Citation: 494 U.S. 872 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1990)
Facts
Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from their jobs at a private drug rehabilitation organization for using peyote as part of a Native American Church religious ceremony. They were denied unemployment benefits by Oregon because the use of peyote — a controlled substance — was a work-related crime under state law. They challenged the denial as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause.
Issue
Does the Free Exercise Clause require the government to grant a religious exemption from a neutral, generally applicable law?
Holding
The Court (5–4, Scalia, J.) held that the Free Exercise Clause does not require religious exemptions from neutral laws of general applicability. Oregon’s drug laws were neutral and generally applicable, and the state could constitutionally deny unemployment benefits to workers fired for violating them — even for religious reasons.
Rule
The Free Exercise Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a neutral, generally applicable law that incidentally burdens religious practice. Strict scrutiny is required only when a law is not neutral (i.e., targets religion on its face) or not generally applicable (i.e., singles out religious conduct for disfavor).
Significance
Smith dramatically reduced the protection the Free Exercise Clause provides against incidental burdens on religion, overruling the strict scrutiny standard of Sherbert v. Verner (1963) for neutral, generally applicable laws. Congress responded with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993, attempting to restore the Sherbert test by statute — which the Court upheld as applied to the federal government in Gonzales v. O Centro (2006). Smith remains the baseline constitutional standard and is central to debates about religious accommodation.