1. Employment Div. Ore. Dept. of Human Res. v. Smith, (1990)
2. Facts: Oregon law prohibits the knowing use of the drug peyote. Members of the Native American Church use the drug in ritual ceremonies for religious purposes. When religious members were fired from their jobs for using peyote, the unemployment division refused to pay them unemployment benefits because they had been fired for work related misconduct.
3. Procedural Posture: Oregon Supreme court held that the law as applied here was an unconstitutional infringment on free exercise, reasoning that the state interest in preserving the unemployment fund was outweighed by the burden on free exercise. The Supreme Court granted cert.
4. Issue: Whether a state may pass a general and neutral ban on all of the use of a particular drug, even though the general ban may burden the exercise of a particular religion.
5. Holding: Yes.
6. Majority Reasoning: The proper standard for a neutral and generally applicable law is not strict scrutiny, or any type of balancing. The government’s ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions can not depend on measuring the effects on a particular religion. To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a lw contingent upon whether the state’s interest is “compelling” is to allow the individual to become a law unto himself. Use of strict scrutiny in this context will dilute it for other contexts.
7. Concurrence Reasoning: [O’Connor] Strict scrutiny is the proper test.
