This course studies the issues of religious toleration in political theory and in American constitutional law. Among the topics explored are: whether religion merits special the special constitutional solicitude provided by the First Amendment's religion clauses, how religion (as distinct from culture, morality, and philosophy) is to be understood for constitutional purposes, the tensions between ensuring free exercise and avoiding religious establishment, the case for (and against) free exercise exemptions, and whether the religion clauses can be understood as serving some single fundamental value (liberty, or equality, or neutrality). Readings are from political and constitutional theory (Bodin, Locke, Madison, Jefferson, Rawls, Nussbaum, McConnell, Okin, Choper, Hamburger) as well as constitutional cases.