News Archive

A Muslim inmate is suing the Boone County Sheriff’s Office using Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act over the sheriff’s refusal to provide the inmate with a diet that conforms to the inmate’s religious beliefs. Professors Robert Katz and David Orentlicher discussed the lawsuit for a story that appeared on NBC News on August 21.

"The law came as part of a larger attempt by people who felt under assault by growing legal protections of same sex couples," Professor Katz said in the story. “It wasn't needed to begin with."

Professor Orentlicher discussed the Church of Cannabis’s use of RFRA to justify its member’s consumption of marijuana in Indiana. “I’d be surprised if that argument went anywhere,” Professor Orentlicher said, saying that the statute is not a “broad exemption or a get out of jail free card.”

Professor Katz is an expert on law and religion and the law of nonprofit organizations. His current scholarship focuses on the tension between religious freedom and anti-discrimination law, especially laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT individuals.

Professor Orentlicher served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 2002 through 2008. He is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor at IU McKinney and co-director of the Hall Center for Law and Health. He also has taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago Law School. He earned degrees in law and medicine at Harvard and specializes as well in health care law and ethics.