Religious Liberty Essay Contest 2014

Winners of the 2014 Religious Liberty Student Writing Contest were announced at the Fifth Annual International Religious Liberty Award Dinner in Washington D.C. on October 9. The contest is sponsored annually by the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University.

Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, W. Cole Durham, Jr., presented awards for their excellent papers to Audra Savage, Paul Quast, Paul Baumgardner, Kelly Thomas, and Zachary Phillipps

1st Place: Audra L. Savage, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University
Paper: Turning the Other Cheek: The Persecution of the Christian Minority 

2nd Place: Paul Quast, University of Notre Dame Law School 
Paper: Religion’s Jurisdiction

3rd Place: Paul Baumgardner, Department of Politics, Princeton University
Paper: Your Land Is Holy To Me: The Constitutional Battle to Access Sacred Sites on Public Lands 

Honorable Mention: Kelly Thomas, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Paper: Teaching a Man to Fish: The Role of International Religious Freedom in Establishing Stable Democracies Abroad and Achieving US National Security Objectives

Honorable Mention: Zachary J. Phillipps, University of Connecticut School of Law
Paper: Non-Prophets: Why For-Profit, Secular Corporations Cannot Exercise Religion Within the Meaning of the First Amendment