Respondents Alfred Smith and Galen Black, members of the Native American Church, were employed as counselors at a private drug rehabilitation organization in Oregon. They were terminated after ingesting peyote, a Schedule I controlled substance under Oregon law, during a religious ceremony. The Employment Division denied them unemployment benefits on the ground that they were discharged for work-related misconduct involving the violation of state criminal law. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed, and the Oregon Supreme Court ultimately held that Oregon's criminal prohibition applied to sacramental peyote use but that applying it to respondents violated the Free Exercise Clause under the Sherbert compelling interest test. The case came to the U.S. Supreme Court once before on a related question (Smith I, 485 U.S. 660 (1988)), which remanded for clarification of state law; on remand, after the Oregon Supreme Court reaffirmed its constitutional ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review again and addressed whether the Free Exercise Clause mandates an exemption from a neutral, generally applicable criminal law and the consequent denial of unemployment benefits.
Does the Free Exercise Clause require a state to provide a religious exemption from a neutral, generally applicable criminal law prohibiting peyote, and thereby preclude the denial of unemployment benefits to employees fired for violating that law due to religious use?
The Free Exercise Clause does not relieve an individual from complying with a neutral, generally applicable law that incidentally burdens religious practice. Strict scrutiny under the compelling interest test is not triggered merely because a law burdens religion. Heightened scrutiny applies when a law targets religious conduct, when the regulatory scheme involves individualized assessments that invite discrimination against religious reasons, or when free exercise is combined with other constitutional protections.
No. The Free Exercise Clause does not require Oregon to provide a religious exemption from its neutral, generally applicable prohibition on peyote, and Oregon could deny unemployment benefits to employees terminated for violating that law.
The Court, per Justice Scalia, grounded its decision in both text and precedent. The Free Exercise Clause protects religious belief absolutely, but conduct remains subject to regulation, and longstanding precedent permits the government to enforce neutral laws that incidentally burden religious practices. Cases such as Reynolds (upholding prohibition on polygamy), Prince (child labor and public welfare), Braunfeld (Sunday closing laws), and United States v. Lee (Social Security taxes) demonstrate that general laws need not yield to religious objections. The Court distinguished Sherbert v. Verner, which required a compelling interest in the context of unemployment compensation decisions featuring individualized eligibility determinations. In Sherbert-type regimes, the risk of discriminatory application against religious claimants justifies heightened scrutiny. By contrast, across-the-board criminal prohibitions lack such discretionary exceptions and are quintessentially generally applicable. Applying Sherbert universally would, in the Court's view, risk making each person a law unto himself and invite a patchwork of religious exemptions that could undermine law enforcement and civic order. The Court emphasized that the political process, not the Constitution, is the primary vehicle for obtaining religious accommodations from neutral laws. Many jurisdictions voluntarily exempt sacramental peyote use, but the Free Exercise Clause does not compel that result. The opinion also noted that strict scrutiny still applies when a law is not neutral or generally applicable, or when free exercise is asserted alongside other constitutional rights (sometimes described as hybrid rights). Because Oregon's drug law was neutral and generally applicable, the denial of unemployment benefits for respondents' violation of that law did not offend the Free Exercise Clause. Justice O'Connor concurred in the judgment, arguing that the Sherbert compelling interest test should apply but concluding that Oregon's interest in uniform enforcement of drug laws was compelling enough to justify the burden. Justice Blackmun, joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall, dissented, maintaining that the state had not shown a compelling interest in prohibiting the limited sacramental use of peyote and that the Free Exercise Clause should protect respondents.
Smith is the leading case establishing that neutral, generally applicable laws need not accommodate religious practice under the Free Exercise Clause. It narrowed the reach of Sherbert and reframed Free Exercise doctrine around neutrality and general applicability. The decision prompted Congress to enact RFRA to reimpose a statutory compelling interest test; RFRA still binds the federal government, while, after City of Boerne v. Flores, it does not bind the states absent state RFRAs or state constitutional protections. Smith also set the stage for Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, which invalidated laws targeting religion, and informs modern cases about individualized exemptions and neutrality, including Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. For law students, Smith is essential to understanding the baseline constitutional standard, the role of political and statutory accommodations, and the contours of when strict scrutiny is triggered in Free Exercise cases.
Employment Division v. Smith established that the Free Exercise Clause does not constitutionally require exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws, steering Free Exercise doctrine toward a focus on neutrality and uniformity while reserving strict scrutiny for laws that target religion, involve discretionary systems, or implicate other constitutional rights. The Court channeled most requests for religious accommodation to the political and legislative processes.