Kentucky clerk's jailing places spotlight on constitutional issues, professor says
LAWRENCE — A federal judge sent Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, county clerk to jail Sept. 4 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis later rejected a proposal that would potentially have allowed her to avoid jail time by letting her deputies issue the licenses.
Richard E. Levy, the J.B. Smith Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Kansas School of Law, is available to discuss the story with media. Levy can discuss the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, contempt of court as punishment for defying law, whether religious beliefs justify refusal to comply with judicial constitutional orders and related topics.
Levy said the situation illustrates the potential conflict between religious beliefs and legal obligations that has been a persistent question for law, morality and philosophy.
“It is important to distinguish between the rights of government employees to express their religious beliefs when acting as private citizens, which is protected, and the refusal to perform the legal functions of one’s office on religious grounds, which is not,” Levy said.
Richard Levy speaks frequently with media on constitutional topics and cases, such as school finance litigation, abortion rights, Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage and other controversial decisions. He joined the KU Law faculty in 1985, having received his law degree with honors from the University of Chicago Law School. Before joining the faculty, he served as a clerk for Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In teaching and research, he has focused on constitutional law, administrative law and government institutions. He is a prolific scholar who was named a Postlethwaite Research Fellow, 1996-1999, and he was named the inaugural J.B. Smith Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law in 2007.
To schedule an interview, contact Mike Krings at 785-864-8860 or mkrings@ku.edu.