About

Restoring Religious Freedom: Education, Outreach, and Good Citizenship is a project of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Funded by an anonymous $1 million gift, the project expands training in religious freedom for law students and brings new scholarship and fresh voices to the field. Mark Goldfeder, Spruill Family Senior Fellow at the Center and Senior Lecturer at Emory Law, directs the project.

"Our goal is to give students who want to practice in this niche of law and religion the hands-on experience they need to excel,” Goldfeder says. “Through our work, we will be able to provide information in an accessible, nonpartisan format to scholars, practitioners, and other professionals, such as teachers and administrators, who may encounter religious freedom questions in their daily lives and workplaces."

The project expands internships and externships and includes lectures and international conferences. The project also will produce two volumes in a new series on law and religion practice guidelines. Through the project, the Center is building on its success in law and religion moot court, training more students for competition. Students are able to work on amicus briefs for U.S. Supreme Court cases related to religious freedom through the Emory Law School Supreme Court Advocacy Project (ELSSCAP).

"Our Center has a long history of leading the way in all areas where law and religion intersect, and right now religious freedom sits squarely upon that intersection." -- John Witte, Jr., Robert W. Woodruff Professor and CSLR Director.

"This is an issue that is front and center in the public conversation. This opportunity will allow our center to inform that conversation in new ways, bring out more voices and open up new opportunities for dialogue." – Silas W. Allard, Harold J. Berman Fellow in Law and Religion and CSLR Associate Director

About Mark Goldfeder

Mark Goldfeder is Spruill Family Fellow in Law and Religion at CSLR and Senior Lecturer at Emory Law. His areas of expertise are law and religion, family law, Jewish law, and law and technology. He is the author of Legalizing Plural Marriage: the Next Frontier in Family Law (Brandeis, 2017). He has authored many articles for legal journals and presented papers on Jewish law and marriage, polygamy, Israeli law, and other topics. He has lectured worldwide on religious freedom and other topics. At Emory Law, he has taught religious freedom, law and technology and other courses. He has taught law and religion at Georgia State University College of Law. Goldfeder received his SJD and LLM at Emory Law, his juris doctor from New York University, and his bachelor of arts from Yeshiva University.

Tobi Ames is the administrative assistant for the Restoring Religious Freedom Project. Contact her at tames2@emory.edu.