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Vincent Phillip Muñoz

Vincent Phillip Muñoz

Vincent Phillip Muñoz is Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science, Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, and the founding director of the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame.

Painting of James Madison

Before Critiquing the American Founding, We Should First Understand It

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According to Steven Smith, it’s meaningless to speak of our inherent natural rights. He dismisses the Founders without properly understanding them. A return to the Founders’ natural rights constitutionalism may not offer the best alternative to protect religious liberty today. But we cannot even entertain the possibility that it might if we do not understand the principles of justice or the practical meaning of the philosophy that originally animated the Constitution.

Securing Free Speech and Free Inquiry on Campus: Lessons from Charles Murray’s Visit to Notre Dame

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Intellectual diversity, academic freedom, and freedom of speech are means to an end, the end of truth-seeking. If a university does not retain its traditional mission of seeking the truth through reasoned discourse, it will not remain committed to freedom of inquiry or freedom of speech.

Natural Rights, God, and Marriage in the American Founding

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By calling our attention to the Founders’ political theory of the family, Thomas West’s new book leads us to ask whether a secular theory of natural rights and natural law can sustain the moral ecology necessary for self-government. If a secular natural-rights republic cannot sustain the family, it would seem to be neither a good nor attractive political theory.

Justice Sotomayor Misses the Mark: Religious Non-Profits Should Prevail

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The contradictory reasoning of Justice Sotomayor’s Wheaton dissent exposes a glaring weakness in the legal argument requiring religious non-profits to comply with HHS’s regulatory scheme.

Sustaining American Liberalism in Principle and Practice

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While we should reject misguided claims that our founders adopted political voluntarism, we should follow suggestions for strengthening civic life—and thereby sustain American liberalism—through local government, families, churches, and other civic associations.

Why Social Conservatives Should Be Patriotic Americans: A Critique of Patrick Deneen

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Rather than reject liberalism for its excesses, we should take up the more modest task of recovering the principles of liberalism once embraced by our founding fathers and Abraham Lincoln.

The Religious Liberty Case Against Religious Liberty Litigation: Renewed Focus on Reasonable, Not Sectarian, Arguments

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Religious liberty litigation against the HHS mandate undermines the initial, reason-based arguments of religious objectors. Objectors would do well to refocus the debate on those arguments. The second in a two-part series.

The Religious Liberty Case Against Religious Liberty Litigation: Non-Universal Exemptions and Judicial Overreach

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Current lawsuits against the HHS contraceptive mandate may undermine religious liberty in the long run. Not all religious objectors to the mandate are likely to be exempted even if the lawsuits are successful, and judges violate the core meaning of religious liberty when they assess plaintiffs’ religious character. The first in a two-part series.
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