Empirical Study of Religious Liberty Decisions (1986-1995)

DOI

10.17605/OSF.IO/ZF9KJ

Citation

Sisk, G., & Heise, M. (2022, March 7). Empirical Study of Religious Liberty Decisions (1986-1995).

Summary

Empirical studies of establishment clause and free exercise decisions in federal courts are scant. This dataset analyzes various factors surrounding these decisions, such as the religious ideology of the judge and claimant, as well as the content of the decisions themselves. This dataset includes all digested free exercise, religious accommodation, and establishment clause claims made by the federal court of appeals and district court judges from 1986 through 1995. All files, including modeling results, are available here.

Data File

Cases: 1484
Variables: 64
Weight Variable: None

Since the unit of analysis is the decision, there are no weight variables.

Data Collection

1986-1995

Original Survey (Instrument)

Original Survey

Collection Procedures

Each unit of analysis represents a decision in either a federal appeals court or a district court. These cases were compiled and coded. Further coding specifics are available in the codebook and at the study's website.

Sampling Procedures

The sample of cases represents all court cases from 1986-1995 that addressed free exercise, religious accommodation, and establishment clause decisions. They are not sampled.

Principal Investigators

Gregory Sisk, Laghi Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, MN.

Michael Heise, William G. McRoberts Professor in the Empirical Study of Law at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY.

Related Publications

Searching for the Soul of Judicial Decisionmaking: An Empirical Study of Religious Freedom Decisions