Professor and Senior Scholar Steve Friedland spoke with FOX 8 about a clause in the state constitution that prohibits "any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God" from holding office.
An Elon Law professor spoke at length with a North Carolina news station for a recent story on a clause in the state constitution that prohibits “any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God” from holding public office.
Professor and Senior Scholar Steve Friedland answered questions from journalist Bob Buckley for a FOX 8 WGHP “Buckley Report” segment published online on February 18, 2022.
“Elon Law School professor discusses how religion factors into NC’s constitution” explored the legal history of Article 6, Section 8 of the state’s constitution and how seven other states contain similar conditions that are no longer enforced.
“The state cannot favor a religion, and it cannot favor religion over non-religion, and that’s what this clause does,” Friedland said.
Friedland is a founding member of the law school faculty. In addition to law teaching, he has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and as an Assistant Director of the Office of Legal Education in the Department of Justice.
An accomplished scholar who has published articles in several renowned journals, Friedland’s books on Evidence Law, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure and Law School Teaching have been published by the West Publishing Company, Aspen Press, Lexis Publishing Company and Carolina Academic Press.
Friedland was elected to the American Law Institute, served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Law School Admission Council, and is a current member of the Lexis Advisory Board. He has won numerous teaching awards at several law schools over three decades and was named one of the best law teachers in America by the Harvard University Press book, “What the Best Law Teachers Do.”