Micah Schwartzman and Vincent Phillip Muñoz to Keynote 2025 Fall Academy Lucas Morel will moderate a discussion with the two esteemed professors of law about the recent Supreme Court ruling on freedom of religion and education.

Office of Communications and Public Affairs
August 7, 2025

The Washington and Lee University Fall Academy will feature a moderated keynote discussion between two eminent professors of law at noon Wednesday, Aug. 20, in Evans Hall.

Lucas Morel, John K. Boardman Professor of Politics at W&L, will moderate “Religious Freedom, Education and Pluralistic America,” a discussion featuring Micah Schwartzman, Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law and director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy at the University of Virginia School of Law, and Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Tocqueville Professor of Political Science, concurrent professor of law and director of the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame.

Morel will moderate a conversation between Schwartzman and Muñoz about the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor on June 27, 2025. In a preliminary ruling, the court decided 6-3 that public schools must allow parents the option of having their children “opt out” of instruction they believe would undermine their efforts to raise their children according to sincerely held religious views. This conversation between experts on church and state matters will help faculty and staff consider how far religious beliefs must be accommodated in a religiously diverse America.

“The case is important for what it says about balancing parental rights with the interest of the community at large to instill values, like tolerance, through the public schools,” said Lucas Morel. “I can’t think of a better way to launch our Liberating Ideas Initiative than to hear the diverse insights of two leading experts on religious freedom in a pluralistic, democratic society.”

Schwartzman focuses his scholarship on law and religion, jurisprudence, political philosophy and constitutional law. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Virginia Law Review and the Supreme Court Review, among others. He also co-edited “The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty” and is co-authoring materials for a casebook on constitutional law and religion.

Schwartzman has been a member of the Virginia Law faculty since 2007, and he has served as a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, the University of California, Los Angeles Law School and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Virginia and a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Oxford (U.K.), where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Society of Fellows in the Humanities.

Muñoz is the founding director of Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government, and he specializes in constitutional law, American politics and political philosophy with a focus on religious liberty and the American founding. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to support his recent book (2022), titled “Religious Liberty and the American Founding: Natural Rights and the Original Meanings of the First Amendment Religion Clauses.” Muñoz also authored “God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson,” which won the Hubert Morken Award from the American Political Science Association. His First Amendment church-state case reader, “Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents,” is used by Notre Dame and numerous leading universities, while his scholarship has been cited in numerous church-state Supreme Court opinions.

Muñoz served as a distinguished visiting professor in the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin for the spring 2025 semester. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and government at Claremont McKenna College, a Master of Arts in political science at Boston College and a Ph.D. in political science at Claremont Graduate University.

W&L hosts the fall and winter academies annually to prepare and inform faculty and staff about relevant topics and the resources available throughout the academic year. Fall Academy programming includes workshops, discussion panels and information sessions covering two weeks beginning Aug. 18 and lasting through Aug. 29.

“Fall Academy is a W&L programming jewel,” said Lena Hill, provost and professor of English and Africana Studies. “This year, we have 70 sessions covering a diverse range of topics. These offerings — often accompanied by a delicious meal or tasty snacks — provide wonderful opportunities for new colleagues to get acclimated as we all prepare for the new academic year. I am excited about the ways the keynote conversation will bring together faculty and staff from across the institution to wrestle with one of the many challenging issues facing U.S. education.”

Registration for Fall Academy opens July 28, and a complete schedule of events can be found online.