More than 30 years ago, a Native American man named Al Smith was fired for ingesting peyote at a religious ceremony. When his battle made it to the Supreme Court, the decision set off a thorny debate over when religious people get to sidestep the law — a debate we’re still having today.
Voices in the episode include:
• Garrett Epps — University of Oregon Law School professor
• Ka’ila Farrell-Smith — Al Smith’s daughter, visual artist
• Jane Farrell — Al Smith's widow, retired early childhood specialist
• Galen Black — Al Smith’s former coworker
• Steven C. Moore — senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund
• Craig J. Dorsay — lawyer who argued Al Smith’s case before the Supreme Court
• Dan Mach — director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief
Learn more:
• 1963: Sherbert v. Verner
• 1990: Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith
• 2022: 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis
• "Peyote vs the State: Religious Freedom On Trial" by Garrett Epps
• Factsheet: Religious Freedom Restoration Act Of 1993, The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University
• Our History, the Klamath Tribes
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.
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