Teaching Religious Liberty
James Sonne is a Stanford Law School professor and founding director of the school's Religious Liberty Clinic, the nation's only program where law students learn through full-time representation of real clients in live disputes in that field. An accomplished teacher, scholar, and practitioner with expertise in law and religion, Sonne received his B.A. with honors from Duke University and his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Judge Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
According to a cover story in California Lawyer published shortly after the clinic first opened, “As the only law school in the country with a clinic devoted exclusively to religious liberty disputes, Stanford is exposing its students to a practice area that has a rich and colorful history.” And, the story quotes Sonne as saying, "part of what [the clinic is doing] is to make clear the difference between the freedom to practice one's religion and the practice itself."
In his Athenaeum presentation, Professor Sonne will address the important task of teaching the practice of religious freedom and the abiding significance of that central constitutional principle in the American legal system.