Employment Division V Smith Case Summary

The 1990 case of Employment Division v. Smith is about Smith and Black who were both members of a Native American Church and counselors at a private drug rehabilitation clinic. They were both fired because they had taken peyote as a part of their religious ceremonies, at that time the possession of peyote was a crime under the State law. The counselors filed for unemployment in the state, but were denied by the Employment Division because the reason for their unemployment was work-related misconduct. Smith and Black argued, stating that under the First Amendment the government is forbidden from prohibiting the "free exercise" of religion in this case the free exercise of peyote. Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, saying that denying them unemployment benefits for their religious use of peyote violated their right to as it was a part of their religion. The Supreme Court agreed, on the fact that the state's reasoning

If the private drug rehabilitation center was on a Native American protected land then it might not have been so wrong. Even if 80 million members of the Native American religion were discussed in depth during the case I believe the Supreme Court would make the same ruling based on the facts. The land was privately owned by someone not of the religion, it was a drug rehabilitation center where people go to get kicked off of drugs and not to be around it and be tempted to do drugs again and Smith and Black were let go because they broke the companies’ rules and the State law. If the Supreme Court voted differently than it might have been because of religious rights. It was in their religious right to smoke peyote, so for them to smoke peyote anywhere might be protected by the First Amendment and the fact that the government fired them because they where practicing their religious rights might have been