WHO: American University expert Jessica Waters.

WHAT: SCOTUS Hobby Lobby Analysis.

WHEN: June 27 - ongoing

WHERE: In-Studio, via telephone, or at American University

June 27, 2014 (Washington, D.C.) – American University’s School of Public Affairs Department of Justice, Law and Criminology professor Jessica Waters is available to provide pre and post analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby on June 30. Prof. Water’s research is focused on questions related to employment-based conscience protections for reproductive health care providers, the legal impact of women’s medical decisions during pregnancy and childbirth, and the reproductive rights of employees working for religiously affiliated employers. Her work has been published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law, and the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Waters is available to discuss the following:

• The scope of the contraceptive mandate and the religious employer exemption;• An explanation of the for-profit employers' Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and First Amendment claims;• Situating this case in the line of First Amendment religious freedom cases (eg, Oregon v Smith, Hosanna Tabor)• Predictions of the Court's likely vote split;• The decision's potential impacts on third parties (e.g., employees seeking contraceptive coverage) and the potential for future litigation; and,• The pending cases by non-profit entities (currently winding their way through lower federal courts) regarding the mandate.

Waters is the author of a forthcoming article in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism that focuses in part on the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases.