Christopher Lund
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Biography
Christopher C. Lund is a professor of law at Wayne State University Law School, where he teaches a variety of courses, including Torts, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Religious Liberty in the United States and Evidence. Excited to teach students, he has been voted Professor of the Year eight times.
Lund's scholarly interests vary, but his principal focus has been in the field of religious liberty. His academic work has been (or will be) published in student-edited law reviews, such as the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Northwestern University Law Review, peer-reviewed legal journals, such as the Journal of Law and Religion; and peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journals, such as History of Religions. Along with Michael McConnell and Thomas Berg, he is the author of a leading church-state casebook, Religion and the Constitution, the fifth edition of which was published by Aspen in 2022. In 2017, he was awarded the Berman Prize for Excellence in Scholarship by the Law and Religion Section of the American Association of Law Schools for his piece, Religion is Special Enough.
Lund's academic work has been cited extensively by courts and commentators. In the Supreme Court’s recent decision about the constitutionality of a WWI memorial cross, for example, Justice Alito’s majority opinion cited one of his articles while Justice Ginsburg’s dissent cited a brief he had written for the case. In another case, Justice Stephen Breyer brought up another of Lund’s briefs at oral argument, calling it “very excellent.” Lund is regularly called on for his expertise by media outlets, civil rights organizations and religious groups. He has served as chair of the Section on Constitutional Law of the Association of American Law Schools, as well as chair of the Section on Law and Religion and the Section on New Law Professors.
Lund joined Wayne State University Law School in 2009 from the Mississippi College School of Law. Before teaching, he clerked for the Hon. Karen Nelson Moore on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, served as the Madison Fellow at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and practiced law at Dechert LLP in Philadelphia. Lund earned his law degree with high honors from the University of Texas School of Law and his bachelor’s from Rice University, summa cum laude, with majors in mathematics and psychology.
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Degrees and Certifications
J.D., University of Texas School of Law, with high honors
B.A., Rice University, summa cum laude -
Courses Taught
Constitutional Law
Contracts
Evidence
Religious Liberty in the United States
Torts -
Selected publications
Favoritism, Coercion, and the Establishment Clause, 122 Mich. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2024) (book review of Nathan S. Chapman & Michael W. McConnell, Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience (2022)).
A Defense of Offended-Observer Standing Under the Establishment Clause, 70 Wayne L. Rev. 109 (forthcoming 2024) (symposium)
Answers to Fulton’s Questions, 108 Iowa L. Rev. 2075 (2023) (symposium)
Church Autonomy in the United States, in Freedom of Religion and Religious Pluralism (Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan & Carla M. Zoethout eds., Brill, 2023)
Second-Best Free Exercise, 91 Fordham L. Rev. 843 (2022)
Discrimination, Trump v. Hawaii, and Masterpiece Cakeshop, 56 Ga. L. Rev. 1551 (2022) (symposium)
Sex Offenders and the Free Exercise of Religion, 96 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1025 (2021)
Reconsidering Thornton v. Caldor, 97 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1687 (2020) (symposium)
Martyrdom and Religious Freedom, 50 Conn. L. Rev. 959 (2018) (symposium)
Religious Freedom in an Egalitarian Age, 60 J. Church & State 160 (2018) (book review)
Religious Exemptions, Third-Party Harms, and the False Analogy to Church Taxes, 106 Ky. L.J. 679 (2018) (symposium)
Religion is Special Enough, 103 Va. L. Rev. 481 (2017)
Religious Exemptions, Third-Party Harms, and the Establishment Clause, 91 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1375 (2016) (symposium)
RFRA, State RFRAs, and Religious Minorities, 53 San Diego L. Rev. 163 (2016) (symposium)
Keeping Hobby Lobby in Perspective, in The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty (Micah Schwartzman, Chad Flanders, & Zoe Robinson eds., Oxford University Press, 2016)
The Propriety of Religious Exemptions: A Response to Sager, 60 St. Louis. U. L.J. 601 (2016) (lecture response)
Free Exercise Reconceived: The Logic and Limits of Hosanna-Tabor, 108 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1183 (2014)
Rethinking the "Religious Questions" Doctrine, 41 Pepp. L. Rev. 1013 (2014) (symposium)
Leaving Disestablishment to the Political Process, 10 Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol’y 45 (2014) (invited essay)
The New Victims of the Old Anti-Catholicism, 44 Conn. L. Rev. 1001 (2012)
The Future of the Establishment Clause in Context: A Response to Ledewitz, 87 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 767 (2012) (symposium)
Salazar v. Buono and the Future of the Establishment Clause, 105 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1387 (2011)
In Defense of the Ministerial Exception, 90 N.C. L. Rev. 1 (2011)
Religion, Prison, and the Constitution, 51 Hist. of Rel. 94 (2011) (reviewing WINNIFRED FALLERS SULLIVAN, PRISON RELIGION: FAITH BASED REFORM AND THE CONSTITUTION (2009))
Legislative Prayer and the Secret Costs of Religious Endorsements, 94 Minn. L. Rev. 972 (2010)
Exploring Free Exercise Doctrine: Equal Liberty and Religious Exemptions, 77 Tenn. L. Rev. 351 (2010)
Religious Liberty after Gonzales: A Look at State RFRAs, 55 S.D. L. Rev. 466 (2010) (symposium)
The Congressional Chaplaincies, 17 WM. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 1171 (2009)
Scriptural Interpretation and Constitutional Interpretation: An Introduction, 2009 Mich. St. L. Rev. 273 (2009) (symposium introduction)
Keeping the Government’s Religion Pure: Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 104 Nw. U. L. Rev. COLLOQUY 46 (2009)
Encyclopedia Of American Civil Liberties (Paul Finkelman ed., 3 vols., Routledge, 2006) (contributor of entries on various law-and-religion topics, including “Title VII and Religious Exemptions,” “Autopsies and Free Exercise Beliefs,” “Discrimination by Religious Entities that Receive Government Funds,” and “Taxpayer Standing to Challenge Establishment Clause Violations”)
Book Review, 20 J.L. & Rel. 575 (2004-05) (reviewing CARL H. ESBECK ET AL., THE FREEDOM OF FAITH-BASED ORGANIZATIONS TO STAFF ON A RELIGIOUS BASIS (2004))
Book Review, 20 J.L. & Rel. 579 (2004-05) (reviewing KENT GREENAWALT, DOES GOD BELONG IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS? (2005))
Of Government Funding, Religious Institutions, and Neutrality: Seeing the Charitable-Choice Debate Through the Lens of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, 40 Tulsa L. Rev. 321 (2004) (symposium)
A Matter of Constitutional Luck: The General Applicability Requirement in Free Exercise Jurisprudence, 26 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 627 (2003)
- Social Science Research Network
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Books
Religion and the Constitution (Wolters Kluwer) 2016 fourth edition, with Michael W. McConnell and Thomas C. Berg
The book covers the traditional array of church-state topics, including the regulation of religious practice, the funding of religious institutions, the endorsement by government of religious messages, and the appropriateness of religion in politics. Among other updates, the fourth edition includes the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Holt v. Hobbs, as well as important contemporary lower-court cases, such as Elane Photography v. Willock and Spencer v. World Vision.
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Accomplishments
- Christopher Lundwas awarded the Education Law Association’s August 2022 Steinhilber Award. This award recognizes outstanding brief writing in an appellate court in a case concerning education law. Lund was commended for his brief, Brief of Baptist Joint Comm. for Religious Liberty et. al. for Kennedy v. Bremerton.
- Christopher Lund’s co-authored book, Religion and the Constitution (4th ed. 2016), was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Espinoza v. Montana Dep’t of Revenue.
- Christopher Lund’s article “The Congressional Chaplaincies” was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its case American Legion et al. v. American Humanist Assn. et al.
- Christopher C. Lund joined the Detroit office of law firm Dalton and Tomich PLC.
- Christopher C. Lund was a panelist at the Stetson Law Review Symposium in Gulfport, Florida. Lund discussed “What role can the concept of animus play in Establishment and Free Exercise Clause doctrine? Does the religion context change the nature of the animus inquiry?”
- Christopher Lund was awarded the Excellence in Scholarship award by the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law and Religion.
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Recent courses taught
Winter Term 2025 (future)
Fall Term 2023
Fall Term 2022
