Senior Staff Writer Sam Sutton contributed to this story.
The Student Assembly Elections Commission handed down a two-day suspension of campaign activities to presidential candidate, and current SA vice president, Kaveh Sadeghian ’12 Monday night.

Sadeghian is alleged to have offered as much as $6,443 to alleviate the financial woes of the Publications Council in the event of his election. The funds would be distributed through the SA’s Executive Discretionary account.

In emails describing the exchange, Pub Council Chairwoman Meredith Howard ’11 urged members to vote in Thursday’s election and offered her support of Sadeghian’s candidacy.

“I suppose this is my personal endorsement,” Howard said in an internal email sent to Pub Council members. “In my talk with him Friday, Kaveh said he would be able to help us out with the use of the SA Presidential discretionary fund over the summer (if he wins, obviously).”

The Flat Hat is a member of the Pub Council and received the email directly from Howard.

According to Elections Commission chairman Ryan Ruzic J.D. ’11, Sadeghian will be removed from sanctions four hours after the polls open on Thursday, effectively shutting down the campaign in the run-up to election day. The suspension also applies to Sadeghian’s running mate, SA Secretary of Student Life Molly Bulman ’12.

“I immediately made an appeal to the Elections Commission based on the allegations I have been accused of tonight,” Sadeghian said in a statement. “The content of the conversation and the issues at hand were strictly related to my role as a Vice President and were not meant to serve any political purpose. I just wanted to provide informed advice on any remaining options the publications council had for funding. I have never in my capacity as a vice president of the Student Assembly or as candidate for president promised to grant funding in exchange for votes.”

Sadeghian’s appeal was received Monday night. The Review Board of the Elections Commission scheduled a meeting for 6:45 a.m. Tuesday morning to review his appeal. Online updates will be available as this story develops.

“If we are going to hold a hearing our goal is to do it at some point,” Chairman of the Elections Review Board John Michael King ’11 said. “Obviously, because of the sanctions, we want to get it done as quickly as possible.”

Sadeghian’s appeal will focus on the allegations stated in two emails written by Howard and sent to the Publications Council. In these emails, Howard reiterated the implication that, if elected, Sadeghian would secure funds for the Pub Council from the SA presidential discretionary fund. Howard later explained these statements.

“That’s my language,” Howard said. “That’s my thinking that he would be best for the council. My own thinking. And unfortunately, I just used poor political vocabulary and ignorantly wrote those words. He said no such thing which promised anything.”

The conversation between Howard and Sadeghian occurred March 18, in which Howard sought out Sadeghian’s advice in how to secure funding for the new Business Law Review publication, a total of $6,443 not allocated in the Pub Council budget.

“I was making sure that things aren’t handicapped,” Sadeghian said. “You need an operating budget and you need something to function. It doesn’t matter what organization you are. If there is a need for funds, there is a need for funds, and it comes down to that. I have options for what they would be and it was completely not relevant to the campaign.”

In the conversation, Sadeghian laid out several options for receiving funding. The options included an appeal to the Student Bar Association, an appeal to the Student Assembly reserves through the Senate, and, finally, a petition to use funds from the SA presidential discretionary fund allocated to the next SA president. This fund amounts to $10,000 total.

“I never said if you vote for me you will get money for this,” Sadeghian said. “It was a possibility [for funding] just as SBA is a possibility, just as student reserves are a possibility. Whoever would be able to give it to you, it is up to their discretion.”

Howard stated that in order to receive the funding the Pub Council is looking for, she would petition to use the SA presidential discretionary fund regardless of the Thursday election results.

“I regret that I did not include in my wording in those emails that this wouldn’t just be voting for Kaveh, it would be voting for [David] Alpert and we would still petition him whatever happens,” Howard said.

While the content of the conversation remains disputed, and no evidence can be directly obtained, the Elections Committee found the information in both emails to be actionable of a violation of the “Bribery of a Voter” rule.

“It is undisputed that two emails in a row contained language that not hinted, but indeed said, that Kaveh had agreed to provide thousands of dollars to publication council for this specific allocation, if elected,” the Election Commission Report stated, issued Monday night.

While the Commission found that the “Bribery of a Voter” rule was violated, the evidence of intent to break this rule was found to be insufficient.

“It seemed to us that is was not a purposeful violation,” Ruzic said.

In response to the violation, the Election Commission has issued a two-day suspension of Sadeghian’s campaign, which extends to his running mate Bulman as well. This suspension includes the suspension of all active campaigning from noon, Tuesday through noon, Thursday, four hours after polls open.

“It cannot be denied that Kaveh through his promise of monetary aid gained a powerful and illegitimate advantage over his opponent,” the Commission report stated. “It was the goal of the Election Commission to craft a result that would both eliminate this illegitimate advantage yet not end the candidacy based on the mistake alone.”

Ruzic was first alerted about a possible violation by SA Sen. Noah Kim ’13, who notified Ruzic prior to the SA debate that the Pub Council may have been endorsing a candidate.

“I had heard that Meredith Howard was endorsing Kaveh,” Kim said. “I was kind of curious about what was happening, and if that influences their funding … I was coming at it through my position as Finance Chair.”

Kim actively supports Sadeghian’s opponent David Alpert’s ’13 candidacy.

“I didn’t consult David and Tam, as I didn’t see it pertaining to the campaign,” he said. “I’m aware that people are taking this the wrong way … for people to think I would do things like that is disappointing to me.”

Ruzic contacted Howard, notifying her that it would be inappropriate for the Pub Council to actively endorse a candidate. It was not until after Ruzic received multiple complaints in regards to Howard’s subsequent emails that an official investigation from the Commission began.

Alpert stated that his campaign was in no way involved in any actions that led to the investigation or sanctions from the Student Assembly Election Commission.

“My campaign was not involved in this in any way,” Alpert said in a statement to The Flat Hat. “We did not know about the charges against Kaveh until after the case was decided. We don’t want to win that way – we want to win based on our strong record and hard work.”

Check back with Flathatnews.com for more on this developing story

Since its founding, the College of William and Mary has continuously expanded from the original “hundred scholars, more or less” described by the Royal Charter to the robust student body of 5,800 it has today.

Beginning next fall, the College will continue its growth, adding 38 in-state students and 12 out-of-state students to the freshman class, a trend that will continue for the next four years.

In spring 2010, the Committee on Student Body Size was first charged with the task of determining the effect an increase in size would have on all facets of life around campus.

“While there is nothing magical about this size, the excellent education we offer is predicted, in part, on our human scale and deep faculty-student engagement, which could be jeopardized by too much, or unplanned, growth,” committee co-chair Provost Michael Halleran said.

After one year and seven meetings, the committee decided to increase overall enrollment by 200 students over the next four years, 150 of whom will be in-state students. This will increase revenue by an estimated one to 2.4 million dollars.

According to a recently released report, committee members initially thought an increase in size would not provide any foreseeable benefits to the College as a whole. But as discussion continued, the committee formulated three possible courses of action.

The three scenarios considered were options of no growth, a growth of 50 new students per year and a growth of 100 students per year.
After a thorough investigation of the impact the three scenarios would have on academics, students, admissions and finances, it was clear to the members of the committee that a growth of 50 new students per year was optimal.

“Most members of the College community are very open-minded, can recognize an economic crisis when it hits, and understand that the College has always been a dynamic and adapting entity,” committee co-chair and associate professor of business Todd Mooradian said. “We don’t look anything like we did when we were founded or like we did in the mid-twentieth century. This committee and its deliberations were a very positive process in that we surfaced assumptions about what William and Mary is and what it should aspire to be and in that we made discussions and decisions about the student body size a matter of public discourse on campus.”

According to the Report on Student Body Size, the chosen plan is believed to be the best option to allow the College to continue providing an Ivy-League-caliber education in a public setting.

The addition of these students was done partly in order to appease the state legislature. This past winter, Delegate Dave Albo (R-Fairfax)introduced a bill to increase the percentage of in-state students in Virginia colleges.

The bill was introduced on the premise that a constituent and applicant with above a 4.0 GPA and 2100 SAT score was not admitted to the College.

Other schools, such as the University of Virginia, James Madison University and Virginia Tech, have received mandates to make similar efforts. Each school will increase its percentage of incoming Virginians in their Fall 2011 freshman classes.

“To be honest, I think the growth the President decided on in discussion with Richmond and with our Board of Visitors is very modest growth,” Mooradian said. “One might call it ‘just noticeable’ growth – it won’t impact the texture or quality of the student experience very much.”

The Peace Corps experienced a 16 percent increase in national volunteers last year, continuing the upward trend seen over the past five years. To continue such advancement, Peace Corps Recruiter Alison McReynolds gave a short presentation at the College of William and Mary’s Sherman and Gloria H. Cohen Career Center Wednesday.

McReynolds described the organization’s two-year post-graduate program that takes volunteers to all corners of the earth to do public service and encourages the study of other cultures.

Volunteers of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds get involved in the organization through a lengthy application process. If accepted as volunteers, they are assigned a project in a certain area of the world, trained for three months in a country in that part of the world, and then expected to work for two years in a community. Unlike other service organizations, the Peace Corps provides volunteers to communities and programs that have specifically requested them.

Students from each social class attended the session, ranging from freshmen to seniors, all interested in joining the Peace Corps for different reasons.

“I [feel as if] it would be a great way to help people and learn languages,” Rachel Faith ’14 said.
Faith cited the large number of College students in the Peace Corps as another reason for her interest. According to McReynolds, the College is ranked as the eighth highest producer of Peace Corps volunteers in the nation amongst medium-sized schools.

Currently, 41 College alumni serve as volunteers. According to the presentation, this is approximately one out of every 150 College undergraduates.

McReynolds, a former Peace Corps volunteer, spoke openly about her experience, in addition to describing the Peace Corp application process.

“For the first time, I felt a part of the community; I had done something that mattered to them,” McReynolds said.

McReynolds, now a regional recruiter for the Mid-Atlantic Region, served in the Peace Corps in Mauritania from 2008 to 2009 and in Liberia from 2009 to 2010. Describing her own experience in Mauritania, she talked about the challenge of leaving everything familiar behind. The high point for her, however, was organizing an Earth Day event in Mauritania as part of an environmental education program. She was specifically thanked by the mayor of the town for changing the way people thought about the environment.
“It is absolutely life changing,” McReynolds said. “It also strengthens a resume.”

The presentation, which began with a recruitment video, covered everything from the different programs the Peace Corps offers to the daily struggles and rewards of working in an impoverished community overseas.

The Peace Corps, an organization created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, sends Americans to over 139 different countries to live and work in impoverished communities. The mission of the Peace Corps is both to provide other countries with trained men and women to work in all kinds of jobs and to promote a cultural exchange between Americans and citizens of other countries.

The organization has six main areas of focus: education, healthcare and HIV/AIDS prevention, business development, environment and youth development.

The Peace Corps experienced a 16 percent increase in national volunteers last year, continuing the upward trend seen over the past five years. To continue such advancement, Peace Corps Recruiter Alison McReynolds gave a short presentation at the College of William and Mary’s Sherman and Gloria H. Cohen Career Center Wednesday.

McReynolds described the organization’s two-year post-graduate program that takes volunteers to all corners of the earth to do public service and encourages the study of other cultures.

Volunteers of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds get involved in the organization through a lengthy application process. If accepted as volunteers, they are assigned a project in a certain area of the world, trained for three months in a country in that part of the world, and then expected to work for two years in a community. Unlike other service organizations, the Peace Corps provides volunteers to communities and programs that have specifically requested them.

Students from each social class attended the session, ranging from freshmen to seniors, all interested in joining the Peace Corps for different reasons.

“I [feel as if] it would be a great way to help people and learn languages,” Rachel Faith ’14 said.
Faith cited the large number of College students in the Peace Corps as another reason for her interest. According to McReynolds, the College is ranked as the eighth highest producer of Peace Corps volunteers in the nation amongst medium-sized schools.

Currently, 41 College alumni serve as volunteers. According to the presentation, this is approximately one out of every 150 College undergraduates.

McReynolds, a former Peace Corps volunteer, spoke openly about her experience, in addition to describing the Peace Corp application process.

“For the first time, I felt a part of the community; I had done something that mattered to them,” McReynolds said.

McReynolds, now a regional recruiter for the Mid-Atlantic Region, served in the Peace Corps in Mauritania from 2008 to 2009 and in Liberia from 2009 to 2010. Describing her own experience in Mauritania, she talked about the challenge of leaving everything familiar behind. The high point for her, however, was organizing an Earth Day event in Mauritania as part of an environmental education program. She was specifically thanked by the mayor of the town for changing the way people thought about the environment.
“It is absolutely life changing,” McReynolds said. “It also strengthens a resume.”

The presentation, which began with a recruitment video, covered everything from the different programs the Peace Corps offers to the daily struggles and rewards of working in an impoverished community overseas.

The Peace Corps, an organization created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, sends Americans to over 139 different countries to live and work in impoverished communities. The mission of the Peace Corps is both to provide other countries with trained men and women to work in all kinds of jobs and to promote a cultural exchange between Americans and citizens of other countries.

The organization has six main areas of focus: education, healthcare and HIV/AIDS prevention, business development, environment and youth development.

Marshall-Wythe School of Law Dean Dave Douglas gave a presentation on the separation of church and state in the Sadler Center Chesapeake room Thursday.

The talk, hosted by the Christopher Wren Association, was divided between a description of the ambiguity of the U.S. Constitution and the Constitutional view of the Founding Fathers, and an explanation of how the establishment clause is interpreted today.

“My goal is not to tell you what the correct view [of the separation of church and state] is, but rather to educate you so that you have a sense of what the debate is regarding the Supreme Court,” Douglas said.
The establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, together with the Free Exercise Clause, states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This is the main piece of evidence cited by those who argue for the separation of church and state.

Douglas argued that strict interpretation of the Constitution is difficult, due to the fact that the Constitution was deliberately written to be general. Douglas said the founders disagreed about certain aspects of the document, so compromise language was used in many parts of the Constitution.

“The Constitution, particularly the most debated parts, is written in largely indeterminate and non-specific text,” Douglas said. “As we look at constitutional text and interpret it, it’s a hard thing to do because it’s written with such a high level of generality.”

Douglas’s description of the founders’ era involved discussion of three beliefs that were widely held at the time.

The first, the Enlightenment view, was supported by Thomas Jefferson and argued that the church had a corrupting influence on the state. According to Douglas, Jefferson eventually abandoned the College of William and Mary in 1790 because he saw too great a religious influence on the institution. The Civic-Republican view, backed by George Washington, sought a state that works well with the church. Roger Williams supported the Free Church-Evangelical view, which believed the state to be a corruption of the church.

Douglas then discussed current Supreme Court decisions regarding the separation of church and state. According to Douglas, the nine members of the Supreme Court are split into two categories supporting either the coercion view or the endorsement view of the issue, with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the deciding voter.

“Is something an endorsement of religion? Can the Supreme Court say some religious image is unconstitutional?” Douglas said. “It’s all about context.”

As of Thursday afternoon, all of the College of William and Mary’s study abroad programs scheduled to go to Japan between now and July have been cancelled.

Five College students were planning on studying abroad at Keio University in Tokyo or Akita International University in Akita, Japan. The students were scheduled to leave at the end of the month and would return home in July.

The programs were cancelled due to a travel warning by the state department issued Thursday.

“As a rule, we cannot support a program that is in a country under a travel warning,” Sylvia Mittendorf, Director of Global Education, said. “We are monitoring the situation very carefully, especially the fluid situation of the nuclear reactors.”

At the time of the tsunami, five students and recent alumni from the College were living in Japan.

Kentaro Uzuki ’11 was enjoying an afternoon with his cousin at a local cafe in Tokyo when the tsunami struck. The two immediately left the cafe without drinking anything. Multiple phone calls home would not go through.

Uzuki, who graduated from the College last semester, moved to back home to Tokyo a month after graduation in order to decide on a career path.

“The moment we got back home [after the earthquake], we saw things scattered around on the floor. It was so shocking to see a tsunami sweeping everything — houses, cars, people in Tohoku region on TV,” Uzuki said in an email.

Uzuki is currently relocating to Kyoto toavoid the radioactivity resulting from the damage in Fukushima.

“I stay at home and try not to go outside as much as possible lately. Some of my friends escaped from the region affected by the earthquake, even Tokyo,” Uzuki said, “The nuclear plant is a bolt from the blue. I didn’t expect anything so serious as this.”

Even though much of the radioactivity is affecting Tokyo, Kentaro plans on moving back to the region as soon as possible.

“My family is die-hard Tokyoites,” Uzuki said. “They’ll stay here ‘til death. This is just a disaster.”

In order to help aid Japanese families like the Uzukis, a dozen College students, faculty and staff have launched a website to help raise money for relief and recovery efforts in Japan.

According to Hiroshi Kitamura, associate professor of history and co-director of the East Asian studies program, the committee developed immediately after the disaster hit northern Japan on March 11.

“We all have a feeling of devastation, but also a determination to help Japan,” Kitamura said in a press release.

The College of William and Mary’s Committee on Sustainability has recruited a new crop of students to be Eco-Ambassadors for this spring, with the goal of increasing sustainability at the College.

The eight students will head environmental projects in fields such as athletics, electronics, library science, transportation and marine science.

“Through our recycling projects, we hope to establish a functioning framework that will allow the athletes and future Eco-Ambassadors to process used athletic shoes and tennis balls in an environmentally conscious way,” Eco-Ambassador Thuy Tran ’12 said in a press release. “Just because the items are no longer useful here doesn’t mean they are useless outside of William & Mary.”

Tran is working with the local Nike store on a program to recycle athletic shoes.

By working with “Rebounces,” a company in Arkansas that re-pressurizes old tennis balls, Will Ozbun ’13 will help recycle and reuse old tennis balls. If the tennis balls are not salvageable, they will beused in other ways such as being donated to local hospitals, assisted living facilities or schools. Ozbun is also working with the Tribe tennis team.

Tran and Ozbun are researching possible methods for using alternative energy and reducing fertilizer use on the athletic fields.

Students Julia Cascioti ’12 and Dominique Paxton ’13 will work on an electronics recycling program. Their new program will collect used computers, restore the hard drives to factory settings, and sell them on an auction website approved by the College.

“If you really think about it, every student has a computer, cell phone or some sort of music device,” Paxton said. “But what happens to it when they’re finished with it?”

Sarah Appelton ’14, and Karen Berquest, the Science Libraries Coordinator, are in the process of implementing a program for book and media exchange at Earl Gregg Swem Library. With this program, students will be able to share textbooks, books, music and DVDs instead of purchasing them. Additionally, Appleton is working on a recycling education campaign, also in Swem, in an effort to decrease the amount of trash that goes into the recycling bins.

Maegan Crews ’12 is working with Elizabeth Mead, an art professor at the College, to recycle construction waste as art project materials. This waste, including scrap wood, Tyvek, plaster, clay, Styrofoam, bricks, concrete and cardboard, will be stored on campus for art students to use.

An on-campus transportation system, created by Patrick Foley ’13, will decrease the amount of traffic pollution created by members of the College. He is working with government professor John McGlennon to determine the best way to increase both awareness and use of public transportation. Foley’s first step toward increasing the use of the Williamsburg Area Transportation Authority bus system is to conduct a student survey.

Morrison Mast ’12 is working with Stu Hamilton, the director of Geographic information systems, to study the effect of shrimp farming on the coasts of Ecuador. Over the past 30 years, the economic interest in shrimp farming has led to endangerment of Ecuador’s natural mangrove habitat.

While this year’s housing selection process remains mostly the same, some minor changes were made in light of the results of housing surveys taken by students last fall.

The housing selection process for the next academic year began over spring break with the release of housing lottery time slots to students. Online room selection will occur April 13th-19th.

“We want the students to have as much of a voice in how the process runs as much as we can,” Associate Director for Residence Life Katrina Pawvluk said. “We adjust room selection based on the feedback that we get.”

As a result of the survey, the only major change to the process involves students who switched rooms within the past year. These students are now allowed to stay in the same room for the following year, an option previously not allowed.

“Last year students said to me, ‘This isn’t fair’,” Pawvluk said. “We have removed from the guidelines the restrictions about room changes, so now it doesn’t matter if someone did a room change.”

Another change in the housing process for the upcoming year is the addition and reassignment of certain residence halls. Tribe Square, the College’s newest housing complex, will open in the fall and will house upperclassmen. The addition of Tribe Square may shift the selection of lodges and apartments to upperclassmen with later time slots.

“I think it will be very popular,” Pawvluk said. “It could shift, how many other things are selected, but there is no way to predict that.”

Due to an increase in the freshman class size, Jefferson Hall will now house only freshmen, while Brown Hall and Taliaferro Tower will become upperclassmen residences. The freshman class itself will increase by 50 students, with an additional 20 coming from the new joint-degree program with St. Andrews University in Scotland.

“Starting in the fall, the freshman class is going up by 70 students total,” Pawvluk said. “Building designations changed because of this increase.”

Consistent with previous practices, the next step in the housing process will be to find out who gets waitlisted.

“Opt-out is still going on, so I won’t know how many people are getting bumped until Monday,” Pawvluk said.

After establishing the wait list, students will begin the process of applying for either a block or an overcrowd, looking for off-campus housing, or waiting to be reinstated.

“If they want on-campus housing, they will get it; it just means that they will have to be patient with us,” Pawvluk said. “There has not been a year where we haven’t been able to offer housing to all of the students on the wait list who have been patient.”

For students deciding whether or not to live off campus, the William and Mary off-campus housing website (Wmoffcampus.com) is the starting point for finding a place to live. In addition, an off-campus housing fair will be held March 23.

“Some local apartment complexes will come in so if students have questions, they are still in one room,” Pawvluk said. “We are there, too, if students are trying to decide between on and off-campus housing.”
Pawvluk explained that sometimes off-campus housing is simply a better decision for certain students. She stated that this is an individual choice, however.

“It’s a different option,” Pawvluk said. “For some students, living off-campus is right for them, and for other students, it’s not. One of the challenges for off-campus housing is that there is not a lot of affordable housing near campus for students to live in.”

If students decide to move off campus, Pawvluk recommends doing research beforehand.

“Just be a wise consumer when looking at off-campus housing,” Pawvluk said. “Know what rent includes and doesn’t, how important it is for you to be actively involved in the campus community.”

The Student Assembly senate voted Tuesday to fund $5,700 for a debate on abortion to be hosted by the Students for Life.

The two participants will be Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and current professor at New York Law School, and Sean Klusendorf, president of the Life Training Institute. The money will be allocated from the Student Activities and Events fund.

The senate unanimously passed the 2011 General Election Referenda Act I, which resolves to gauge student opinion on the SA-sponsored free STI testing at the Student Health Center.

The 2011 General Election Referenda Act II, sponsored by Zach Marcus ’12, resolved to ask whether students would approve of a merger between the two branches of the Student Assembly: the executive and the senate.

“If we’re going to reform the constitution, we should know whether students care enough for us to put so much time and effort into rewriting the constitution,” Ryan Ruzic J.D. ’11 said. “If the results of the referenda were to show that students were wildly in favor of reform, it is a powerful message that we should seriously consider.”

The bill failed on a tiebreaking vote cast by Kaveh Sadeghian ’12.

The Senate unanimously passed the Table Rental Act proposed by Mike Young ’11, which subsidizes the purchases of tables in the Sadler Center by student groups.

The Table Rental Act also passed the Executive Update Act, which stipulates that there will continue to be a designated slot in the Senate agenda for executive updates.

Ruzic introduced the Reform Your Assembly Now Enforcement Act, which allows senators to vote to impeach secretaries within the executive branch, if the secretary has had four consecutive non-excused absences from their committee meetings during their tenure.

“As Outreach chair, I had to deal with an executive secretary who missed seven consecutive meetings and only offered an excuse after the first meeting,” Ruzic said. “This is a narrowly tailored bill, but I think it is necessary.”

Ruzic said he had yet to confirm the constitutionality of the bill.

Chase Koontz ’14 introduced the “I am W&M Bill,” which would provide $1,000 dollars for the purchase of 600 T-shirts to be distributed on Admitted Students day.

Shep Walker ’11 posed a bill to cap funding to student groups at 30 percent of the Student Activities Reserve unless they consent to have a member of the student assembly sit on their board. Currently, no student groups take 30 percent of SA Reserve; AMP currently receives about 20 percent.

The senate reached their goal of sponsoring 100 bills this year at this meeting.

Marshall-Wythe School of Law Dean Dave Douglas gave a presentation on the separation of church and state in the Sadler Center Chesapeake room Thursday.

The talk, hosted by the Christopher Wren Association, was divided between a description of the ambiguity of the U.S. Constitution and the Constitutional view of the Founding Fathers, and an explanation of how the establishment clause is interpreted today.

“My goal is not to tell you what the correct view [of the separation of church and state] is, but rather to educate you so that you have a sense of what the debate is regarding the Supreme Court,” Douglas said.

The establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, together with the Free Exercise Clause, states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This is the main piece of evidence cited by those who argue for the separation of church and state.

Douglas argued that strict interpretation of the Constitution is difficult, due to the fact that the Constitution was deliberately written to be general. Douglas said the founders disagreed about certain aspects of the document, so compromise language was used in many parts of the Constitution.

“The Constitution, particularly the most debated parts, is written in largely indeterminate and non-specific text,” Douglas said. “As we look at constitutional text and interpret it, it’s a hard thing to do because it’s written with such a high level of generality.”

Douglas’s description of the Founders’ era involved discussion of three beliefs that were widely held at the time. The first, the Enlightenment view, was supported by Thomas Jefferson and argued that the church had a corrupting influence on the state. According to Douglas, Jefferson eventually abandoned the College of William and Mary in 1790 because he saw too great a religious influence on the institution. The Civic-Republican view, backed by George Washington, sought a state that works well with the church. Roger Williams supported the Free Church-Evangelical view, which believed the state to be a corruption of the church.

Douglas then discussed current Supreme Court decisions regarding the separation of church and state. According to Douglas, the nine members of the Supreme Court are split into two categories supporting either the coercion view or the endorsement view of the issue, with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the deciding voter.

“Is something an endorsement of religion? Can the Supreme Court say some religious image is unconstitutional?” Douglas said. “It’s all about context.”