•  53
    Against the Political Use of Religious Exemptions
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 47 (3): 319-342. 2019.
    Many religious freedom laws provide exemptions to persons who refuse to comply with certain laws on religious grounds. But these exemptions are increasingly used (by claimants and others) to advance political goals. For example, religious freedom lawsuits helped to undermine the Affordable Care Act’s guarantee of coverage for contraceptives. And the recent Masterpiece Cakeshop case was part of a broader effort to protest the right to same-sex marriage. This paper argues that the state should not…Read more
  •  24
    COVID-19 vaccine uptake among healthcare workers (HCWs) remains of significant public health concern due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many healthcare institutions are considering or have implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates for HCWs. We assess defenses of COVID-19 vaccine mandates for HCWs from both public health and professional ethics perspectives. We consider public health values, professional obligations of HCWs, and the institutional failures in healthcare throughout the …Read more
  •  22
    Compromise and religious freedom
    Law and Philosophy 39 (2): 177-202. 2020.
    Compromise is surprisingly common in the context of religious freedom. In Holt v. Hobbs, for example, a Muslim prison inmate challenged his prison’s no-beards policy on religious freedom grounds. He proposed, and was eventually granted, a compromise that allowed him to grow a half-inch beard rather than the full beard normally required by his beliefs. Some have argued that such a compromise is inconsistent with the purpose of religious freedom, which is to guard against interference with an indi…Read more
  •  22
    Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 260-266, March 2022.
  •  7
    Snap exclusions and the role of citizen participation in policy-making
    Social Philosophy and Policy 38 (1): 266-288. 2021.
    This essay uses a specific example—proposals to exclude sugary drinks from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program —to explore some features of the contemporary U.S. administrative state. Dating back to the Wilsonian origins of the U.S. administrative state there has been uncertainty about whether we can and should separate politics and administration. On the traditional view, the agencies are to be kept separate from politics—technocratic and value-neutral—although they are indirectly acc…Read more
  •  5
    Assessing the Governance of Digital Contact Tracing in Response to COVID-19: Results of a Multi-National Study
    with Alessandro Blasimme, Rachel Gur-Arie, Joseph Ali, Anne Barnhill, Amelia Hood, Jeffrey Kahn, Nancy L. Perkins, Alan Regenberg, and Effy Vayena
    Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 50 (4): 791-804. 2022.
    This paper describes the results of a multi-country survey of governance approaches for the use of digital contact tracing (DCT) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the countries in our survey represent two distinct models of DCT governance, both of which are flawed. The “data protection model” emphasizes privacy protections at the expense of public health benefit, while the “emergency response model” sacrifices transparency and accountability, prompting concerns about excessive …Read more