Employment Division v. Smith and Wisconsin v. Yoder

Alfred Smith and Galen Black worked as counselors at a private drug rehabilitation organization in Oregon. Both were members of the Native American Church and took part in a religious ceremony in which they ingested peyote, a plant that contains a hallucinogenic drug. Oregon law made possession of peyote a crime and did not include an exception for religious use.

Their employer fired them for using the drug. When they applied for unemployment benefits, Oregon denied the benefits because they had been fired for work-related misconduct. Smith and Black argued that the denial punished them for practicing their religion.

The Supreme Court ruled against Smith and Black, 6–3. The majority held that the Constitution does not require states to grant religious exemptions from a neutral, generally applicable criminal law, meaning a law that applies to everyone and does not target religion. Allowing each person to ignore such laws on religious grounds, the Court said, would make every citizen “a law unto himself.”