Winona State University will host “Do Corporations Have Religion?” with Elissa Alzate, Ph.D., and Matthew H. Bosworth, Ph.D., from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, in the Darrell W. Krueger Library. This event is sponsored by Winona State’s Political Science Department and is hosted by the Library Athenaeum.
The presentation will focus on the United States Supreme Court case Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, which raised a number of questions with regard to corporations and religious liberty: Can corporations have beliefs, religious or otherwise? How far does religious liberty extend? What is the government’s obligation in recognizing religious liberty?
Bosworth will examine the constitutional questions of the decision and discuss the legal justifications for the ruling. Alzate will investigate the theory of religious liberty in a rights-based society.
Alzate teaches a broad range of courses in Political Theory, including the history of political thought series, American Political Thought, and Feminist Political Thought. She also teaches courses in International Relations. Her research centers on the relationship between the individual and the community, the role of religion in politics, and civic education with a focus on the early modern period, particularly John Locke.
Bosworth, Professor of Political Science, came to Winona State in 1997. He graduated with a B. A. from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., and received an M. A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of “Courts as Catalysts: State Supreme Courts and Public School Finance Equity” (SUNY Press, 2001) and “’An Innate Sense of Fairness’: State Responses to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Sovereign Immunity Decisions” (Publius 36 (3) Summer 2006).
For more information, contact Matthew H. Bosworth.
