## Facts

- Alfred Leo Smith and Galen Black worked as counselors at a private drug rehabilitation clinic and were members of the Native American Church.
- They ingested peyote as part of a religious ceremony.
- Oregon criminal law prohibited intentional possession of peyote and provided no exception for sacramental use.
- Smith and Black were fired for their peyote use and applied for unemployment compensation.
- Oregon’s Employment Division denied benefits, treating the discharge as work-related “misconduct” under the state unemployment statute.

## Issues

1. Whether the Free Exercise Clause requires religious exemptions from a neutral, generally applicable criminal prohibition on peyote possession.
2. Whether a state may deny unemployment benefits to employees discharged for violating such a law through religiously motivated conduct.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Oregon Supreme Court.
- The Court held that the Free Exercise Clause does not require exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws that incidentally burden religious practice.
- Because Oregon’s peyote prohibition applied without regard to religious motivation, Oregon could criminalize sacramental peyote use.
- Oregon therefore could treat peyote use as disqualifying “misconduct” and deny unemployment benefits.
- Justice O’Connor concurred in the judgment but would have applied a compelling-interest test and found Oregon’s interest sufficient.
- Justice Blackmun dissented, applying a compelling-interest test and concluding Oregon had not justified denying an exemption for sacramental peyote use.

## Legal Principles

- The Free Exercise Clause does not relieve an individual from complying with a valid, neutral law of general applicability that incidentally burdens religious conduct.
- Strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause is not triggered merely because a generally applicable law conflicts with religious obligation.
- Prior strict-scrutiny treatment of free exercise claims was limited, and applying heightened review was more associated with systems involving individualized governmental assessments or with free exercise combined with other constitutional protections.
- Legislatures may create religious accommodations to generally applicable laws, but the Constitution does not require such exemptions.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Oregon’s neutral, generally applicable drug law could be applied to prohibit sacramental peyote use and that the state could deny unemployment benefits to workers fired for that conduct, narrowing constitutional protection for religiously motivated violations of generally applicable laws.


Emp. Div., Dep't of Hum. Res. of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990)