The Freedom From Religion Foundation is excited to announce the 2026 First Amendment Scholars Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial Essay Competition for Law School Students, with a top prize of $4,000!
Law school students are being asked to respond to the 2025 Supreme Court decision of Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which the court sided with religious parents who objected on religious grounds to public school instruction that included books with LGBTQ-plus themes or characters. Students are also asked to analyze how the principle of “parental rights” has changed from the previous decision, Wisconsin v. Yoder, and to discuss how the court could or should balance competing interests between the expanded understanding of parental rights in the context of the First Amendment in future cases.
FFRF will award cash prizes to the top three essayists ($4,000, $3,000, $2,000) and optional honorable mentions ($500). All eligible entrants will also receive a one-year complimentary student membership to FFRF, which includes a digital version of 10 issues of its newspaper Freethought Today.
Essays will be blinded to avoid unintentional bias. A selection of FFRF attorneys will be on the review panel.
The contest is open to all current law students attending a North American law school. Students will remain eligible to enter even if they are to graduate from law school by the spring or summer of 2026. They are not eligible to enter if they will just be starting law school for the first time in the fall of 2026. They may not re-enter if FFRF has already awarded them for a law student essay.
Any entries must be the original work of the entrant and not the result of AI (ChatGPT or other large language models), plagiarism or ghostwriting.
Essay must be no longer than 1,500 words (not including footnotes), double-spaced, with standard margins and with font size of 11 to 14 point. Include page numbers and the title of your essay on each page. Choose your own title. Indicate word length at the end of the essay. To apply, go to: surveymonkey.com/r/lawstudentessay
The deadline for entry is Jan. 30, 2026. For complete rules and eligibility requirements, or to enter the contest, click here.
“Young Gen Z attorneys will pave the way,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “With a rogue court going unchecked, the future of law needs students willing to stand up for true religious liberty and the separation of state and church.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation strongly encourages law students to enter the contest. The state/church association offers five other essay contests for other grade levels, which are announced in March. FFRF has bestowed more than $130,000 in 2025 to winning student essayists and student activists.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post Freedom From Religion Foundation announces 2026 law student essay contest appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
