A victory for religious autonomy

Religious school administrators celebrated Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision vindicating their right to make decisions about who should teach children about their faith.

In a 7-2 ruling that united all but the most liberal justices, the high court held that religious schools have broad freedom to hire and fire employees. The justices said the “ministerial exception”—a doctrine barring courts from interfering in religious institutions’ internal matters—extends to teachers who perform vital religious duties.

The case involved two Catholic elementary school teachers working for institutions associated with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Agnes Morrissey-Berru claimed that Our Lady of Guadalupe School engaged in age discrimination when it demoted her and then replaced her with a younger teacher. Kristen Biel, who died last year, claimed St. James School let her go because she requested a leave of absence to obtain breast cancer treatment. Both schools said they fired the women over poor job performance.

In his opinion, Justice Samuel Alito focused on the teachers’ function rather than their titles. He rejected a more “rigid” application of the exception that the court used in 2012’s Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, which involved an elementary school teacher who held the title “minister of religion, commissioned.” Alito said focusing on titles unfairly privileges religious institutions with more formal structures.

“What matters, at bottom, is what an employee does,” he wrote, adding that “both their schools expressly saw them as playing a vital part in carrying out the mission of the church, and the schools’ definition and explanation of their roles is important.”

Morrissey-Berru and Biel did not carry the title of “minister” and did not have extensive religious training. But the two teachers “prayed with their students, attended Mass with the students, and prepared the children for their participation in other religious activities,” Alito explained. He gave significant weight to the “religious institution’s explanation of the role of such employees in the life of the religion in question.” Justice Clarence Thomas picked up that theme in his concurring opinion reiterating that courts should not “second-guess” a religious institution’s claim that an employee’s position is “ministerial.”

The decision offers important protection for schools that can clearly show their teachers and employees play a significant role in their religious mission, both on paper and in reality, said Larry Taylor, president of the Association of Christian Schools International, which has 3,000 member schools in the United States.

The ruling also may prove important for schools that fire employees over sexual conduct that violates religious teachings. Less than two weeks ago, in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination based on sex, includes sexual orientation and gender identity. But in their opinion, the justices noted that the ministerial exception and other safeguards protect religious institutions from being forced to violate their faith. Thursday’s ruling bolstered that promise.

“This ruling won’t prevent challenges to schools based on the Bostock decision, yet it certainly has strengthened our case that we will be given the right to make a decision on who teaches our children,” Taylor said. For now, that’s worth celebrating.